P Deutermann - Spider mountain

“That word was probably all over the deputy force within an hour,” Baby said with a laugh. “Anyway, the Big brothers made it in to Sheriff Hayes’s office, where they gave statements about the fire. Carrie wrote up a report to be sent to SBI in Raleigh, in SBI-ese, and Hayes said he’d send it out under his signature.”

“Well, hell,” I said. “That ought to do it, right? Two of Mingo’s own people testifying that Mingo orchestrated this whole deal?”

“Um.”

“What do you mean, um?” The shepherds appeared to be watching something in the trees, so I moved down the ridge to make sure I couldn’t be seen from the fields below.

“Well, Carrie’s still entirely focused on this supposed child-trafficking business, but now that she’s resigned from the SBI, she’s been cut off on any current intel. And my bosses keep reminding me we’re supposed to be rolling up a meth smuggling and production operation. The fire in the jailhouse and a crooked sheriff don’t interest them very much.”

“It should-he’s the top cover for your meth crowd out here.”

“And your evidence for that would be…?”

“Hell’s bells, can’t you guys go to a grand jury with what you’ve got? I can testify, the Big brothers can testify, you can testify-how much more do we need to get something going here?”

“My bosses’ say-so, for one thing,” Greenberg said. “And, like I said, they’ve lost interest. In fact, we’re being pulled off to work a possible drug homicide over in Andrews. My line boss, Jack Harrie? He says this thing in Rocky Falls is a genu-wine hairball, Carrie Santangelo’s on a personal crusade, and we’re outta there.”

I didn’t know what to say. Without backup like a DEA squad, there wouldn’t be much I could contribute.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” Baby said. “I’m going to forget to retrieve the transponder, so you’ll have some comms until the battery dies. Carrie’s been shut out, like I said, so she has to figure out what she’s going to do. I told her that her first mission is to get your ass out of Robbins County.”

“They are watching,” I said. And so were the shepherds. They were still staring into the tree line above me on the transverse ridge. What had they seen? I changed position again.

“Gotta go,” Greenberg said. “I’ll try to get back into it after this homicide deal. We’ll put your stuff back in that sex pad.”

“Thanks for that, and tell the lodge I’m still ‘there.’ Tell Carrie she can use the cabin until I can extract, if she wants. She can leave my Suburban there, too. Do you have her cell number?”

“Carrie Santangelo in the bridal suite,” he said after giving me the number. “Now there’s an image.”

“With a gun,” I reminded him. “Maybe two. And claws.”

“There is that,” he said. “Look, again, I’m sorry about this. I feel like we’re abandoning you.”

“DEA doesn’t have a dog in this fight,” I said. “Go solve your homicide. If these people are taking kids, we’ll get ’em. And besides, I owe M. C. Mingo one fire.”

I shut off the phone. My side of the slope was darkening into evening shadow. The shepherds were still watching up the hill but didn’t seem as alerted as they had been. I sat down against one of the big rocks and took in the view. The stone was still warm. It seemed so peaceful up here. It was hard to imagine the gritty infrastructure of meth labs, midnight bootleggers, and especially the notion of impoverished women selling their children to the likes of Grinny Creigh. I leaned forward to stow the cell phone in my back pocket and probably saved my life.

The rock right behind my head exploded into a spray of razor-sharp granite shards, followed by the echo of a booming rifle up on the high ridge. The back of my neck felt like it was on fire as I rolled to one side and deeper into the rock pile. The shepherds came running, but I yelled them down as another round slashed down the hill, spanging off a rock and out into the hollow below. I made like a snake, wriggling between the bigger rocks, conscious of wetness on the back of my shirt. Another round came into the rock pile. This one ricocheted off about five rocks before passing over my head like a supersonic hornet. The shooter knew I was in there and was hoping for a lucky hit. I was looking for that fabled direct route to China through the center of the earth.

Finally it stopped. My neck still hurt like hell, but it was now dark enough on the hillside that the guy probably couldn’t see us anymore. The distant boom of the rifle was still echoing in my ears, and I remained down on the ground for another thirty minutes until it was almost fully dark. Then I crept toward the edge of the rock pile nearest Laurie May’s place. The dogs were whining above me, but I told them to stay down until I got clear of the rock pile. Five minutes later I was able to get into some trees and call them down. Crouching low, I trotted down the hill toward my not-so-secret-anymore cabin.

Somehow they’d found out where I was holed up. Laurie May must have said something or done something to alert one of the visiting cops. I didn’t believe she’d intentionally done anything, but, either way, I couldn’t hang out here anymore.

I waited at the edge of the woods that concealed her doomed daughter’s cabin and watched her house for several minutes to make sure there wasn’t a reception committee down there. I finally spotted the old lady through one of the windows in the lantern light and decided to go on down. Her front door was open and I called her name. She came to the door and asked if I had been doing all that shooting. Then she saw my collar and told me to come in right away.

That first round had embedded enough granite dust in the back of my neck to make a good piece of sandpaper, as I discovered when she patiently extracted every speck of it. I was gritting my teeth and wishing for my bottle of scotch by the time she was through. Then she smeared some foul-smelling ointment on the wounded skin that took a lot of the sting away. I was afraid to ask what was in it.

“How many was they?” she asked.

“I think just one, with a long rifle and a good scope. He had me pinned in a cluster of big rocks.” I turned around to look at her. “I can’t stay here anymore,” I told her. “They’ll figure it out if they haven’t already.”

“I ain’t afraid of them no-counts,” she said bravely, as she put away her tweezers and the cotton roll.

“You tell them when they come that I made you put me up. Tell them I had a great big gun and threatened to shoot your livestock. And we need to burn that bloody cotton-I don’t want them to know they hit me.”

She threw some sticks in the woodstove, shook the ash grate, pitched in the cotton waste, and then stirred the soup pot. “Where’s ‘at pretty woman?” she asked.

“Over in Marionburg,” I said. “She managed to get out of Robbins County, but I don’t think she can come back here while Mingo’s people are all stirred up. I’m going to hike out.” I explained some of what I’d learned in the phone call.

“I’ll heat ye some soup,” she said. She clanked the firebox door shut. “You know they gonna be out there in them woods. Prob’ly have ’em dogs with ’em, too.”

“I can’t let them take me again,” I said. “Especially now that my allies have been backed out.”

“Which way you gonna go?” she asked.

“I think the best route will be over the ridges toward Crown Lake. I think the roads will be too dangerous.”

She stirred the soup some more. I realized I was really hungry. The back of my neck had settled down to a warm burn, which I hoped was not an infection getting under way.

“If’n it was me,” Laurie May said slowly, “I believe I’d go t’other way. They gonna be lookin’ for ye to run for Marionburg town. If’n it was me, I’d go up and over that ridge yonder and hide right in Grinny Creigh’s backyard. Ain’t none’a them gonna expect you to do that.”