Bungy Jim and his wife Paiute Susie, both former patients of Winnescheika’s, were directed to execute the suspected witch. On April 30, 1891, Paiute Susie, laying in her campoodie, pretended to be sick and Winnescheika responded to her late night call for her help.

When she arrived she found Susie in great distress attended by Jim and three Paiute women including Jennie Messa. As she bent over to make her examination Susie called to Jennie, “Strike her now!”

Jennie charged, drawing an ax from beneath a blanket she held, and swung it at Winnescheika’s head. The fatal blow nearly chopped her head in two and as she fell in a rush of blood and brains, a second blow was leveled.

The glancing blow bounced off the side of her head, nearly severing Winnescheika’s ear. Bungy Jim stepped in and finished the job by pulling out a knife and slitting her throat while dragging her body into the yard so the blood could drain off into the soil and not further stain the inside of the wickiup.

“Go get the horses and hitch up the wagon,” Paiute Susie ordered Bungy Jim.

Once he left, the four women hacked Winnescheika’s body into several pieces and stuffed them into barley bags to prevent her spirit from returning to the place of her death. Then they loaded the grisly cargo onto the buckboard and with blood seeping through cracks in the bed of the wagon, headed for Medicine Rock, slightly north of Leonard Rockshelter, some ten miles southeast of the town.

There, they buried the pieces of her body in a five foot deep grave, then hurried back to their village before the sun came up. However, the suspected witch would not stay in the ground for long.

“Lovelock, Nev. (AP) – One woman found, second remains missing. Authorities call off search after no further evidence located. Investigators are seeking information from public about motorcyclist’s seen in area.”

Three days later, with no more signs of either women found, the search was called off. The disappearance, though considered extremely suspicious, was officially listed as a ‘Missing Persons’ case.

Ten days after the two women disappeared, a woman called the Lovelock police station, “A girl jus’ came walking out of the desert, naked, crying and terribly sun burnt.”

The dispatcher told her to keep the girl safe, that both a sheriff’s deputy and an ambulance were en route. It took nearly twenty minutes for the deputy to arrive, with the ambulance pulling onto the long dirt road two minutes later.

“What’s your name?” the deputy asked.

“Lori.”

“We’ve been looking for you, Lori.”

“Why?”

“You were reported missing by your friends.”

“Where are they? Are they okay?”

“One is still missing.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You and Marilyn were reported missing by your two friends.”

“Marilyn’s missing?”

“Yes,” the deputy answered as the paramedics helped her to a stretcher, loading it into the waiting ambulance. The deputy took note of the confused look on the woman’s face as the door to the vehicle closed.

The deputy then turned his attention to the woman who had made the call. “Where did she come from?”

“Over there,” she pointed.

“Did she say anything to you?”

“Not really. She wanted some water, which I gave her. I asked what happened, but she said she couldn’t remember.”

“Thank you ma’am. You did the right thing.”

He walked over to the area where the woman said Lori had appeared, but couldn’t find a single footstep. As he got in his car to leave, he wondered if he should include that information in his report or pretend like he never looked in the first place.

The two original detectives were quickly notified that one of the missing women had been found. They rushed over to the county hospital with the hopes of interviewing her while everything was fresh in her mind.

“She’s going to be okay,” the doctor told them as he ushered the pair into the private room they’d placed Lori in.  With window curtains drawn nearly closed, the woman lay on her back, covered only by a single sheet, her right arm pierced with the needle that held the tubing in which fluid from a clear plastic bag flowed.

“I know this is a difficult time,” one of the detectives said, “But we need to understand what happened to you.”

“I don’t know,” Lori answered, “I was asleep, but can’t recall any thing after that.”

“Nothing? How about a feeling, a sound, maybe an odor or smell?”

She laid there and thought for minute, closing her eye’s as if to see backward, into her memory, “A deep growl. I remember a deep growl. Also the smell of rotten eggs. Does that help?”

“Possibly. How about Marilyn? Do you remember what happened to her?”

“No. I was asleep and she was next to me on the blanket. That’s all I can remember.”

