Kadaitcha
by Michael Aulfrey
Part 4/7


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Crawford opened the door and came in bearing a roll of paper,
which he lay out on a table. It was a geographical survey map,
centred on Starkey's Creek and the area around it. Mulder popped
the top of the marker again.
"So. Frank Mereweather was found..."
"Here." Crawford put his finger on the spot. "Ten kilometres out
from the town. And the truck was found fifteen klicks away,
here." Mulder dotted each place.
"Five kilometres. Not a lot of distance between the two," said
Scully.
"Well, if we assume that they represent a diameter..." Mulder drew
a circle taking the two points in. "The centre is this point,
here. Where's that?"
Crawford scrutinised the place. "It's private property. Western
Mining, or something like that."
"Have they got a mine out there?" asked Scully. Normally, mining
towns were boom towns.
"No. A few years ago, some surveyors came out here and marked off
the area, saying it showed potential. But they never did anything
about it. Think we should take a look?"
Mulder chewed the inside of his lip. "Not much to put a search
warrant out for...and Scully and I aren't even from this
jurisdiction..."

The phone rang, and Crawford picked it up. "Yeah." Pause.
"Why?" Pause. "All right. But we haven't got time for anything
crazy, right? Okay, we'll see you in a while. Bye." He put the
phone down. "That was Charlie Duggan. He says he wants to see us
at the Kaladjuma settlement."
"Another killing?" asked Scully.
"No. He just wants to see us about something he may have turned
up." Crawford picked up a notebook and stuffed it into his pocket
on the way out of the office.

* * *

"Why does he call you Rob?" asked Scully on the way out to the
settlement. The car bumped and rattled on the gravel road.
"Charlie?" Crawford glanced at her, beside him in the front seat.
In the back, Mulder came out of his reverie to hear him. "We've
known each other for a long time. Matter of fact, the reason I
was assigned out here was because I was born here. And grew up
here, as well. There's only been two people ever to graduate from
university from Starkey's Creek. That's me and Charlie. Then he
came back here, became a local cop...and I went to Canberra and
joined the federal police. We've had him help us out on a number
of occasions, simply because he's the best." Crawford squinted
into the distance. "There it is."

The settlement itself was little more than a series of broken-down asbestos-walled houses. Dogs sniffed at overflowing rubbish bins.
Here and there, a rusted car or two sat awaiting reconstruction.
The people walked slowly along the streets, looking intently at
the strangers as they drove through the town to Charles Duggan's
house. A carbon copy, Scully thought, of any native settlement
across the world where they had been displaced by white
conquerors. She shook the thoughts away and focused on the task
at hand as Crawford pulled over at one house that looked no
different from the rest.

The front door was covered with a flyscreen, and it trilled like a
snare drum as Crawford banged on it. A couple of seconds later,
Duggan came out, his eyes quiet and unassuming as usual.
"Come in," he said simply.
They walked in. Loose boards creaked under their feet. The place
was a little bit on the inside than it looked outside. It was
clear Duggan had made some effort to keep the place fairly neat.
"What did you want us here for, Charlie?" asked Crawford. "We've
got an investigation to run at Starkey's Creek."
"You haven't got anything to run," replied Charlie in that same
finality as he had spoken when Mulder had seen him last. "Like I
said. You didn't find anything at the site, and your fellas won't
find anything in the daylight, either."
"Look, Mr. Duggan, Charlie, whatever your name is, we're getting a
little tired of this stuff. We're not the enemy. Why don't you
try telling us what you know?" Mulder squared up to Charlie.

