NIGHT WALKER

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Chapter One: Molly Returns

Hattie Malone found herself homeless. She came to Marana, Arizona that day to buy supplies, when her property, house, three sheep, one rooster and ten chickens became the remains of what she use to call her home. The mystery was what they found when a few friends and the local fire department, along with Hattie, rushed to the large gray cloud to see what happened. There, sitting right of the smoldering mound, in perfect condition, with her chain fused in the rubble of metal and brick sat Molly, Hattie's jet black German Shepherd.


The mound and it's remains were soon converted to an ant colony of citizens, newscasters and an arson specialist, measuring this and that. Finally after several days of taking notes and samples, they informed Hattie they didn't know what had caused the blaze or why Molly wasn't fried to toast since she was just inches from another crispy critter. They all agreed that whatever caused the fire was so intense that the heat was beyond anything that they had ever seen. They also agreed that someone and not something started it. Hattie, not knowing what else to do, abandoned her ruins to spiders, snakes and bugs. She bought a little house in Tucson Arizona with her insurance money and became a recluse.


Ten years later if you travel down Avra Valley road leaving from exit 242 near Marana Arizona, you will find a lot of side streets. If you turn left onto Shadow Lane, a well graded dirt and gravel road, heading toward the empty desert of sage and a few saguaro cacti, you will notice that a few saguaros are twisted and burnt.


If by chance you drive the five miles and happen to stop at the twisted saguaros you would see a mound of blacken cracked rocks and charred adobe and wood buried in a mound four feet high in a thirty-foot wide square. The decayed remnants would not be noticeable unless you strayed from the dirt road only a hundred feet away. The bodies of the saguaros, and the large rocks scattered about, created a small fortress wall that surrounds this little strangeness, which the locals call Molly's Miracle.


Since then, when anyone passing along by way of the dirt road near the mound of rubble, if it is in day light, they kept their eyes to the road not caring for what happened or how a dog survived when the other animals became just so much ash. At night, not a person dared to travel that area except for the few that lived further down. For myself, I'll admit that I have never traveled the road at night, not because the towns people swear they hear sheep screaming and chickens squawking out there, I do not travel that road because it is dangerous at night and that is all.


I was thirteen when I first encountered Hattie; I would visit Hattie Malone often. She was a painter and kind of a nut, and I enjoyed her company. I have only good feelings to this day about Hattie and her dog Molly. After the loss of her home, I lost track of Hattie because I was nineteen and involved with a young man.


Now at twenty-nine, I found myself standing in broad day light staring at the ruins that hasn't changed in all this time. The sun was straight overhead and the heat was abnormally high for this time of the year. I came back to town because my brother called and said that Hattie was in the hospital. That someone tried to kill her. When I got to town, I was informed that Miss Hattie was released and back at home. I decided to take a side trip to here because, in its own way, this mound of rubble meant the most to me when it comes to remembering Hattie. Hattie taught me to look at life differently and to search for the small pleasures of life. I reminded myself that Hattie never wanted to see anyone again after her home was destroyed, and because I respect her so very much, I was trying to figure a way to go against her wishes. Looking around, this is the Hattie I remembered here in the open desert not a little adobe house in Tucson.


Now the story I am about to tell is a lesson about illusions, but with that last thought at the mounds edge, my way of thinking about what is real and what isn't changed. So, it does begin here at the edge of this heap of lost treasures and with the meeting of an old friend.
I was about to turn to the road and get in my car when a movement to my left caught my attention. I stared for what seemed about five minutes before I saw her. It was Molly. In my heart I knew it was Molly, but in my mind I knew that she would have to be twenty-two years old and I knew of no dog setting that kind of record. When I first met Hattie, Molly was already six years old, and at the time of the mystery, she was twelve that was ten years ago. But in front of me stood Molly as spry as a pup and running toward me at full speed.
I leaned down to grab her when she flew past me and stopped at my car. She slowly turned around and sat on her hind legs and stared at me. I just stood there staring back, when she tilted her head and looked at the door and then back at me. If I were not such a sound individual, I would have sworn she just said in that simple motion "open the door and let me in." And with that I obeyed.


Driving back to Tucson, I was a little perplexed yet happy. This would give me an excuse to see Hattie again. Hattie had to be around sixty-two by now. My greatest hope is that she still was healthy and most of all sane. Molly sat very still in the passenger seat staring out the window. I reached over and grabbed her left ear and looked inside, I saw the nickel sized patch of white fur that I had remembered from years ago. I just couldn't get over how young she looked. If I didn't know better I would swear she was younger than the first time that I met her. I know this couldn't be Molly, yet Molly had already survived an inferno that she shouldn't have. Being a sentimental fool at times, I figured she must have something going for her and who knows, stranger things then a dog living twenty-two years have happened and doctors and scientist didn't have the answers.


