Chapter 2

Ed Hammer was a former FBI Special Agent who got fed up with the intra-departmental and intra-office politics that seemed to get in the way of completing an investigation. He had inherited more money than a sane man could spend in a normal lifetime, so he had no trouble quitting his job when he couldn’t take it any longer. However, he found that he was going crazy by not minding someone else’s business, so he decided to become a PI (Private Investigator).

His work mostly was investigating unusual cases for high-priced lawyers. The funny thing from Ed’s point of view was that he could make a lot of money that he didn’t need by taking on the occasional job mostly for lawyers in Chicago. Ed worked one or two cases a year and bummed around the USA the rest of the year just enjoying being alive. Ed usually kept himself amused by also taking on cases for people who were in need, but did not have the money to hire a top investigator to solve a problem.

Ed happened to be in South Dakota when he was contacted by a Chicago lawyer who had been retained by the father of Joey Bishop to try to get some details on what had happened to the boy. The police had not been able to find out anything beyond the boy’s identity from the DNA taken from his body. Jason Bishop discovered that he could not just forget his son’s murder as he had once hoped. He didn’t even know how the boy had died. The animal that had eaten so much of Joey had completely destroyed the evidence as far as the police were concerned, and they had just dropped the case, especially since the arrival of the Sho-Sho Mamu.

Normally, Ed would not have taken an interest in the case, but he did happen to be in South Dakota anyway, so he did take the case. His interview with the local police was totally disappointing because they did not have anything to tell him that he could not have gotten from the standard case reports. All Ed had to work with were lab reports and some photos taken at the scene a week and a half after the crime. Hell, nobody was really sure that a crime had been committed. The crime scene was in such a mess by then from all of the animal traffic through the site that almost nothing was where one would expect to find it.

However, Ed was the thorough type, and he stared at those damned photos for hours trying to find something that would tell him what had happened that night. Finally, he spotted the flint knife lying on the ground near what looked like some sort of home-built table. However there was no mention of the flint knife in any of the police reports, so Ed’s curiosity was aroused.

He took a copy of the photo which showed the flint knife and marked it so that it was easy to find in the photo. Ed then talked to every one of the police and others who had been at the scene shortly after the photo was taken. Finally, Ed found a man who had been at the scene and had picked up the knife after the cops had left. He figured that it was not important since the cops had ignored it, so he dropped it in his pocket and had taken it home.

Yes, he still had the knife, now that Ed mentioned it. The man had forgotten about the knife after he had removed it from his pocket and dropped it on a shelf on his back porch. Now that he had been reminded of the knife, he was able to go pick it up where he had left it and hand it to Ed. Ed thanked the man for his help and promised to return it to the man once he had run some tests on the knife.

Ed noticed some red-brown stains on the cutting edge of the knife, so he sent the knife to a friend who could determine if the stain was caused by blood. When the guess was confirmed, Ed had an inspiration and had the blood checked for DNA and compared to the DNA of Joey Bishop. It was a perfect match! Now, the question remained of how Joey’s blood had gotten on the knife.

Ed contacted Madam Irene Artesia and explained his connection to the murder of Joey Bishop. He asked her for everything she knew about summoning Sho-Sho Mamu, including details of the summoning ritual. He heard back from her by email two days after his phone call with several pages on the subject of Sho-Sho Mamu. The most interesting thing from Ed’s point of view was the fact that a child had to be sacrificed during the ritual. The flaying just established the importance of the flint knife.

Ed put together all of the information that he had been able to gather on Mason Running Bear and sent a copy to Jason Bishop. Ed asked if there was anything in the information that made Jason think that he should know the man who appeared to have murdered his son. Jason Bishop thought about Mason Running Bear and finally remembered the teasing that Jason had done all throughout school. Jason was flabbergasted to think that his childish teasing and bullying had been the cause of his son’s death. In a way, Mason Running Bear got his revenge then because Jason Bishop had a mental and emotional breakdown and had to be permanently institutionalized.

Okay, that established the motivation for Mason Running Bear to kill Joey Bishop, but it still did not explain why he would want to summon Sho-Sho Mamu. Ed had to concede that he might never know the reason for that, but it seemed that his primary assignment had been fulfilled.

Meanwhile, Sho-Sho Mamu had made another attack, but this time he had picked the wrong victim. Cpl. Henry Washington of the SDHP (South Dakota Highway Patrol) had been driving along a state highway heading home from a long night of patrolling when he had been stopped by a massive animal blocking the road. It was very fortunate for Washington that he was driving his patrol car because he had a loaded shotgun that he could easily reach from the driver’s seat. That animal that Cpl. Washington could see was very frightening just for its huge size; therefore, Cpl. Washington picked up his shotgun, jacked a shell into the chamber, and released the safety.

The animal turned toward the patrolman and reached out one of its long arms toward the windshield. The animal appeared startled when his hand/fore paw struck the transparent windshield. He jerked his arm back and drove his fist into the windshield, shattering it. Again, the animal seemed surprised and jumped back. That must have been what saved Cpl. Washington’s life because he had time to swing the shotgun to aim at the animal’s face. Cpl. Washington fired one shell and then a second one directly at the animal’s head.

It screamed in pain and jumped back. It stood there for a moment picking at the #00 buckshot stuck in its face, and that gave Cpl. Washington time to fire again. This must have been too much for Sho-Sho Mamu because it screamed again and suddenly vanished into the nearby woods.

Cpl. Washington wisely did not hang around, but drove away as quickly as he could. He did use one hand to drive and the other hand to reload his shotgun as he moved away from the site of the confrontation. He used his radio to report his encounter with Sho-Sho Mamu back to headquarters, but he did not stop driving until he reached his own driveway and was able to park in front of his garage. Of course, he took his shotgun into the house with him, but he also made a point of taking all of his ammunition with him.

By mid-morning, all of the TV stations all over the nation, and much of the world, were reporting on Cpl. Washington’s encounter with Sho-Sho Mamu. The thing of immediate concern was why he was able to drive the demon away with shotgun pellets that barely broke the skin of the beast’s face. That question was finally answered by Madam Irene Artesia herself. She was interviewed from New York City, and she provided the most believable explanation.

“The beast was simply sensitive to iron and was forced to run away when it was struck by the shotgun pellets.”

“But isn’t it supposed to be silver that werewolves are sensitive to?” asked the interviewer.

“That was something invented by the movie script writers for the 1930s monster movies, and it has stuck in the popular imagination. No, it has long been know by those of us intimately associated with the subject that iron is the element that demons are afraid of. As long as there is a piece of iron anywhere in its body, a demon cannot enter our dimension, no matter what the provocation.

Furthermore, iron lodged in a demon’s body for more than about an hour or so will do what is equivalent for demons to dying. Therefore, everybody should remember that silver for werewolves and wooden stakes for vampires are purely the invention of Hollywood. Iron is the only thing to use!”