Last week, I posted about cannibalism and mentioned Henry Aurman, a character in my upcoming novel. The following excerpt from Karluk Bones describes how my protagonist, Jane Marcus, learns about Henry Aurman.
In my novel, Jane and her friends discover bones in the woods near Karluk Lake on Kodiak Island. Two weeks ago, I posted an excerpt from the novel where an anthropology student explains to Jane, she believes the bones are those of an individual who died between thirty and fifty years ago. Alaska State Trooper Sergeant Dan Patterson puts Jane in touch with a trooper who worked on Kodiak during the 1970s and 80s. The following is the conversation Jane has with retired Sergeant Sid Beatty from the Alaska State Troopers. Jane and Sid have just met, and the conversation takes place on Sid’s sailboat where he lives.
Karluk Bones
“Tell me about the bones,” Sid said.
Now I was on firmer ground, and I felt myself relax. I began with the fire at Karluk Lake, and our discovery of the bones on the charred ground. I then moved on to describe what Ying had learned from studying the bones.
“Let me make sure I understand,” Sid said. “The anthropologist thinks the individual was between 25 and 30-years old when he died and estimates the bones have been at Karluk Lake between thirty and fifty years.”
“Yes,” I said. “I know it’s a wide time range, but does anything come to mind? Do you remember any unsolved cases from the 70s or 80s?”
Sid sat back and stared at the ceiling. “I worked three unsolved missing-persons cases during my tenure. They were all young women, and two of them were friends who disappeared on the same night.” He shook his head. “We never found a trace, and to this day, I have no idea what happened to them.” He stared off into space for a while. “But, I don’t remember any unsolved cases involving young men.”
I smiled. “Thanks for trying,” I said. “Do you think it would do me any good to go through old case files?”
“Wait a minute,” Beatty said. “How could I forget Henry? I did have an unsolved missing male.”
“And his name was Henry?”
“No, no,” Sid said. ‘This is a wild story. It’s possible Henry could be tied to your bones, but you’d never prove it.” Sid took a sip of his coffee. “From the late 60s through maybe 1981 or 1982, a crazy old guy lived and trapped near Karluk Lake. He’d spend the entire winter out there by himself. Back in the 70s, the deer population hadn’t yet spread to the south end of the island, so I don’t know what he ate.” Sid chuckled and shook his head. “I do know some of what he ate, but I’ll get to that part of the story in a minute. Henry trapped beavers, foxes, and rabbits, so I assume he ate those. Anyway, he was a tough old guy.”
I had no idea where Sid was headed with this story, so I said nothing and waited for him to continue.
“The guy’s name was Henry Aurman,” Sid said.
“The Aurman from Aurman Plumbing and Heating?” The store was a town landmark, and I’d been told it had survived the “64 earthquake.”
“That’s right,” Sid said. “One of Henry’s relatives started the store, but Henry had nothing to do with the business. I think the store is still owned by an Aurman, probably Henry’s great niece or nephew.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“As far as I know, Henry never married, and he was crazy, or at the very least, eccentric. He claimed the entire region around Karluk Lake belonged to him.”
“That’s a big area,” I said.
Sid laughed. “Yes, it is. The troopers spent a great deal of time dealing with Henry because anytime a hunter, fisherman, or camper set up a tent near the lake, Henry threatened the visitors and told them they did not have his permission to camp on his land. He’d tell them he’d kill them if they didn’t leave. We threw him in jail numerous times for harassment, but he’d return to Karluk and threaten the next person who dared walk near ‘his’ lake.”
My spine tingled. Did Henry Aurman kill the man whose bones we found? “Did he ever kill any campers?” I asked.
“Not to my knowledge,” Sid said, “but I always expected one of his confrontations to end in violence with either him or a camper dead. I am certain, though, that Henry murdered at least three men, but they weren’t campers; they were his trapping partners.”
“What do you mean?”
“Around 1977 or 1978, you’d have to check the file for the exact date, Henry was getting older and wanted help with his winter trapping, so he ‘hired,’ to use the term loosely, a young man to accompany him during the winter. I believe the deal was that the young guy would help him trap, and Henry would give him a few hides to sell in payment for his services. The young man was a drifter, looking to turn his life around, and he wanted to learn how to trap, so he eagerly followed Henry to Karluk Lake.”