I pulled up to the front of the old adobe style house that Hattie bought, and sat there wondering if I should just let Molly out and drive on, or be a brave little girl and knock on the door. I decided to be a brave little girl and got out of the car. Molly raced up the front steps and again waited for me to approach. I grabbed the doorknocker shaped like a scorpion and before I could swing it, it was ripped from my hand by the opening door.
There in front of me stood Hattie Malone, maybe I was hoping that what ever made Molly so young and spry would have also done the same to Hattie, but in front of me was just sweet old Hattie. A few more wrinkles and some more streaks of silver in that flaming red hair that, she always tied up like they did in the Victorian days. She was still tall and thin. I always had to look up to Hattie. Even now, my eye level was at her nose and I am five feet seven inches tall. She smiled and looked down at Molly. "What do we have here?" She said.
I guess I looked like an idiot just standing there slacked jawed and all.
"Are you going to stand there all day Cass, or are you going to come in?" She turned and limped into the living room with Molly next to her.


I followed, feeling like the little girl that first wandered on her property some sixteen years ago. She motioned for me to sit and I took the right side of the overstuffed couch as always. Even though the old house was destroyed, this new one was not too different then the one that I remembered. She always went for southwestern style furniture of wood and worn leather. She pretty much replaced all of her knick-knacks with identical items, from the Navajo pottery to the dream catchers on the walls. The rugs that some Native American took weeks to make. She had kachina dolls and her paintings of desert scenes that she is famous for, along with flutes and drums.


She disappeared into the kitchen and shouted out to me. " Coffee is just finishing, I'll be right in."


She came limping back into the living room carrying a tray and a smile that relaxed me.


"So, Cass, how have you been?" She said as she poured two cups of coffee and slid a tray of her great double nut chocolate marshmallow cookies toward me.


"Fine, Miss Hattie." I grabbed a cookie and took a large bite, letting the memories flow into my mouth and my mind. Somehow she always knew when I was coming to visit even in the old days. I would walk in and there would always be a tray of great double nut chocolate marshmallow cookies "And how have you been, Miss Hattie?"


"First, at your age, just call me Hattie, Miss Hattie makes me feel too old." She reached down and scratched Molly's head. "I have seen better days Cass, but I can not complain."


I watched her as she took a sip from her coffee and then settle back into her chair. She looked at me and saw that I was now staring at Molly. "So is this your dog? Sure looks a lot like Molly."


"I thought it was Molly." I grabbed another cookie but before my next bite I continued. "She has the mark and all, and I found her at your old place."


"No, Molly died years ago. I bet she is from the same line though." She sat her coffee down and Molly moved to a sitting position between her and me." I did get Molly from an old guy out there."


We sat for a little while and chatted about what Hattie was up to lately and I finally asked what she did after the fire.


"After the fire department left and the big whoopee-do faded, I bought this little house and planned to continue with my life as usual. But that changed the night I lost Molly." She refreshed our coffees and continued. "One night, I was awaken by a light in my bedroom and the sound of Molly whining."


"Whining?" I asked. "Like she was hurt?"


"No, whining like she was afraid." She smiled at my question. "Molly's eyes were wide open and staring at the bedroom door."


"The light was coming from under my bedroom door, swaying back and forth and a humming sound, like someone had a show tune stuck in their head." She paused and stared at me as if she was lost for awhile. "First let me say Cass, I have not gone senile or insane in my old age, so get that out of your mind, okay?"


"Okay, Hattie." What else could I say? But in reality, I had my doubts about her sanity from the first day I met her.


"Anyway, I got up and headed out of my bedroom and decided that I should protect myself." The new Molly looked around at Hattie and I swear that dog smiled. "I got my old forty-five out and opened the bedroom door so quick that Molly yelped.


Hattie reached down and started to scratch New Molly's ear. "As fast as I opened the door the light and humming disappeared."


"I looked around the house but found nothing missing or any sign someone had been there."


" I sat in this very chair that night, with Molly over by the sofa, both of us waiting for someone to attack."


"Molly, fell asleep and so did I." She grabbed the tray of cookies and pushed them in front of me. "Want another?"


"Sure, you know I'll keeping eating these until the tray is empty." Then Hattie continued.


"When I woke up I sat there for quite awhile in the morning light and so did Molly. It was as if she was waiting for me to begin something or say something, but I couldn't figure out what it was." She said resting her cup on her knee. "I finally became awake enough to call her name. When I did she leaped at me so fast I couldn't even raise my eyebrows."


