Douglas Preston - Still Life With Crows

The man swallowed, recovering slightly, and sat up. “Get your goddamned light out of my face.”

Pendergast lowered the light.

“Now who the deuce do you think you are, scaring decent people half to death?”

“We have yet to establish decency,” said Pendergast. “Pray rise and identify yourself.”

“Mister, you can pray all you like and it don’t mean shit.” He rose to his feet anyway, brushing the leaves and twigs out of his beard and hair. Then he hawked up an enormous gob of phlegm and shot it into the darkness. He wiped his beard and mouth with a filthy hand, front and back, and spat again.

Pendergast removed his shield and passed it before the man’s face.

The man’s eyes widened, then narrowed again. He laughed. “FBI? Never would’ve guessed it.”

“Special Agent Pendergast.” He closed the leather case with a snap and it disappeared into his jacket.

“I don’t talk to FBI.”

“Before you make any more rash declarations which will cause you to lose face later, you should know you have a choice. You can have an informal chat with me here . . .” He paused.

“Or?”

Pendergast smiled suddenly, his thin lips stretching to expose a row of perfect white teeth. But the effect, in the glow of the flashlight, was anything but friendly.

The man removed a twisted chaw from his pocket, screwed a piece off, and packed it into his cheek. “Shit,” he said, and spat.

“May I ask your name?” Pendergast asked.

The silence stretched on for a minute, then two.

“Hell,” the man said at last. “I guess having a name’s no crime, is it? Gasparilla. Lonny Gasparilla. Can I have my gun back now?”

“We shall see.” Pendergast bobbed the beam of his light toward the bloody squirrels. “Is that what you were doing up here? Hunting?”

“I ain’t hanging around the Mounds for the view.”

“Do you have a residence nearby, Mr. Gasparilla?”

The man barked a laugh. “That’s a funny one.” Again, when there was no reply from Pendergast, he jerked his head to one side. “I’m camped over yonder.”

Pendergast picked up the shotgun, broke it open, ejected the spent shells, and handed it empty to Gasparilla. “Show me, if you please.”

Five minutes of walking brought them to the edge of the trees and into the sea of corn. Gasparilla ducked into a row and they followed it down a dusty, beaten path. A few more minutes brought them to a cottonwood grove that lined the banks of Medicine Creek. The air here smelled of moisture, and there was the faint sound of water purling over a bed of sand. Ahead was the reddish glow of a campfire, built against a clay bank. A big iron pot sat atop the fire, bubbling, smelling of onions, potatoes, and peppers.

Gasparilla picked some pieces of wood off a pile and banked them beside the coals. Flames rose, illuminating the little campsite. There was a greasy-looking tent, a log for a seat, an abandoned wooden door set on more logs to make a table.

Gasparilla plucked the bundle of squirrels off his shoulder and dropped them on the makeshift table. Then he took out his knife and went to work, slicing one open, pulling out the guts and tossing them aside. And then, with one sharp tug, he tore off the skin. A series of swift chops took off the head, paws, and tail; a few more hacks quartered the animal, and it went into the simmering pot. The process for each squirrel took less than twenty seconds.

“What are you doing here?” Pendergast asked.

“On tour,” said the man.

“Tour?”

“Tool sharpening. Make two rounds of my territory in the warm months. Go south to Brownsville for the winter. You got it, I sharpen it, from chainsaws to combine rotors.”

“How do you get around?”

“Pickup.”

“Where’s it parked?”

Gasparilla gave a final savage chop, tossed the last squirrel into the pot. Then he jerked his head toward the road. “Over there, if you want to check it out.”

“I plan to.”

“They know me in town. I ain’t never been on the wrong side of the law, you can ask the sheriff. I work for a living, same as you. Only I don’t go sneaking around in the dark, shining lights in people’s faces and scaring them half to death.” He threw some parched lima beans into the pot.

“If, as you say, they know you in town, why do you camp out here?”

“I like a little elbow room.”

“And the bare feet?”

“Huh?”

Pendergast shone his light at the man’s filthy toes.

“Shoes are expensive.” He rummaged in a pocket, pulled out the chaw of tobacco, screwed off another piece, and shoved it in his cheek. “What’s an FBI man doing out here?” he asked, poking his cheek with a finger, adjusting the chaw to his satisfaction.

“I imagine you could guess the answer to that question, Mr. Gasparilla.”

The man gave him a sidelong glance but did not reply.

“She was digging up in the Mounds, wasn’t she?” Pendergast asked at last.

Gasparilla spat. “Yeah.”

“How long?”

“Don’t know.”

“Did she find anything?”

He shrugged. “It ain’t the first time there’s been digging in the Mounds. I don’t pay much attention to it. When I’m here I only go up there to hunt. I don’t mess around with the dead.”

“Are there burials in the Mounds?”

“So they say. There was also a massacre up there once. That’s all I know and all I want to know. The place gives me the creeps. I wouldn’t go up there except that’s where all the squirrels are.”

“I’ve heard talk of some legend associated with the place. The ‘curse of the Forty-Fives,’ I believe.”

Gasparilla said nothing, and for a long time the camp was quiet. He stirred the pot with a stick, occasionally darting glances at Pendergast.

“The murder occurred three nights ago, during the new moon. Did you see or hear anything?”

Gasparilla spat again. “Nothing.”

“What were your movements that evening, Mr. Gasparilla?”

Gasparilla kept stirring. “If you’re hinting that I killed that woman, then I just about figure this conversation’s over, mister.”

“I’d say it’s just begun.”

“Don’t get snippy with me. I never killed nobody in my life.”

“Then you should have no objection to detailing your movements that day.”

“That was my second day here at Medicine Creek. I hunted up at the Mounds late that afternoon. She was there, digging. I came back here at sunset, spent the night in camp.”

“Did she see you?”

“Did you see me?”

“Where was she digging, exactly?”

“All over. I gave her a wide berth. I know trouble when I see it.” Gasparilla gave the stewpot a brisk stir, brought out an enameled tin bowl and a battered spoon, ladled some stew into it. He scooped up a spoonful, blew on it, took a bite, dug the spoon in again. Then he stopped.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting a bowl.”

“I would not object.”

Wordlessly, he brought out a second bowl, held it up before Pendergast.

“Thank you.” Pendergast helped himself to the pot, took a taste of the stew. “Burgoo, I believe?”

Gasparilla nodded and stuffed a goodly amount in his mouth, juice dribbling down into his tangled black beard. He chewed loudly, spat out a few bones, swallowed. He wiped his mouth with his hand, then wiped his hand on his beard.

They finished their stew in silence. Gasparilla stacked the bowls, leaned back, took out the plug of tobacco. “And now, mister, if you got what you’re looking for, I hope you’ll be about your business. I like a quiet evening.”

Pendergast rose. “Mr. Gasparilla, I will leave you in peace. But first, if there’s anything you’d care to add, I would advise you to tell it to me now, rather than waiting for me to discover it myself.”