P Deutermann - Spider mountain

I had a rifle, a telescope, a handheld GPS unit, head-mounted night vision gear, and minimal camping equipment. If the local fire service maps were correct, there was a straight eight-mile shot across the face of Rockslide Mountain via fire lanes to the eastern front of Book Mountain, below which the GPS coordinates of Grinny’s cabin were centered. My plan was to set up a small camp on one of the offshore islands, rest this afternoon, go in by night, set up my hide, watch all day Sunday to see what went on around the cabin and the other buildings, and then go back out Sunday night.

I awoke at just after sundown and stretched on the air mattress. My left arm was still sore from the fight the other night. The shepherds were curled up in the pine needles but opened their eyes when I moved. It was getting cooler, and there was already a pale full moon rising over the lake. I got up, washed my face, and fed the dogs. The moon was painting a wide path of light on the still waters of the lake. I lit the Primus stove and heated up one of the MREs provided by Mose. I made sure that neither my camp nor the tiny flame was visible from the shore in the direction of Book Mountain. I doubted that Grinny kept permanent sentinels out on the hills and ridges, but I didn’t want to attract attention in case I was wrong about that. The hills above the lake were getting darker by the minute, and it was easy to believe I was all alone out there.

I cleaned up, buried my trash, and then made a cup of instant coffee. Despite the execrable coffee, it was a real pleasure to watch night fall on the lake. The wind that had been cascading off the nearby ridges died down. An occasional night bird called across the lake. A distant pack of coyotes made their obeisance to the rising moon as the forest noises subsided. I’d just decided to get going when the dogs sat up and stared out at the lake in the direction of the park. I had put in below the scenic overlook and then paddled more than four miles, rounding a point that now obscured my starting spot.

The dogs were staring hard into the gloom of the lake in that direction. I made sure the little stove was off and watched their ears twitching. I realized there had to be something or someone out there. I was reaching for my NVG headgear when I heard the thump of a paddle against aluminum, a splash, and then some unpleasant language. A moment later a canoe materialized out of the darkness and grounded at an odd angle on the gravel shoreline. Baby Greenberg climbed stiffly out of the canoe and massaged his knees.

“I saw that movie?” he said. “The Last of the Mo-what-the-fucks? They made this canoe shit look so easy. Damn! My knees hurt. My shoulders hurt. My hands hurt. And I cannot steer this thing worth a shit.” He staggered over some wet rocks. “Damn!”

“It gets easier if you have ten war canoes full of serious hostiles chasing your paleface ass down said river,” I said with a grin. “It’s all about motivation. How’d you find me?”

“Brother Mose told me where you started off from, and then I looked for light.” He held up the smallest night vision telescope I had ever seen.

I looked around my Spartan campsite. “What light was that?” I asked.

Greenberg pointed at the Primus stove, which was still warm from heating water for coffee. Those must be really sensitive glasses, I thought. The dogs came over to get reacquainted, while I made up another cup of coffee.

“What changed your mind?” I asked.

“Carrie Santangelo?” Greenberg said. “She called me. Said you really were going Creigh hunting. Wanted to make sure that someone besides her knew what you were doing. Asked me why I wasn’t going along. Told her I was chicken, but if she’d spend the night with me I might reconsider. She said she might go as far as phone sex, so I said okay. Then she asked me how I’d enjoyed it, and there I was. She is the best-looking slinky-toy in the whole SBI.”

I handed him the coffee. “She have any personal connection to this part of the world that you know of?” I asked.

Greenberg didn’t know. “She can surprise you, though,” he said. “Shows up at interagency meetings in one of those DKNY outfits? All the coffee-and-doughnut cops trying not to drool. But then she, like, sits at the back of the room, taking notes like somebody’s executive whatever, while some other suit sits at the table as the SBI principal. Only later you find out she’s the senior internal affairs inspector in the outfit, and the suit at the table works for her. They call her Santa Claws; that’s with a w, by the way, not a u. What’s our plan?”

“You sure you’re up for this?” I asked. “I mean, see that mountain? I’m going up to the topline of that one via the forestry fire lanes, then over to a second, higher one. Eight, nine miles by the map, and probably more with all the wrinkles. I have to go fast enough so that I can be in my hide by daylight. That’s daylight tomorrow.”

Greenberg smiled. He was starting to bounce around again. “I run ten miles every day,” he said quietly. “I won’t slow you down. You are gonna leave most of this shit here, right?”

I nodded. “I’ve got a small backpack, a camo shelter half, canteen, knife, the spotting scope, two MREs. Going up tonight, gonna watch all day tomorrow, come out tomorrow night, late.”

Greenberg pointed at the black rifle with his chin. “Whatcha got there, sport?”

“Remington 700P TWS model,. 308 Win rounds.”

“We going to war?”

“We might,” I said. “Although, from what I hear, the black hats see a couple of strangers, they usually fire a warning shot to shoo them away.”

“Usually? Is that like ‘assume’?”

“Well, life’s a risky business, Special Agent. I get a warning shot, I propose to scope the hillside and blow an arm off. You have official top cover to come along on this little hike?”

Greenberg sniffed and shook his head. “Officially, I was concerned that a crusading civilian might get himself hurt going up into Grinny Creigh’s cave and irritating the demons. I can follow you at fifty yards if you like.”

I laughed. “That might not be a bad idea, you know, in case that ‘usually’ shit doesn’t work out. But mostly I want to watch for an entire day. I’ve been there once, at night, and besides Grinny, what I remember most is Rue Creigh making headlights against the screen door.”

“Tell me your impression of Grinny Creigh-you’re probably the first LE guy to lay eyes on her for a long time.”

“Carrie said that her whole deal was about power and control: She radiates that. Big woman, fat, but probably strong as an ox. Cunning, pig eyes. Accustomed to command and obedience. Didn’t move out of her chair or raise her voice particularly, but when I pissed her off, the guys hanging back in the trees started sliding toward cover, like she might have been about to pull a gun and start blasting away. Her son, Nathan, looks like he ought to have bolts in his neck. Tall, skinny, one of those ball-bearing-eyes types. I think he gives the detailed orders to the black hats once Grinny sets the general objective.”

“Modern weapons?”

“None that I saw. Lots of shotguns, but all double-barreled, nontactical. A pack of dogs that’s pretty scary. Outbuildings, but I don’t know if there’s electricity. Really primitive look and feel to the place, but bigger than most of the cabins in these parts.”

“Primitive makes for pretty good electronic security,” Greenberg said. “Nothing for us to listen to when they’re whispering messages down the mountain trails in some eighteenth-century dialect, as we have found out. How many soldiers were there the night you went up there?”

“A dozen? It was dark. And that’s not counting the two who took me there.”