“Did Henry have a house at the lake?”
“He had a shack. It’s long gone now, but it had heat. I think most nights he camped near his trapline, but he’d return to the shack to resupply and work on his hides.”
“What happened?”
“In May, we received a call from the young guy’s brother, and if his brother hadn’t called us, I never would have known about the guy.” Sid paused, for another sip of coffee. “I don’t remember the caller’s name, but he said his brother had phoned him in November to tell him he’d quit drinking and was planning to spend the winter in the Kodiak wilderness learning to trap from an old man named Henry. He hadn’t heard from his brother since. I didn’t know Aurman had hired a partner for the winter, but he was the only Henry I knew who trapped, so I flew out to Karluk and found Henry at his cabin.”
I sat back in my chair. “Was the young man there?”
Sid shook his head. “Henry admitted he’d hired the guy but said he’d left in mid-December, telling Henry he couldn’t stand the cold and isolation any longer. Henry called him a wimp and said he thought the guy missed his alcohol. Henry said he was happy to see him leave.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. They were camped on a frozen lake in the middle of the winter. “How did the guy leave?”
“Henry claimed the young man planned to hike to the village of Karluk and catch their mail plane back to Kodiak, but he never made it to Karluk, or at least, he never flew from Karluk to Kodiak on the mail plane. They keep lists of their passengers, and he wasn’t on any of the lists.”
“What did Henry say when you told him his helper never arrived in Karluk?” I asked.
“He said he didn’t know what happened to his trapping buddy, and we didn’t have enough evidence to charge Henry with a crime. I suspected, though, either that Henry killed the guy, or the guy got lost in the woods and froze to death.”
“Wouldn’t he just need to follow the river from the lake to the village?”
“Yes, so I didn’t believe he got lost.”
“You thought Henry murdered him.” A chill ran through me. “Maybe these are his bones I found,” I said.
“It’s possible, but this guy wasn’t the only partner Henry lost.”
“Meaning?”
“Rumors floated hinting Henry lost another partner the following year, but no one ever reported the man missing, so the troopers were not involved,” Sid said. “Guys who sign on to spend the winter in the wilderness with a crazy trapper aren’t social beings, and they don’t usually have many resources. They’re loners.”
“So you never talked to Henry about this guy?”
“No, but two years later, around 1980 or 1981, Henry picked the wrong trapping buddy. When this man didn’t return from his winter’s expedition, the phone at trooper headquarters rang for two months. We heard from his mother, his two sisters, friends, an aunt or two, and even an employer who expected him to return to his job in Salt Lake City after the end of his winter adventure.”
“What did Henry say when you questioned him.”
“This is where the story gets interesting,” Sid said. “I flew to Karluk Lake with two other troopers, and we went to Henry’s little shack. He wasn’t there, so after we knocked on the door, we entered the building.”
Sid sat back and regarded me. He looked as if he’d just smelled something bad, or maybe he was trying to decide if he should continue his story.
“What did you find?” I finally asked.
Sid sighed. “We found bones and scraps of meat as if an animal recently had been butchered. We saw jars of canned meat lining the shelves of a makeshift cupboard in the corner of the shack. At first, I thought the bones were bear bones, but then I realized they were human.”
Sid waited while I processed his words. “He killed and ate his trapping partners?” I stood as if trying to distance myself from Sid and his horrible tale. I reigned in my urge to flee and returned to my seat.
Sid nodded. “I’m sorry; I know this is a terrible story. Imagine how we felt standing in that little shack, realizing what we had found and then knowing Henry could return at any minute and shoot us all. I immediately sent one of the troopers outside to stand guard so we wouldn’t be ambushed.”
This time, Sid drank a big gulp of his cooling coffee. “Yes, the bones were human, and the nicely stacked jars contained cooked and canned human meat.”
“Wow,” was the only thing I could think to say. Visions of stacked canning jars bearing human flesh flooded my head. I wondered if Henry had labeled the jars with his dead partners’ names, but I wisely pushed the question from my mind before I asked it.
Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.
