American Shaman
Detective Hughes pulled his car up through the muddy trail into the deepening woods. He looked out the window to his left, eyeing the charred remains of a cabin in what was once a grassy clearing but was now blackened and dead. A few surviving beams stuck up at odd angles. Heads on pikes. Continuing onward up the hill, he rounded a wide turn and found himself in another clearing with another cabin, splintered wooden shingles shedding the last night's rain in little rivulets that ran down. Hughes parked in front of the house and got out, taking care to make sure it was locked. An axe sat embedded in a splitting log beside the porch. Mason jars were strung along the top of the porch, tied between beams. Hughes drew closer to inspect them. They held dead fireflies. Hughes rapped on the door with his knuckle. It was opened by a middle-aged man. Hughes had trouble placing his exact age. He could have been forty or sixty. A salt-and-pepper beard obscured much of his face. Brilliantly blu...