Movement caught Mulder's eye, and he flicked a glance at a doorway
from the front lounge. An old form, thicker, stockier than
Duggan, shuffled off into the bowels of the house. "Who's he?"
asked Mulder.
"My grandfather," said Charlie. "All right. You want to know
what I know? Take a seat." He motioned at the chairs, and they
sat down. Charlie chewed the inside of his lip for a second, then
breathed deeply and spoke. "I looked over the site already. No tracks...nothing. I tried everything I was taught to find some
trace of whoever murdered those five boys, but there was nothing
at all. The only thing I found was that all the animals around
the area were scared half to death."
"Animals?" Scully's eyebrows were raised.
"Didn't you hear it, too, miss? I don't think so. You people
from the city have been half-deafened by your cars and trucks so
you don't hear much now at all. Not your fault. I was like you
for the few years I was in the cities studying. But if you
could've heard it, you would have. There wasn't a single cricket
out there last night. And that's odd; even when people are
around, they still carry on regardless. But last night, the
crickets were not at that place. I also lied about there being no
tracks. There were some. Animal tracks. Snakes, fieldmice, a
kangaroo...but they were all headed out of the area. The animal
population of that stand of timber decided to migrate."
The old man shuffled back in at that point, and they got their
first look at him. His hair was shockingly white against the dark
of his face, and his beard was like white steel wool hanging from
his chin. He didn't even spare a second glance for Mulder and
Scully. He began speaking to Duggan in a harsh tongue that Mulder
didn't recognise. Charlie shook his head and replied quietly in
the same voice. But the old man made a cutting gesture with his
hand, and Charlie pressed his lips together. The old man pointed
at them again, and spoke once more. Charlie breathed out slowly.
"What seems to be the problem?" asked Mulder, his gaze flicking
from the old man to Duggan.
"It's no problem," said Duggan, though his eyes wouldn't meet the
old man's. "He just wants to know who you are and why you're
here. I told him you were policemen."
The old man pointed to them again and began speaking, but Duggan
cut him off with a stream of words that they didn't have to guess
at. It was in the way of an admonishment. The old man frowned
deeply, turned and shuffled out of the room again. Charlie gazed
after him with an air of sadness, then looked back to the FBI
agents and Crawford. "I think you'd better leave now. I have to
go talk to him."
"Is that it?" asked Crawford. "That's all you had to tell us?
That the animals decided to move?"
"That's it," said Duggan. He got up from his chair and started
for the door the old man had passed out of. "You can show
yourselves out." And like a shadow, he was gone into the back of
the house. Crawford shook his head.
"Good old Charlie. Never fails to piss me off. Even when he's
doing his job."
But Mulder was quiet all the way back to the car. Scully didn't
ask him why. She'd seen him enter this pattern before. It
usually telegraphed the coming of another of his wild theories.
She didn't bother to laugh at him inwardly. She merely tried to
put the evidence together in a way that would logically explain
any wild intuition he had. At the moment, she wasn't having much
success.

* * *

"Why did you not tell them, grandson?" The old man watched the
foreigners' dust clouds fade into the distance, standing there on
the verandah of the house. Charlie was looking at the ground. He
was silent. The old man looked at him directly. "You should have
told them."
"Grandfather, they wouldn't believe you. I don't believe you."
Charlie stalked off a few paces and looked at the horizon.
"Kadaitcha has returned. The time has come--"
"That's just a story, grandfather!"
"You were there. The animals knew. Explain it otherwise." The
old man hobbled off into the house, leaving Duggan to stare into
the distance.

* * *

FILE #2847654
PRIORITY CLEARANCE
AUDIO TAPE, RADIO NATIONAL NEWS AUSTRALIA
BROADCAST DATE: 3/12/95, 7:00 pm.
EXTRACT OF TRANSCRIPT:

REPORTER: Western Australia, and a series of murders in the north
west has shocked the small town of Starkey's Creek. John Gates in
Starkey's Creek has the story.
GATES: Last night, five young men were found dead in a utility
truck fifteen kilometres out of town. Details of the murders are
as yet sketchy, but Detective Robert Crawford of the Federal
Police spoke with me today regarding the murders.
CRAWFORD: At this stage our investigation is merely opening. We
are utilising all resources at our command to apprehend the
killers. There is little more that can be added at this stage.
GATES: Is it true that the murders were perpetrated at close
quarters, detective Crawford?
CRAWFORD: (pause) As I said, our investigation is as yet still in
its early stages. I'll be able to speak more on the matter later.
GATES: Rumours are also circulating that these five killings are
not the only ones to have occurred. Locals have noted that at
least two areas have been cordoned off by police, and there is no
indication at this stage of any lead on the matter.

EXTRACT ENDS.
COPY TO DIRECTORATE ASAP. CLEARANCE DAMOCLES REPEAT DAMOCLES.

