P Deutermann - Spider mountain

“You’re that cat dancer fella, aren’t you,” he said in a mild, high-pitched voice. “Up from Manceford County, right?”

“I’m retired from the sheriff’s office there,” I said. “Doing some private work these days.”

“A private eye,” the sheriff said dramatically. “My gracious. Right here in Robbins County. Who’da thunk it. What can we do for you there, Lieutenant?”

The mention of my old rank spoke volumes. Someone had made a call during my hour-long wait to see the sheriff. I thought I could detect that bighaired bombshell’s perfume lingering in the air.

“A friend has asked me to look into what happened to a probationer ranger assigned to the Thirty Mile ranger station over in Carrigan County,” I replied.

“A friend,” the sheriff repeated encouragingly. His expression was pleasant, but those crinkly eyes had not lost their hard edge.

I smiled. “One of the rangers at Thirty Mile. She was Janey Howard’s mentor. Apparently, the Park Service has put the case into a let’s-move-on box.”

The Sheriff nodded. “Didn’t happen in Robbins County, that much I know,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I understand that nobody knows very much about what happened.”

“Now, now,” the sheriff said. “You weren’t listening. I said: It didn’t happen in Robbins County. See, if it had, I’d have known all about it, and we’d have some guilty bastards sweating bullets out in the back cells. Whatever did happen, it must have happened in the national park. That would be on federal land.”

“Bastards, as in plural?” I asked.

M. C. Mingo sat back in his chair and showed some teeth. “Lord love a duck,” he said. “Aren’t you the quick one. Bastards. Plural indeed. Figure of speech, that’s all. Bastards tend to come in small herds in this part of the state.”

“Of course,” I said. “So: Would you have any objections to my asking some questions around here in the county?”

“Why don’t you ask me your questions, Lieutenant? Or should I say mister?”

“Definitely mister,” I said. “I’m not a lieutenant anymore.”

“That’s right, you’re not,” Mingo said. “So: What are all these questions?”

I hadn’t prepared for this. I’d assumed that I would just start asking around to see who knew what, if anything, about the case. This was supposed to have been a simple courtesy call. A little voice in my head was saying maybe I should have listened to Sheriff Hayes. “Oh, I just want to see what folks have heard about the case,” I said. “Maybe spark up a name or two. I mean, a park ranger raped and beaten? That must have been news.”

“Even up here in backward old Robbins County, that what you’re saying?” the sheriff said. “As in, that kinda thing doesn’t happen here more’n, what, once a week? Is that it?”

I leaned forward. “Sheriff, I didn’t come in here to sass anybody. I just thought it basic professional courtesy to let you know I’d be walking around town asking questions. I have a Section 74 PI license, so I think I could do all that without seeing you.”

“Well, now, you’re both right and wrong there, Mister Richter,” the sheriff said. All the pleasantness, whether faked or real, had drained out of the conversation. “You were absolutely right to come see me. But you’re no longer a law enforcement officer, so you can forget all that professional courtesy business. And you are absolutely wrong to think you can come into my county and do one goddamned thing without my permission. And you know what? I do not give my permission. In fact, I invite you to get back in your vehicle and get out of my county before I throw your licensed ass in jail and pitch said vehicle into a mine shaft.” He leaned back in his chair and pasted his smiley face back on. “Anything else, there, Mister Richter?”

“Oh, c’mon, Sheriff-what grounds would you have for putting me in jail?”

“Trying my patience? Disturbing my office routine? Interrupting me when I was in a meeting?”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I saw the meeting. I guess that would be a crime, interrupt that kind of meeting.”

I’d made a mistake. The sheriff stiffened, picked up a ballpoint pen, and began tapping it on the table in a slow four-beat rhythm. His face settled back into a cold mask. “I suppose I’ll just let that pass, Mister Richter,” he said finally. “I’ll lay it down to your being ignorant of how things work up here in the western mountains, you being of the urban persuasion. But we can cure that ignorance lickety-split, and we will, if you’re anywhere in my county in the next thirty minutes. Good day, sir.”

I didn’t linger. I drove back down the two-lane toward Carrigan County, my rearview mirror filled with the image of a Robbins County cruiser practically riding my Suburban’s bumper. Wasn’t like I hadn’t been warned, I thought. The shepherds, sensing my mood, kept looking back at the cop car behind them.

The deputy turned around about three miles out of Rocky Falls, and I relaxed a little. The sheriff could not legally arrest me for simply asking questions, but I knew damn well that I was in the very western, and very remote, end of the state, where one annoyed a county sheriff at his peril. I recalled Sheriff Hayes mentioning FBI agents going into a mine shaft. Come to think of it, Mingo had also mentioned a mine shaft. I wondered who the black-haired bombshell really was.

Ten minutes later, as I slowed down to negotiate a hairpin curve to the left, I suddenly hit the brakes. At the bend of the curve a mountain stream went under the road through an old redbrick arched bridge and dropped into a deep ravine. At the bottom of the ravine, I’d spotted a man running wildly down the creek bank, flailing through the underbrush, falling as often as he covered ground. He was a fat man with a full black beard, and he was being pursued by a pack of baying dogs. I pulled over and got out of the Suburban. The shepherds had heard the other dogs and started barking. I shouted at them to shut up. By now the man was a hundred yards down the bank.

I ran over to the guardrail in time to see the first and biggest dog catch up with the fleeing man and grab an ankle in his teeth. The fat man yelled in pain and went down heavily, landing with his head and shoulders in the creek and the rest of him still on the bank. The remainder of the pack arrived and, to my horror, swarmed all over the man until he was no longer visible from the road. Even from my distant vantage point, I could hear the snarling, see the bloody jaws tearing from side to side. When I saw the whitewater in the creek turn red I backed away from the guardrail.

I thought about getting my. 45 and seeing what I could do, but the scene below was out of effective range, and, judging from the blood in the water, it was already too late. I looked back down and saw that the dog pack was still going to town and the creek was still running red. Then movement caught my eye high up on the slope above the bridge, right at the tree line. A very tall, thin man was standing up there, dressed all in black, with what looked like a very long, antique rifle crooked over his arm. The man was watching the carnage below through a set of binoculars. I saw a glint of light on lenses as the binoculars swung around to train on me. I backed away from the guardrail toward my Suburban. The watching man put the glasses back on the dog pack, as if to say he didn’t much care if there had been a witness. Then I saw a small group of men, maybe five or six, standing above the lone watcher on a nearby ridge. None of them seemed to have binoculars, but they did have rifles. I decided it was definitely time to get the hell out of there as fast as I could safely drive.

Back at the lodge, I placed a call to my old boss, Bobby Lee Baggett, high sheriff of Manceford County. He called me back in fifteen minutes.