Ashford and Cannon drove off the reservation of the Antahueca Apache, and they eventually found a place to park for the evening. Now, the two city slickers were hardly expert outdoorsmen, and this was noted by one Bill McCloud, a native of New Mexico. He was riding a newly acquired horse, and that campfire did sure look welcoming. Greeting the New Englanders with a curt "howdy", he asked if he could join them, and it was soon decided to join forces for dinner.
McCloud had several tales to tell: Of the strange disappearance of young Eliza, the twin sister of Mildred Turner in the Santo Domingo gorge outside Silver City, a gorge that made the faithful cross themselves and the Indians to quietly mutter spells to ward off the dwellers beneath. Of the strange Mexicans in Nogales, who only stole white cows from the ranch owner "Tiny" Merritt, and emptied the cows of all of their blood. Well, Mr. McCloud himself was almost included in the Mexican blood bank before his revolver blew a path leading away from the situation. And finally of his days as a stunt man working for Samuel Goldwyn way off in Hollywood, and the gay times he had with the denizens of the silver screen.
After many a tale, the three gentlemen decided to retire on a moonlit Christmas Eve. However, their sleep was interrupted by the most panicked whinnying of McCloud's horse. Grabbing their guns, the three adventurers dashed out, but nothing was to be seen. A more thorough examination of the campsite revealed strange interlocked triangular tracks around the bus, and no tracks leading away from the vehicle. The tracks also emitted a faint but truly noxious stench. There were also scratch marks on the roof of the bus, and the gentlemen decided to mount a guard. Frank Cannon took the first shift, and he settled on the roof. With no ambient light, the stars and the Milky Way shone upon Frank Cannon on the roof of the bus, but he shuddered when he noticed what seemed to be an amorphous shadow blotting out stars and the Milky Way as it travelled eastwards. Both Ashford and Cannon slept restlessly, but McCloud remained unperturbed. Then, he hadn't experienced the unnatural horrors that Ashford and Cannon had encountered in the past.
McCloud, being between jobs, decided that he'd join the two greenhorn gentlemen, and they did not seem to mind. They decided to seek out more information in Carrizozo, a couple of miles west of their camp ground, before paying White Oaks a visit to see what all that mining talk was about. First they had another polite conversation with poor Elmer Pluckett, the railway worker who had suffered a serious mental breakdown of sorts after finding the remains of cousin Jimmy. He was provided with lunch, and although more than a little discombobulated, he told the three amigos of a man, Tom Simmons, who'd died from some strange poisoning after mining in White Oaks. Pluckett really couldn't handle a longer conversation, so the gentlemen proceeded to have lunch before visiting the town hospital, where the corpse of Simmons had been taken. The trio split up, since McCloud was not yet known to be a companion of Ashford and Cannon, so McCloud secured lunch and a bottle of tequila while the out-of-towners sat down at a table.
The Carrizozo town hospital was an unassuming building, and it was run by nurse Agatha Pettenkoffer, who was more than a little standoff-ish when dealing with Ashford and Cannon, since they were from out of town. McCloud entered a bit later, and he and his natural, care-free charm had more luck in asking for the cause of death of Tom Simmons. The autopsy protocol said poisoning, but considering the symptoms, it seemed more like radiation poisoning!
White Oaks stands out for more than being a ghost town. It was considered an "eastern" town, with none of the flat-roofed adobe buildings so characteristic for New Mexico. At one point White Oaks had as many lawyers as miners, and Billy the Kid supposedly enjoyed visiting White Oaks for bawdy cavorting. Pat Garrett, the Sheriff of Lincoln County used to spend time in White Oaks, and so did Shotgun John Collins. At its peak in the 1880s, the town had 2,500 or so inhabitants. Following the gold crash of 1907, the population dwindled to 200, and by the 1920s White Oaks is supposedly abandoned.
The three amigos finally left Carrizozo for White Oaks after buying some dynamite for, well, mining. The bus was driven at a moderate pace, enabling McCloud's horse to keep up. The road to White Oaks was very poorly kept, and they decided to park the bus after noticing several vultures circling overhead. The vultures were indeed eyeing their next macabre meal: the remains of two males, presumably ranch hands, and now quite dead, with limbs torn off and skulls shattered. They had apparently fired off many rounds of ammunition in defense with no noticeable result. It was a disconcerting sight, but the gentlemen nevertheless proceeded. They all decided to stay in the old church of the Seventh Day Adventists, and they also decided to keep guard from the steeple. It was Lotus Ashford who first spotted a looming shadow in between the houses, a shadow that moved furtively, yet quickly, from alley to alley. As it stepped out into the moonlit Main Street, Ashford shrieked in utter terror before scrambling down the ladder. The dreadful creature was enormous, perhaps as tall as ten feet, and assembled from a wide and ungodly array of human parts, and from the side of the head Ashford could see a severely mangled face. It was the face of cousin Jimmy.
Frank Cannon peeked out of the front doors to see what the raucous was all about, and he was equally terrified. He managed to fire a shotgun shell at the monstrosity, blowing off chunks of meat, but the abomination just let out a deafening howl before scampering off in the direction of the mines. McCloud's bottle of tequila definitely came in handy after this harrowing experience.