* * *

The silence had been shattered by the morning. Mulder had just
been getting to enjoy the quiet that came with sleeping in the
back country. The catalogue of noise was almost without end:
journalists checking into rooms, walking around the creaky
floorboards, cars screaming off into the distance, camera crews
reporting on the incidents so many times Mulder could just about
recall the individual reports from memory.

He hadn't had much success with the evidence Crawford's men had
brought in from the field. Nothing useable. Only bits and pieces
that told them no more about the killer than did anything else.
Scully had stayed up to perform an inspection with Crawford
observing on the skinned body, but Mulder's stomach had objected
violently and he decided to work back in his room instead.

Crawford had been a pale white when he emerged from the interview
with the reporter. He had sworn blue murder against the officer
who had leaked the news to the press of the close-range killings,
and after that there had been no further talk of the local police
to the media. Mulder and Scully managed to lay low when the
reporters had come around sniffing for news; Crawford covered
their retreat to the hotel by letting them out the back door of
the station. Later that evening, he'd brought some clothes around
for Mulder to try on. "Just so you don't stand out so much in
your suit," he said. Mulder found the clothes amusing, but he put
them on. Cotton shirt, jeans and boots. Like any native Creeker.
At least this way the reporters wouldn't talk to him so much.
Crawford had also taken Scully down to the clothing shop herself,
and she'd picked out suitably nondescript clothing as well--summer
dress and light shoes.

7 am. Mulder stretched and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

The sound was quiet. If he'd yawned, he wouldn't have heard it.
But it was there. The solitary creak of a floorboard, on a hall
where the only two guests were himself and Scully in the next
room. Mulder had learned from long nights studying cases with her
that Scully didn't get up until 7:30 as a rule. Mulder flicked a
glance to the door. Outside, the morning light was creeping under
the door. Except for the two columns of darkness where someone's
feet were placed. They didn't move.

His breathing seemed loud in his ears. His eyes strayed to the
draw of the bedside table, where the gun was. He started to move
towards the drawer even as he called out, "Who's there?"

Then the two columns of darkness were gone, and this time Mulder
distinctly heard the sound of feet pounding on wooden floorboards
as they ran towards the stairs. He cursed and jumped the rest of
the distance to the draw, pulled it out and snatched the gun. He
half-kicked the door down in his hurry to get out, and then was
running towards the stairs, where he barely spotted a sweep of
hair recede out the doorway. Mulder cursed again, even as he
heard Scully call out from her doorway, and ran down the stairs.

Unfortunately, as one loose floorboard was his observer's undoing,
so another was his. His right foot got the floorboard, his left,
the air where he thought the next step was, and he crashed down
the stairs. Somehow he got his hand to the safety on the gun
before it flew out of his hand and hit the ground at the bottom of
the stairs. Mulder hit his head on the last step, and saw stars
for a second or two. Then Scully, in her robe--how the hell did
she get dressed so fast? he wondered--was coming down the stairs,
calling his name. Her own gun was jammed into the cloth belt of
the robe.
"Damn it!" he cursed. Then Scully was kneeling down next to him,
her hands going to his head and running through his hair.
"Are you all right? Did you hit your head?"
"No..." he winced slightly as he started to move, but the pain
came from his ankle. "No, I'm all right, I think."
"You didn't black out at all?"
"No. My left foot hurts, though." Scully's attention immediately
turned onto his leg. She touched it experimentally.
"Tell me if any of this hurts, Mulder." She touched the bottom
part of his calf, and it brought no response. She continued down
the leg until she reached his ankle, none of which generated any
response. She was intent in her doing so. Mulder stared up at
the ceiling for a second or two, cursing his clumsiness, then
looked at Scully, still testing his leg with the occasional prod
or two.
"You're not engaging in any fantasies, are you, Scully?" he
grinned slightly. He thought he saw her smile, but it was quickly
suppressed.
"You're the one who has the videos in your top drawer, Mulder.
Not me." She stopped merely putting fingers to his ankle and this
time moved his foot slightly to the left. "How's this?"