She leaned over and put her cup on the saucer resting on the coffee table and sat back. She stared at me as if she had doubts about continuing. "Now here is where it gets really strange. As soon as she was in my lap I felt like I was falling and I was no longer in my house but standing in an open desert under a blue sky and staring at my old house."


I looked at her with that face that she asked me not to use, the one that said you have lost it. "Okay, I know this sounds even more insane, but it felt real. Molly was beside me and I took a deep breath and looked down at Molly. I didn't know what to do, so I did the most stupid thing I could, you know like the stuff you see in a horror movie and you are screaming, 'don't do that stupid' kind of stuff, I proceeded to walk to my old house."


"So what happened?" I said trying to look like I understood.


"I got as far as the front door when Molly jumped to her right and ran to a building that sat by itself. Now the problem was I had no other buildings on my property as you know, especially one shaped like an old Native American hut made of wood and mud. Looking quite happy was a young Indian boy dressed in preacher's outfit that was too big for him." She grabbed her coffee and took a long sip. "He was about five foot tall. He had jet-black hair and his eyes were just as dark like to pieces of obsidian. Molly ran right up to him wagging her tail."


"He walked toward me with Molly following and stopped at about two feet away from me. Now here is the really, really strange part. The boy started humming and it was the same tune I heard the night before. I had to listen closely to make out the tune, but it was Amazing Grace."


"Amazing Grace?" I asked. "I guess that fits if he was a preacher."


She nodded her head agreeing. "He quit humming and took off his wide brim hat and said. Can you hear me Miss Malone, just relax and listen to me carefully."


"The voice sound like it was coming from him yet and the same time it felt like it was coming from far away. I just stood there with my mouth wide open and trying not to run away. I mean what would you have done if you found yourself in the past with a nonexistent Native American hut and a native that hums gospel tunes?" Hattie reached over and poured herself another cup of coffee.


"He reached up and touched me I found myself suddenly prone on an earthen floor that was below ground about a foot, inside a room with no furniture or decorations. It was pure white and hollow, I guessed that I was in the Pithouse but wondered why it was more like a movie set, only to be seen from the outside. Molly and my new religious humming buddy were next to me. He said Miss Malone you must listen to me. I am here to get you to give up your secret. He reached down and helped me to my feet. Let me explain what has happened to you and why."


"He walked over to one of the barren white curved walls and sat on the floor on a rug that I would love to have had. I shall try to explain this as well as I can for someone that can decide her own fate, to live or die." Hattie made a slight grin when she said that like she was thinking of something else that amused her. "I couldn't figure out what he meant by to live or die. After all, I have had a few bad times but most were good so suicide was never on my mind. He said, let me just say I would not harm you because you are valuable right now so remember my words."


"What could I say? He was in charge and as far as I knew there might have been some dark eyed black hair Native American in my past." Cass knew that that was a sarcastic remark because Hattie painted not only desertscapes but Native Americans also. "He went on saying, you hold the key to either my success or failure. You will eventually give me what we need or in the end you will be forced to tell me."


Hattie looked at the tray and saw all the cookies were gone. "You do love my cookies don't you Cass? Anyway, He said you own twenty acres of land that sit idle. I shook my head yes. This land holds more in it then you could ever imagine. I nodded my head again. I have come to you to help you correct the wrong that you have done."


Hattie rubbed the new Molly's head and continued. "I looked over at Molly and wondered how she was feeling about this whole thing. I don't understand, I haven't done anything to this land I told him."


"No, it is what you are about to do that is wrong. He walked over to me. You let this land go to waste he said as he came closer. I really felt threaten at this point, he had a look in his eyes and he said, it must be used for the benefit of my people."


"How is that? I asked him. I really couldn't see the purpose of bringing me here I was thinking."
"You must let go of the land. He motioned with his hand to follow him. We need that land to stop the destruction of all of us." Hattie was narrating this tale as if she had run it through her mind a thousand times.


"We walked out of the hut. We know that the secret is still on the land and that secret was never yours to own. He told me. We started to go toward my house. When your home was destroyed you let it sit wasting away, waiting for someone to come back to make it open up again and let a small piece of the secret loose on the earth. He opened the door of my old house and I stepped in.


"He started to fade away and I heard him say. Sell your land because you don't want anyone else to be hurt by your selfishness or let anymore of the secret loose." Hattie looked at me analyzing my reaction and I tried to keep a neutral face.