“Okay,” said the doctor, “That’s enough. She needs to rest.”

“Here’s my phone number, call me if you remember something, anything more. Okay?”

“Thank you,” she said as they left the room.

Shortly after sunset, the area came alive with law enforcement from various agencies throughout the northern part of Nevada. The rock formation was laced with caves and hollows that needed to be explored.

As the hours passed, April and Janice sat in separate interview rooms at the county lock-up repeating their answers to questions that detectives had repeated a dozen times. It was early morning when they were released only to learn that neither of their friends had been located.

“So what about those two bikers the women say they saw?” the younger of the two detectives asked.

The older one sipped his half-cold, stale coffee and shook his head, “Personally, I think that story’s a bunch of crap – but we won’t be able to prove it one way or the other till we get out there and have a look for ourselves.”

The two wandered out into the parking lot, to an unmarked patrol car and got in. No sooner had the key turned in the ignition than the radio crackled to life, “They found something and want you out at the scene, pronto!”

Minutes later after pulling up to the site and getting out of the car, “So what do you have for us?”

“A tennis shoe,” came the answer

“Do you know for sure it belongs to one of the women?”

“Matches the description of what one of them were reported to be wearing yesterday.”

“Well, we need to verify that. Bag it and give it to me and we’ll head to Reno and see if either of the other two women recognize it.”

“While were here, we should see if we can find those bike tracks.”

“Yeah, let’s head up there and see if we can get our bearings and a lay of the land.”

Leaving the command center, the two detectives climbed to the top of the largest rock at the site. They looked in the direction that the two woman said they saw the motorcycle riders.

The older of the two checked his wristwatch, “Damned watch has stopped.”

“Hmm. Mine’s gone tits-up as well,” stated the younger of the two, adding, “Must be some sort of magnetic field associated with this outcropping.

The distance from the rocks to where the rise in the hillside began to fall away was further than either man thought. However, once there, the two spread out and quickly located two sets of motor bike tire prints in the loose dirt.

“We need someone to take casts up here,” the younger one radioed to the command center below where they stood. Once they pointed out the prints and watched as an officer took pictures, then carefully poured the plaster, they left for their car.

There wasn’t much conversation between the two men during the drive to Reno. Both were lost in their own thoughts of the investigation, besides there would soon be enough talk to fill a book.

“Did you find her?” April asked after assuring the detectives that it was one of the shoes Marilyn had been wearing. Janice sat on the divan beside her, hoping for good news.

“Not yet, but we’re gonna keep looking.”

April broke down, crying more than she already had. Janice, amid her crying, tried her best to comfort her friend.

Considered very beautiful, the dark-haired, dark-eyed 35-year-old woman showed no signs of aging and was reputed to walk so smoothly that her feet seemed never to touch the ground. Winnescheika was a Shoshone medicine woman who settled among the Northern Paiutes of Lovelock in the fall of 1890.

“There is something bad with her,” came the grumblings of tribe members, “She floats as if she were a ghost – or a witch.”

Though many in the tribe swore that no footprint ever followed in her path, her abilities as a doctor soon won the grudging respect of the suspicious desert dwellers and even the Whites of the area, who sometimes sought her out to minister to their ailments. On occasion she was also called upon to treat cattle and horses since the area lacked veterinary services.

All was not well, however; too many of her patients only worsened and died under her care and illness and bad luck soon came to plague the families of those she treated. The same was the case with previously healthy horse whose stablemates had received her care.

Several dropped dead suddenly or stepped in gopher holes at full gallop, splintering a leg, making their destruction a humane necessity. Others responded with uncharacteristic slowness to the sudden appearance of a deadly rattlesnake, were bitten and ended their lives in agony.

Some of the deaths were perhaps understandable, given the remoteness of the area and the primitive treatments subscribed to by the local Indians, and some were probably attributable to mere chance or bad luck, but there were other unexplained occurrences that soon began to cause much unease among tribesmen. And as a medicine woman, Winnescheika knew well the risks associated with her occupation.

