P Deutermann - The Cat Dancers

Cam was no stranger to mountain trails. He went up into the hills and mountains just about every weekend, usually taking his dogs, and had been doing so for many years. Today, the shepherds were wearing their bark collars. He wasn’t exactly trying to sneak up on Marlor’s cabin, but he didn’t want the dogs to give Marlor a half hour’s warning that someone was coming, either. Sound carried on these wooded slopes. He climbed steadily, although not in any great hurry. This was probably also a trail used to gather ginseng root, based on some occasional digs he’d seen. More than a few impoverished mountain people supplemented their welfare checks by gathering roots up in these hills.

He’d followed the same route as the Surry County deputy had taken to the abandoned farm on the north side of the mountain. After a half hour’s search, he’d discovered what he believed to be Marlor’s pickup truck hidden in a ramshackle tractor barn. The doors had been locked, so he hadn’t been able to get in to make sure, but he’d cast the dogs out to find a trail, and they’d promptly discovered a small footpath leading up and across the northern slope. He consulted a handheld GPS unit from time to time to make sure he was headed in the right direction. He was watchful as he climbed, aware that sometimes there might be other beings watching him. There were some folks up here who enjoyed startling the flatlanders by standing motionless next to a big tree right off the trail and not moving or saying anything until the hikers were within five feet of them. That was one reason he’d brought the dogs-they would spot any human and most game animals long before he ever would. Otherwise, he’d feel obliged to do his hiking Indian-style: move, stop, look, and listen. It was interesting to do it that way, but not if you were trying to get somewhere and back before full dark descended.

He’d gone to a phone booth and talked to Jay-Kay via a landline to find out how she’d sniffed out the cell phone. With the phone company’s help, she’d located the single tower that would serve any cell phone that was activated within five miles of the cabin’s GPS coordinates on the south side of Blackberry Mountain. Then she’d located two other towers within line of sight of the cabin, but much farther away, one to the east and one to the west. Atmospherics aside, there was a higher probability that a signal from a cell phone activated up at or near the cabin would hit the first tower, while being rejected by the other two. But if all three towers recorded a hit, even a rejected hit, the topography of the south slope made it likely that the signal was originating on the mountain. Then she had her tigers initiate a continuous scan of the towers’ servers for a Lexington-area phone meeting these criteria. There had been only one hit like that, and she’d called him immediately. There was always the chance that it had been an itinerant hiker from Lexington, but it was better than the nothing they’d had for days.

By one o’clock, he’d followed the trail to the edge of the woods behind Marlor’s cabin. He’d called the dogs to heel a half hour ago, and now they flopped obligingly down on the pine needles while he studied the cabin for signs of life. He thought he could smell stale wood smoke in the air, which told him that he might be in luck this time. He fished in his backpack for a couple of sandwich bags filled with dry kibble and fed this to the two dogs. He fished again and pulled out a mushy PB amp;J sandwich for himself, which he ate while studying the cabin and its surroundings. The woods were now perfectly still and he could just barely hear the brook that ran down the front side of the cabin. The temperature was beginning to drop and the breeze had made its decision after backing fully around to the north. He looked up and confirmed that the sunlight was fading, all of which meant he might be walking back through some snow. The good news was that the trail had been clear and had brought him right to the cabin. The bad news was that his GPS wouldn’t be worth much in snow, but unless there was a whiteout, he should be all right getting back.

He heard sounds from the other side of the cabin, and the dogs’ ears came up. He saw James Marlor appear at the corner of the cabin briefly and then trudge down out of sight, having headed in the direction of the privy. Cam smiled, pleased that his hunch had worked out. Perfect timing, too, he thought. When Marlor emerged from the privy, buttoning up his clothes, Cam was sitting on the front porch of the cabin with the two shepherds, his backpack on the floor in front of him. Frick lay down on the floorboards and casually eyed Marlor as he walked back to the cabin. Frack sat up, as usual, doing his wolf imitation, staring at the approaching man with those close-set amber eyes, but Marlor didn’t seem impressed by the dogs. He trudged back up the slope, ignored the two dogs, nodded at Cam as if he’d been expecting him, and stepped inside the cabin, leaving the door open. Cam stayed in his chair but put a hand on his revolver. He heard water being poured into a basin, the sounds of washing, and then Marlor came back out with a bottle of Booker Noe’s small-batch bourbon tucked under his arm and two tin cups in his left hand. In his right hand was an old government-issue. 45-caliber semiautomatic.

He kicked the other rocking chair around so that he could face Cam and then sat down. He put the big gun in his lap and then poured himself some whiskey.

“Drink?” he asked.

Cam looked pointedly at the. 45 in Marlor’s lap. Marlor just looked back at him patiently. “No thank you, sir,” Cam said finally.

“I’m going to be dead tonight,” Marlor announced in a totally matter-of-fact voice. “You can have a drink with me.”

Cam tried not to blink. “Put it that way, I guess I will,” he said.

Marlor poured him a splash and passed him the cup. He leaned back in the rocker, tipped his cup in Cam’s direction, and they both drank. A tendril of damp, cold wind came searching for them around the corner of the cabin, confirming Cam’s suspicions of approaching snow. The Booker, at 126 proof, cleaned his sinuses right out.

“Nice dogs,” Marlor said. “I had a shepherd once, but she was nuts. Hyper all the time. Chased cars. Caught one.”

“They get that way sometimes,” Cam said. “Usually, it’s the human’s fault. They feel it’s their duty to be with you, herding you, full-time. If you go away to work all day, they can’t do their duty. Drives some of them nuts.”

Marlor nodded, and Cam decided just to be quiet. He wanted to see what Marlor would do. For some reason, he wasn’t too worried about the gun anymore. It had taken a few minutes, though. Frick was dozing; Frack had his eyes on a squirrel that was tempting fate out in the yard.

Marlor’s face was gaunt, indicating he hadn’t eaten in awhile. He had aged since the meeting, and his eyes were more intense as he stared at nothing down the front slope, probably thinking that he was going to be dead tonight. He had an unkempt black beard and he needed a haircut. Cam could smell the wood smoke in his clothes. He looked like that portrait of Robert E. Lee painted after the War, with those haunted, defiant eyes.

“Why are you here?” Marlor asked him finally.

“Wanted to talk to you.”

“Which way’d you come?”

“I came by helicopter the first time,” Cam said. “Nobody home. This time, I hiked in from the north side.”

“What brought you back?” Marlor asked.

“I believe you used a cell phone from up here,” Cam said. Marlor sighed and nodded. “I wondered. You guys must be pretty good.”

“I wish we’d been better when we arrested those two bastards who destroyed your family.”

“Your people screw that up?”