Silverback was at last back home in Utah, his black boots marked with tears from rocky shorelines in Spain, now comfortably planted in the unmistakable orange soil he was so familiar with. The Bermuda Triangle was an incredible odyssey. He and Nelson had explored its dark depths and were lucky to escape its bizarre, inhabited creatures, shipwrecks, and the scattered plane wings of unlucky pilots and captains of history. The Salt Lake City sky opened and closed with the yawn of the slumbering sun. The hot desert air swirled and nearly strangled the cool scents of wildflowers, ecultupus, and barrel-cupped cactus that fenced the canyons from the airport and urban buzz.
The heat punched at Silverback’s temples; his awareness half-drowned, and his brows zipped slowly together, damn, I lost sight of Nelson. He strode straight through the narrow aisle of the plane toward the exit. He was far from being the last person to go through gate 16, but heading out to the airport’s baggage area was nevertheless frustrating. The crowd of passengers, like a snake maneuvering on unbalanced land, and their excitement were merely partially stored for the air-conditioned ride idling in front of them.
Necessity compelled Silverbadk to push past the others; passengers rushed to their nearby suitcases, which were waiting. Silverback observed that his baggage arrived, with the name tag flipped. The large, round conveyor had tossed it directly in front of him. The conveyor cried out loudly before releasing the remaining heavy aircraft cargo in a rapid, random order; the delivery was made.
Ace hadn’t arrived to pick them up. Odd, Silverback thought that nobody was waiting for the Leader of the Mountain Gorillas, not even Spade. Spade didn’t like crowds; self-conscious about the burn scars on his face, he was helped by his dark complexion from the desert sun, but several scars were still rather obvious. Silverback sighed in relief and thought of Dr. J. Kissperr; had he delayed seeing him again, managed Ivory’s calculated plans for Bill in Las Vegas would’ve been his bad fate as well; A life consistently in the shadows, like a cat never seen in a crib of unkept shrubs.
Silverback was ready to go after scanning the crowd for Nelson. Nothing. An Uber was prearranged, with that precise insurance well paid to take him to see his beloved, Ivory.
“Did you see that?” Driver Asked.
“No, what?” Silverback was putting on his seatbelt.
“A Gray Wolf.” The driver’s face flashed green.
“They’re like ghosts. They show themselves rarely. Most likely it’s Old Yeller.” Silverback could see his brother and his dog crossing a wooden bridge, a scene he had wrongly recalled from the family classic movie, Old Yeller.
“What? No, it was a Gray Wolf. I am sure!” Windows, the driver rolled up tight.
“Can’t get inside to take bites if you’re driving.”
A mysterious, formidable predator of equal light and darkness. The Gray Wolf was defined around large cooking fires at scout and hiker camps. The captain had mulled over the locals’ Gray Wolf stories. Nelson described what was out there hunting more than desert woodrats while they were on the fishing boat. (Something I never witnessed, the Captain said.) The questions the Captain asked had no answers. A theory grew in Silverback: Was the Gray Wolf alone responsible for the skulls that hung from the canyons’ sharp vertical glass canyon faces and ridges, and the orange sandstone trails?
Canyons’ cobwebs, a few made of human skeletons and not spider silk. The Gray Wolf was possibly the serial killer nobody could name or find. Spirits and bone fragments were forever molded to the canyon’s slippery walls, which thus lie a natural masoliem. Silverback sighed, and his body shuddered; it was more likely to be an outcast from the Surreal Forces than the Grey Wolf. He knew of no outcasts, but he would have to investigate that theory as well.
The sun sparkled freely over the orange peel that was Southwestern Utah. The dead were the cause of one madman, not a solitary grey wolf or a pack of grey wolves. Such a horror, bigger than all the Surreal Forces crimes that made the mountain gorillas unband in small groups.
Not wanting to be close to being trapped by the terror in the canyonlands? Not to be reckoned with; what could overtake? Surreal Forces, Gray Wolf, Scarlet Owl? The Gorilla Gang members were none of those powers to blow it off the earth and into the sea. Indeed, it would take all three! Silverback thought.
The Uber stopped in front of Dr. J Kipper’s 12-bedroom mansion. Silverback was carrying only a single suitcase, a semi-automatic pistol, and a few extra necessities, a pack of playing cards stuffed with twenty-dollar bills, always useful.
“Ace, I need another favor?” Silverback had no other recourse; his debt, when payment came, the good Adam would fully fold into the four paws of the Gray Wolf.”