Strange lights were reported to be seen in near Winnescheika’s wickiup and eerie, unearthly screams and laughter were often times heard to echo across the sage covered desert. Spring crops also failed that year, hunters returned empty-handed and cows were found drained of milk on many mornings.

Strange stories about Winnescheika’s past soon began to circulate and it was whispered that she was in reality, a witch who used her healing powers only to gain access to victims. Rumor also had it that her treatment had been responsible for the deaths of five babies at a colony near Austin, eight Paiute men and women on the Stillwater Reservation in Churchill County and many horses wherever she resided for any length of time.

It was during the start of spring 1891, that tribal leaders met in secret and decided that Winnescheika must die.

“Lovelock, Nev. (AP) – Two women are missing after an outing in desert with friends. Foul play not ruled out. Authorities are searching the surrounding canyon and caves.”

Previously known as Sunset Guano Cave, Horseshoe Cave, and Loud Site 18, Lovelock Cave is 150 feet long and 35 feet wide. In 1911 two miners began digging out the bat guano from the cave so that it could be used as fertilizer.

A year later, the first official archaeological search of the site was made by the Museum of Anthropology, University of California to recover any historic materials that remained from the guano mining of the previous year. The cave’s last use is believed to be in 1850 as indicated by a gun cache and a human coprolite, fossilized feces.

Nearby is Medicine Rock, an old formation once used as a meeting place of the local tribes as well as Leonard Rockshelter, a limestone formation ‘discovered’ in 1936. After two hours of exploring the gaps, crags and passages in and around the ‘shelter,’ the two women headed back to find the other two women were still nowhere to be found.

“Damn it,” April complained, “I hope they didn’t wander off and get themselves lost.”

Janice checked her watch, it had stopped at 12-noon. She thought, “I gotta get a new battery when we get back to town.”

She hollered to April who was already at the picnic site picking up what was left of their lunch, “What time do you have?”

She looked at her left wrist, “My watch has stopped, so I don’t know what time it is. Sorry.”

Janice quickened her pace to join up with April. “Did you say your watch stopped?”

“Yes.”

“At what time?”

“Noon.”

“So did mine.”

“That’s kinda creepy, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, that’s why I wanna get outta here.”

“Good idea. Lets find Marilyn and Lori.”

The pair slipped between the rocks that led them to the center of the rock formation. Once through they could both see Janice’s car, but neither Lori or Marilyn were in view.

Janice continued up the road towards the mountains, calling for the two women. April did the same thing has she crested the rise to the south of the rocks, and looked down into an open field of nothing but small boulders, sand and scrub brush.

It wouldn’t take long for them to agree that they needed help in finding their friends. As hard as it was to do, they decided that together they needed to head into Lovelock, to the Pershing County Sheriff’s office and report their friends missing.

The four women piled into the sports car. The driver, Janice Cohen had told them about a great place where they could have a picnic and do some exploring.

Marilyn Winap-Denault, who packed them a lunch, sat in the passenger seat, while Lori Thurman and April Johnson sat in the back seat. Though the speed limit along Interstate 80 averaged 65 miles per hour, Janice ignored it, pressing down on the gas pedal until the car reached nearly 80 miles an hour.

Less than an hour and a half later, Janice wheeled onto a dirt side road. Not long after, a series of rocks jutting up from the desert landscape appeared.

No sooner had the car come to a stop did the women hop from the vehicle. Marilyn carried the picnic basket as Janice point to a gap between the rocks, where they could slip into the inter-sanctum of the granite outcrops.

“This looks more like a movie set than natural,” Alice stated.

“Always got Hollywood on your mind,” Marilyn teased.

“Yup, the future Mrs. Patrick Swayze,” Lori laughed.

“Gotta meet him first before you can marry him,” Janice added.

All four women laughed and quickly spread out a blanket before beginning to serve themselves lunch. In short order, the fried chicken, potato salad and chips were gone and all that remained were six bottles of beer.

After a beer, Janice asked, “I wanna go exploring, whose with me?”

