Ron Rash - Serena

The bell on the café door rang and Coldfield walked toward them, but the detective didn't sit down or look at either man.

"Lieutenant Jacoby's decided I should let Sheriff Bowden take care of the investigation on this end."

Coldfield raised his eyes, met Pemberton's gaze.

"I will tell you one thing, Mr. Pemberton. Campbell's brother has been at the station every day since his brother got killed, which is why I'm here in the first place. He won't give up."

"I'll keep that in mind," Pemberton said.

The detective tossed a quarter beside his coffee cup. The silver rang hollowly against the formica surface.

"I'll be on my way now," Coldfield said.

Pemberton nodded, and stood up to leave as well.

"YOU'D a thought at least the women and children was safe," Henryson said on Sunday afternoon as Snipes' crews sat on the commissary steps.

"It ain't enough that they killed an old woman," Snipes said. "Now they're after that girl and her child."

Henryson nodded.

"The wonder of it is they don't kill us, just for practice."

"They's content to let the saws and axes and falling limbs kill us off," Ross said. "Frees up Galloway to do his traveling."

The men sat in silence a few moments, listening to a guitar strum the last notes of "Barbara Allen." The song's plaintive refrain put the men in a pensive mood.

"Campbell's brother is in town," Ross said. "I seen him my ownself the other day."

"The one Campbell was staying with in Nashville?" Henryson asked.

"That one, the guitar picker. He was out on the courthouse steps telling how he come home from his show and found Campbell laying in bed with a hatchet back of his head. To hear tell how deep that blade was in him, you'd think Campbell's head was no more than a pumpkin."

"That's a terrible way to die," Henryson said.

"Better than what Doctor Cheney got," Snipes said.

"Campbell at least got the record for getting farthest before Galloway caught up with him," Ross said. "Hell, Campbell even made it out of the state. I reckon that's a sort of victory."

"For sure," Henryson said. "Harris didn't even make it out of his house."

"Proves one thing, though," Ross said. "One day's head start ain't enough."

"No, it ain't," Henryson agreed. "I'd say you'd likely need at least a week to even get betting odds."

"The Harmon girl and her young one likely won't get that," Ross said. "Vaughn might though. Even Galloway can't be in two places at once."

"That boy always had a good head on his shoulders," Snipes said. "He figured the right time to take off."

"Just like quail," Ross said. "They figure if they all flush in different directions there's a chance one of them will make it."

"Has Galloway started after anybody yet?" Stewart asked.

"No, but he's liable to any time now," Snipes said. "He was at the commissary last night, trying to get fellers to help figure out what town his mama was visioning. Said he'd pay a dollar to the one named it."

"What sort of visioning did that old witch have?" Henryson asked.

"Claimed the Harmon girl and her young one was in Tennessee, a town where there was a train track. Which don't tell you much of nothing, of course, but she also told Galloway the place was a crown set amongst the mountains."

"A crown?" Ross asked, reentering the conversation.

"Yes, a crown. A crown set amongst the mountains. Them's the exact words."

"It might could be the top of a mountain," Henryson said. "I've heard peaks called crowns before."

"But it was set amongst the mountains," Ross noted, "not part of the mountain."

"Which would argue for it being a crown like them that royalty wears," Snipes added.

"Anybody figure it out?" Henryson asked Snipes. "Last night, I mean?"

"One of the cooks claimed there was a Crown Ridge over near Knoxville. That was all they come up with, and Galloway had already gone over there the day before and caught nary a scent of them."

Ross stared west toward the Tennessee line and slowly nodded to himself.

"I know where they are," he said. "Or leastways I can narrow it to two places."

"You ain't going to tell Galloway, are you?" Stewart asked.

"No," Ross said. "Maybe there's nothing I can do to stop them, but I damn well won't help them. I can give that girl a few more hours head start."

Henryson shook his head.

"I'd still not give you a dime to a dollar they'll survive another week."

Ross was about to speak in agreement when he saw a curious assemblage making its way into the camp.

"What in the name of heaven is that?" he said.

Three horse-drawn prairie schooners led the procession. Grimy muslin stretched over the iron hoop frames, and each tarp bore a different proclamation. HAMBYS CARNIVAL DIRECT FROM PARIS said the first, the second SEEN BY EUROPES ROYALTY, the third ADULTS A DIME. CHILDREN A NICKEL. Behind the wagons came a tethered menagerie, around each animal's neck a wooden placard naming the species. The animals traveled two abreast, led by a pair of slump-backed Shetland ponies. Next came two ostriches, their serpentine necks bowed as if embarrassed to be part of such an entourage, then two white horses striped with what appeared to be black shoe polish. ZEBRA, their placards proclaimed. A flatbed wagon ended the parade, a steel cage filling its wood-plank bottom. WORLDS DEADLIEST CREATURE was written on a tarp concealing the cage's bottom half.

The first wagon halted in front of the commissary steps. A portly man adorned in a rumpled beige cotton suit doffed his black top hat with a flourish and bid Snipes and his fellows a good afternoon. The stranger spoke with a nasal accent none of the men had ever heard before but Snipes immediately suspected had been cultivated at a European university.

"Appears you've took a wrong turn," Ross said, nodding at the paired animals. "That ark I notion you're searching for ain't around here. Even if it was, you're a tad late to get a seat on it."

"Our destination is the Pemberton Lumber camp," the man said, puzzled. "Is this not it?"

Snipes stood up. "Yes sir, it is, and unlike Mr. Ross here I'm a man of some culture and respectful of others that has it as well. How may I assist you?"

"I need to speak with the camp's owners, for permission to perform this evening."

"That would be Mr. and Mrs. Pemberton," Snipes said. "They like to ride their horses on Sundays, but they ought to be heading back in soon enough. They'll come right by here, so's the best thing to do is just sit and wait."

"Your suggestion appears a sound choice," the man said, and despite his considerable bulk leaped off the buckboard and landed with surprising light-footedness, the top hat wobbling but remaining on his head. "My name is Hamby, and I am the owner of this carnival."

Hamby knotted the horse's reins to a porch rail and clapped his hand twice. The other three men, who up until this moment had been inanimate as statues, now tethered their wagons as well. They immediately went about various tasks, one watering the menagerie while another searched possible sights to raise the tent. The third, a small swarthy man, disappeared into his wagon.

"Say you been doing your show across the ocean," Henryson said, nodding at the second wagon.

"Yes sir," the carnival owner said. "We're only back in this country for a limited engagement. We're headed to New York, then back to Europe."

"Kind of a roundabout way to get to New York, coming through these mountains," Ross said.

"Indeed it is," Hamby said, weariness tinting his voice, "but as professional entertainers, we feel a need, dare I say a moral obligation, to bring culture to those such as yourself exiled to the hinterlands."

"Awful kind of you to do that for us," Ross said.