“Ivory, she’s gone. Not in Las Vegas. I just left the Hotel.
“She’s with Dr. J. Kisperr. I need you to send a message to The Boss.
“Fine. He’s in Oregon. Sending over Bloodhound Gorilla.”
Ivory fanned out her dyed brown bangs. She did it out of habit. She had the Scarlet Owl ring in the palm of her hand. “The Scarlet Owl Ring is our Salvation Silverback!” Ivory wrapped her cropped, laced sweater over the scar on her shoulder, critical of it. Her face didn’t wear that haunted, desperate look anymore as the ceiling fan rotated. Dr. Kisperr’s library, she sat on a leather office chair.
“Silverback, hi. My Love,” he hugged her softly and looked into her eyes with half anger and joy. “Bill didn’t kill the mouse. And it wasn’t Spade, that I am sure. It was the Boss.” The metal desk lamp cast its shadow on the bookcase behind them.
Before he was badly burned, Ace and Mouse put us alone together one night. Mother told me over peach tea the next morning about the arson that he committed. Mother moved us here with Dr. J Kripper. We spent almost the entire summer, poolside, barbecuing and having parties. Mother soon met somebody else; that was all it took.
Silverback nodded: “Why, that it was possible he did to protect you from Mouse’s abuse. A mountain gorilla can’t injure or kill a mountain gorilla; that’s the gang code, no exceptions.
“What happened in Las Vegas was a bad mistake. But not my worst mistake and failure. Ace made me realize that taking Bill out would give another problem. I would inevitably be caught and sentenced with no chance at all. Ace has a good nature, unspoiled by the Mountain Gorillas. If he stays a member, the Mountain Gorillas will take that away. His freakishness is building on the inside, unlike Spades on the outside. I believed that I had the Owl Ring, which holds the fates of the gray wolf that holds yours and the universe. The Finisher can not feel pain; he’s a deranged psychopath. And I traded elopement in Sin City for a fake Mossinite.” Ivory Screamed. I will not wear the Scarlet Owl Ring again.” Ivory pulled out a letter opener and cut my earlobe to the core, Silverback. There were barely visible stitches on her earlobe. Dr. Kisperr was a man of extreme talent.
That’s why you came here: The Mountain Gorillas will find him, and death, no doubt, is his final fate. Silverback whispered.
“Isn’t it all of our final fates? So I just must be satisfied with that. No! It wasn’t just the attempted rape. Or crushing your handsome face without mercy. No, it was setting Dad’s and grandpa’s Smokies home on fire. disrespecting Mountain Gorillas. Ivory stepped back and turned to sit on the office chair again.
“Well, the Finisher has no shield from messing with us. Smokies is not just a statement about the community, our neighborhood; the townpeople needed groceries close by, reliable support to feed their families, by defining it, and when it didn’t fit that reason anymore, the customers always came by for a haircut or tobacco. Ivory stood up and paced.” She emptied the ashtray in the brass waste basket. She took out a cigarette.“On Grandpa’s side, he needs those funds to pay for his surgeries and, of course, to keep giving us a real home and heritage. Not like the abandoned motel, the Green Pines.”
“What about Grandpa’s generous friends and benefactors from the VA?”
“They’re good folks, on a fixed income, can’t find any other place, safe as Smokies to relax, laugh, and play yard games like croquet, horseshoes, and shuffleboard without anxiety of criminals like the Boss,” Ivory answered.
“The Finisher, what punishment will fall. If Nelson has the true Scarlet Owl, the Utah canyons won’t want his soul.” Ivory stood up and walked behind the room divider with the Chinese black lettering and elegant long-necked birds. She took out a tray with two tall glasses of pomegranate juice with ice.
“The Gray Wolf will rip him apart if he doesn’t return the Scarlet Owl.” Silverback picked up a glass. “I’ve got to figure out what motivates Nelson in the Burmada Triangle. He doesn’t want to murder, assualt, kidnap, burglarize, or distribute illegal drugs.” Silverback turned off the desk lamp. “Those parts of him are survival. No, he has a meaningful reason. Hasn’t said, but it is definitely there.”
Dr. J. Kisperr has come back from lunch with my mother. I hear his Spider crawling past the medusa fountain into the garage. “I’ll show you who Nelson exactly is. Come on, Adam. We’re going to the Green Pines Motel.” Ivory emptied her glass in the corner planter. Let’s put him to the Owl Rings Tests. You believe that he’s not exactly like his brother. Like the Mountain Gorillas, especially the Bloodhound.
Celia Garza 