Marilyn was laying on her side, half-asleep and Lori was using her wadded up windbreaker as a pillow. April looked at the two and said, “Let the party poopers sleep. I’ll go with you.”

The two women got up and wandered off between an opening in the rocks. They slowly made their way towards the west edge of the formation where they climbed towards the precipice of the large limestone rock that overlooked their picnic spot.

“So, where’d they go?” April asked Janice of Lori and Marilyn.

She smiled, “Probably back to the car.”

Off in the distance the two women watched as a pair of motorcycles slipped over the hill towards the Interstate and out of sight. “I never heard them as they rode by,” Janice posed.

Her comment was met by April’s look of agreement.

“Lovelock, Nev. (AP) — Pershing County Sheriff’s Office investigators are continuing to ask the public to be on the lookout for a missing woman, Almarinda deOliveria, after finding her abandoned car in the White Horse Canyon area. She was last seen in Winnemucca on the 10th.”

Deputies confirmed that the car appeared to be ‘out of place,’ but didn’t find any evidence of foul play. There were no items found in the car to show anyone had any food or gear to sustain life in the chill of the high-desert environment.

Based on this information, the sheriff’s office  initiated a search for deOliveria. Deputies, search and rescue teams and helicopter crews spent the next several days in the canyon.

Eventually, they were able to find what they believed to be  deOliveria’s footprints about three miles past the car and further up into the hills. They also found her cell phone, and evidence she may have walked back down and out of the canyon, but no more sign of her was found.

Investigators learned that deOliveria had been on the way to Los Angeles, from Eureka, California, after a yearlong spiritual retreat and they tracked her movements using information from her bank card. Evidence showed that deOliveria had made it south of Modesto, then for an unknown reason turned and started heading east, with her last known transactions being in Winnemucca.

Family members told sheriff investigators that it was unusual for her to be in an area outside of a populated city. The family also went to Winnemucca and found deOliveria had stayed the night at a motel on January 8 and 9, and checked out on the 10th.

The Pershing County Sheriff’s Office has no information on her whereabouts for the time between January 10 and the 14th. As of January 29, no further sign of her had been found by any of the several groups searching for her.

Nearly 30-years earlier as similar incident took place.

Originally, I wasn’t going to publish tomorrow’s ‘fiction’ chapter story, “The Fourth Woman,” until September. But with the possibility of landing an actual paying job, ‘there’s no time like the present.’

Did I mention, “The Fourth Woman,” is fiction?

If not, let me tell say that it’s fictional, save for unfortunate Winnescheika.  She’s a very real historical figure.

Finally, there are 11 chapters to this story. However, I wasn’t happy with the original draft of the chapter, so I wrote a new one, but have included the original as a bonus ‘alternate ending.’

That way, you decide which ending is better.

By most folks  standards, Charlie Vickers was an arrogant bully.  Lord help the cowpoke that didn’t move quick enough for him when he barked an ‘order’ or who gave Charlie even the slightest bit of lip.

He had no problem using his size as a weapon of intimidation, pushing men aside as he cussed them out with great precision. He even managed to bluff the boss-man a time or two.

The only reason anyone kept Charlie around was because he was also one of the finest cowboy’s to come out of Wyoming. If only he hadn’t known it – Charlie might have been a decent fellow.

It was the Friday ahead of the end-of-summer Kiley Ranch Barbecue and Picnic. And like every other year, the boss-man had a large steer culled from the herd and chased into a corral, where it would spend the night before finding its way to the barbecue pit.

And like every year, once Charlie got hired, it fell to the six-four, 300-pound man to kill the unsuspecting animal. Many of us believed that because Charlie enjoyed it so much, he could have been a serial killer in an earlier life.

That night, Charlie took extra time out of his evening before turning in to clean, oil and load the 30-30 that always hung on the wall above the door of the bunk house. Amos Farr and I could hardly wait for Charlie to start snoring before we hauled that gun off the wall and headed out back towards the blacksmith shop.

---

After the supper bell and with work finished for the day, Charlie was given the go-ahead to kill the steer. With that, he shouted for someone to bring him ‘his’ rifle, though the weapon belonged to the ranch, meaning it was really the boss-mans.