"At this point I was back in my living room, and yes I was on the floor, half of me in my overturned chair and the other half sprawled about. So I guess it was a dream from being knocked out but it felt more like a vision or warning." Her face turned sad and she looked down at the new Molly.


"I looked over at Molly and she was in a small pool of blood." Hattie said. "I rushed over to her and saw that she was clubbed on the head and panting heavily. I picked her up and rushed her to the Vet but it was too late to save her. I went home and I swear I cried for a week."
She stopped talking for a few minutes to compose herself. "A couple of weeks later I was asleep again and I was hearing a dog bark in my dream and I was running through the streets trying to find the dog when I tripped and I woke up with a start and could still hear the dog barking. That was when it dawned on me that the Indian preacher was actually the voice of my intruder hovering over me telling me to sell my land. Sure I added stuff in the dream but I know it was him talking to my subconscious after he probably hit Molly to stop her from attacking him. God, she was old then and would have just gummed the bastard."


She shrugged her shoulders and settled back in her chair. "So Cass, over the past five years I have been going out to my property trying to figure out what the hell was so important out there."


"I came to realize that something wasn't quite kosher when three weeks after that incident I get a letter from a lawyer in Phoenix asking if I wanted to sell my acres." Hattie took another sip of her coffee and crossed her legs straightening her long broomstick skirt. "As I said, offer after offer came but I kept saying no and still with every trip to my property I did not see why anyone would want it."


I sat my cup on the old wooden coffee table and looked at her waiting. I knew she wasn't done, it was the way we were, so much alike. "Then last week someone broke into my house and shot me."


"I know, that is one of the reasons I am back in town." I said and she smiled at this and reached over and patted my knee.


"What the man didn't know was my habit of sleeping with my feet at the headboard so he shot between my legs just grazing my inner thigh that's why I seem to limp but really I'm trying not to rub it as I walk."


"You sleep with your feet toward the headboard?" I asked thinking that, that was the strangest thing I heard in this whole tale.


"I got in the habit in my old place." She said. "I was too lazy to rearrange my bedroom and the morning sun would hit the head of my bed at sunrise. It was easier to just sleep with my head at the foot of the bed."


I sat there for a long time, my mind racing about what she told me. It was all too wild to believe, but this would explain why such an outgoing person like Hattie became even more of a recluse for the past five years. "Why are you telling me this Hattie?"


"I have a problem Cass, and I need your help." She picked up the empty cookie tray and walked toward the kitchen. "Let's continue in the kitchen Cass, bring the coffee cups and pot with you."


She put the tray in the sink and we sat at the breakfast table. "That last incident startled me enough to know I had to be careful, you see when that guy shot me he walked out of my house humming Amazing Grace." She leaned her head on her hands and stared at me for a reaction.
When I didn't say anything she continued on. " I did notice over the past few years that my former home has been visited many times."


"Visited?" Just like me, out there looking around. "I'm sure that happens a lot Hattie. After all to this day it makes a great story about Molly surviving that fire."


"No! I mean someone digging all around that mound." She got up and ran the water in the sink and added some dish soap. "You didn't notice that when you were out there?"


"I didn't go far from my truck except to get this Molly look alike." I started to understand Hattie's problem but... "Why don't you just go to the police?"


"Please, don't you think I haven't tried, but what I really need is help from someone that knows what they are doing," She just stared at me for a few minutes waiting for my answer. "and let's just call your dog Molly."


Let me at this time tell you a little about me. When I left Marana ten years ago I went to the university in Nebraska and stayed with my Grandparents. Over the next ten years I became a top-notch law enforcement officer and even an agent for the FBI. When one day at the age of twenty-seven they called on Cassidy McBryde to do a simple little chore, go to a nightclub and act like another agent's date. It became more then that, the agent was already dead in the back alley and I was walking into a trap. I was thrown in a room and beaten and abused so badly it took five months for my body and mind to heal. I was transferred to administrative duties until I quit. At twenty-nine I was burnt out. I had done more in ten years than a lot of people do in thirty. So I knew, as strange as her story was, what my answer would be. "Okay Hattie, I will do it."


"Do what Cass?" She said with a quizzical look on her face


"Go and help you solve your mystery." I said getting a little frustrated.


"I appreciate that Cass, but I need someone with law enforcement in their background." She reached over and took my hand. "I had your brother find you because I knew you were a clerk in the FBI and maybe could get someone for me."


I smiled at her and said. "You don't know about me do you Hattie?" And I clued her in on my past.


She had that strange smile on her face that I remember whenever she was up to something. She reached over and petted Molly while holding my hand. "Okay sweet, let us find out what's going on."

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