A jet of pain shot up his leg. "Yeah. That hurts," he said,
trying not to speak through clenched teeth. Scully nodded slowly
and sighed.
"Sprained ankle. I think we'd better get you back upstairs."
"It's not that bad. I'm not a cripple."
"If it had been your neck that you twisted, you could well have
been. Come on."
"But I---"
"Mulder." Scully's eyes brooked no argument. "Now." She picked
up his fallen gun. Between the two of them, they got him on his
feet, braced against the narrow stairway's walls. Leaning on her,
he hobbled back up the stairs with her. Despite the fact he was
on one foot, she didn't find him too heavy at all. "So. You want
to tell me why you came sprinting out of your room?"
He looked at her with genuine surprise. "You didn't see him?"
"No. Who?"
He motioned to the door of his room, and they stumbled inside.
Mulder leaned against the wall as he shut the door behind them.
"There was someone outside my room this morning, Scully. Someone
who didn't want to be heard or seen. I heard floorboards creak,
and the second I called out to him, he started running."
"That doesn't make any sense. You probably scared off some
newspaper boy or something."
"No way. Whoever it was weighed a lot more than some kid, to make
the floorboards creak like that." He forgot his ankle for a
second, leaned on it and remembered with a powerful wince that
made him groan in spite of himself. Scully was instantly back by
his side, but he waved her away as he sat down on the bed. "Any
idea how long I'll be like this?"
"I'll find a bucket of water for you to soak it in. That ought to
reduce the swelling. You'll be limping for a couple of days, I'd
say. In future, I wouldn't try running down stairs so much."
"Thanks. I'll take it out of my callisthenics course." He smiled
with that wry tilt to his grin that he knew exasperated her so
much. Scully shook her head and went back to her room, leaving
his gun on the bedside table. He sat there staring at the gun for
some time.

* * *

It was 10:00 am. before they finally got to the police station.
Once more, they had to enter by the back door; at least one
journalist's car was out the front of the place. Crawford was in
his office, reading over the reports of the inspecting police at
the site of the last murders. Dark circles were under his eyes.
He looked up wearily as they walked in. "Oh--hello." He looked
at Mulder's foot. "What happened to you?"
"I fell down some stairs. Find anything?"
"Nothing. I've read this one report so many times I'm seeing it
behind my eyelids. It seems the metal slivers are still our best
lead. No tracks...nothing. It's like they were killed by a ghost
or something."
"Well, I didn't turn up anything else from their bodies. It would
take a full autopsy to determine anything further," said Scully.
"So what's on the plan today?" said Crawford. "I'm sure as hell
stuck for ideas, anyway."

There was a sudden trill from the phone. Crawford picked it up.
"Crawford." He suddenly stiffened. "Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, I
saw it myself. Well, I don't think that's quite a fair assessment-
-" He broke off again, his face melting into a mask of anger.
"Sir, I don't see why--no, sir. It's just I think that--dammit,
Jack! Cut the bulldust! Why are you doing this? This was my--yes,
sir. No. All right." Crawford raised his voice once more. "No,
I don't like this, sir. Not one bloody bit!" He slammed the
phone down. "Bastard!" He got up and strode around the room.
"What's wrong?" asked Scully, and at her voice the Australian cop
slowed down slightly. But his voice was thick with anger.
"They took me off the case. That was my supervisor. He just told
me they've decided to assign someone else to the case. Seems
they're not too happy about the big TV interview yesterday."
Mulder cast a sidelong glance at Scully, who shrugged. "So what's
this mean for us?"
"It means your presence is no longer required, or wanted," said
Crawford, his voice a growl. "They specifically told me to tell
you this new detective they're putting on the case doesn't want
any help. You might as well go pack. I'll meet you outside your
rooms in an hour. Just give me enough time to pack my stuff."
Mulder looked like he was about to argue, but Scully put a hand on
his arm, and they disconsolately left Crawford alone in the
office.

"You think there's something more to this, don't you?" said Scully
as they walked along. Mulder had been deep in thought again.
"I don't know, Scully. I honestly don't. It's like you said.
There's nothing here that is really unexplainable. And all the
case lacks is a lead. There isn't much more we can do here."
Scully nodded. "All right. I'll meet you back at the hotel.
There's a couple of files I left at the mortuary that I have to
pick up." She walked off.

END OF PART 4/7


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