Rifle in hand, Charlie climbed over the fence, jack a shell into the chamber and took aim. The bark of the rifle caused the steer to jump and dash to the far side of the corral.

“What the hell…” muttered Charlie as he tossed the lever forward and back again. It was obviously a surprise to the big man that he’d missed such an easy shot.

Again the rifle barked, and again the steer raced across the corral, this time back to where it had started. At this, Charlie began cussing a blue-streak so loud that the women-folk came out of the ranch house and onto the front porch to see what was the matter.

With the chamber filled and rifle once again aimed, Charlie squeezed the trigger. This time instead of running, the steer backed up into the corner, butt against a corral post and put its head down.

As for Charlie, he was beyond angry. He cocked the weapon and fired again and again as he rushed the steer.

Having had enough and being both agitated and in fear, the steer jumped right at Charlie. With a flick of it’s head, its horns catching him up, the beast tossed the large man like a rag-doll over it’s back and into the post and down all four railings of the corral fence.

We all heard Charlie’s leg snap at the thigh bone as he came to rest on the ground with the steer heading to the far side of the enclosure. Though we knew he was hurt, we couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of the bully finally getting his comeuppance.

---

After Charlie began sounding off like a buzz-saw on a wobbly drive-shaft, Amos and I took the rifle to the shop, emptied it of it’s shells and removed the bullets from their casings. Leaving the powder in the cases, we next sealed each one up with a personally handcrafted spit-wad to keep the powder in place, followed by reloading the rifle and returning it to its spot on the wall.

When Charlie demanded that the rifle be brought to him, Amos obliged him by retrieving the weapon and handing it off to me. I, in turn, gave it to Charlie, then we stepped back to watch the fun commence.

Neither of us thought Charlie would be so full of bluster that he’d charge head-long at a woolly and scared steer fresh off the range. That’s was his doing and none of ours.

It took only a few minutes for the ambulance to arrive. Normally, one of us would’ve driven him to the hospital like we did with most injuries that didn’t involve the loss of a lot of blood, but the boss-man believed Charlie’s leg was too badly broken for anyone but professionals to care for.

Amos and me never got to attend the barbecue and picnic that year because the boss-man fired us once we admitted to what we’d done. The hardest part to take was his laughter as he recalled Charlie getting bounce by snot-blowing steer while we drew our final pay.

But in the end though, it was worth it to see Charlie taken to the hospital where I’m certain the nursing staff taught him a thing or two about manners. Most all folks with any sort of common sense know you get mouthy with a charge-nurse only once.

It was a very small room, certainly not big enough for two. Yet there it was with him, resting slightly outside the illumination of the single, naked bulb that burned dull, both night and day for his well-being.

It began two weeks before…

Stanley, a night foreman at the local foundry was trying to sleep. The heat of the summer day though was stifling and he found himself awake long before evening.

Wish for more sleep, he lay on his cot. As he did this, Stanley listened to the cry of what he believed to be a bird as it echoed through his open window.

It took him a few minutes to realize that the crying wasn’t jus’ that of a bird, but of a baby, too. As the baby cried, a Raven answered, attempting to calm the baby’s tears.

Soon, Stanley became aware that the Raven and the baby were cawing to one another. Frightened, he grabbed his long deceased mother’s bible and began praying, fearful that the calling back and forth was between Satan and a minion in training.

Shortly afterwards, he began hearing voices; menacing, evil, growling voices. The voices lead to a fear of shadows and other dark places, making work impossible.

Other workers watched as Stanley became obsessed with the dark and a fear of what lurked in it’s inkiness. A couple of them eventually reported his odd behavior to the local authorities, who felt inclined to take him into ‘protective custody for his own welfare.’

Now, Stanley’s trapped in the confines of an asylum, unable to escape. He knows that whatever is in his padded cell, it’s there to take his life – but it can’t save for that single, naked bulb.

“God! Help me!” he cries when the power suddenly goes out.