“I don’t know,” Jessup said, intruding into Logan’s thoughts. “Not for sure. Like I said, I might have an unexpected lead. Anyway, it’s something I’m looking into. If I learn anything specific, perhaps I’ll be more forthcoming.” He walked to the door, then turned. “Just remember: we’re only two days from another full moon. And there’s something else to keep in mind — while a true full moon only lasts a moment, it appears to look full for at least three nights.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning only this: be very careful in the days to come, my friend.” And with that, the ranger shook Logan’s hand again, nodded, and stepped out the front door and into the night.
23
It was almost forty-eight hours later, to the minute, that Logan heard from Jessup again. His cell phone rang as he was sitting in the living room of his cabin, reading a draft of the closing argument of his monograph.
“Logan,” he said as he answered the phone.
“Jeremy? It’s Randall.”
“Hi, Randall. What’s up?”
There was a pause. “Jeremy, I don’t know how to tell you this — how to ask you this.”
The ranger’s tone was oddly reserved, almost guarded. “Ask me what?”
“Do you remember our conversation of two nights ago? When I told you that I was looking into something — and I’d say more if I learned anything specific?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I have. And we should talk.”
How odd. “Of course. Would tomorrow morning be good?”
“No — I think we should talk now. I’d like you to meet me.”
Logan glanced at his watch: quarter to eight. “Tonight? What is it that can’t wait?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you.”
“Very well. Where are you now — at home?”
“No. I’m on the far side of Pike Hollow, not far from the Blakeney place. You know Fred’s Hideaway?”
“You mean that bar in Pike Hollow?”
“Yes. Can you meet me there as soon as possible?”
“If you really think it’s that important, of course.”
“Thanks. I’ll be waiting for you in the Hideaway. I’ve got one or two things to check out, but I should still make it there before you.”
Logan switched off his phone. For a moment he sat still, looking at it thoughtfully. Then, getting up, he shrugged into his jacket, reached for the keys to the Jeep. Then he stepped out of the cabin and began making his way down the path to the parking area.
Overhead, a full moon, bloated and yellow, hung in the crisp night sky.
24
It was a few minutes past eight when Sam Wiggins pulled onto 3A from the main street of Pike Hollow and headed west. His old Honda Civic — his barbershop business had not prospered of late, and he hadn’t been able to buy a newer or larger vehicle after his thirty-year-old Ford pickup died the year before — jerked and rattled as it made its way down the rutted road. He looked up through the driver’s window at the full moon, just visible through the screen of branches overhead, with a sinking feeling. On the seat beside him, Buster, his Jack Russell terrier, whined and whimpered.
This was crazy, he knew. All other residents of Pike Hollow, as if by unspoken consent, were locked in their houses, shutters closed, lights extinguished. And here he was, heading out toward Desolation Mountain. Well, okay, not exactly toward Desolation Mountain, but a lot closer to it than he’d like to be.
It was all the fault of his aunt Gertrude, who lived in an old Airstream trailer out in the woods about eight miles west of Pike Hollow. She had no car, and she relied on Sam to bring her canned foodstuffs, cash her welfare checks, bring her pitiful mail from the PO box, fill her propane tank — and, most particularly, keep her well stocked with the cheap plastic 1.75-liter bottles of vodka that she subsisted on. Gertrude Randowsky was the most raging of all alcoholics Sam had ever known, and it had only gotten worse once her husband died and could no longer keep her in check. She’d run out of the stuff again, and it was only the threat of her towering rage that had coaxed Sam to get Fred at the Hideaway to give him half a dozen bottles and head out to the trailer.
Buster was whining more loudly now. Well, Sam could hardly blame him.
He passed the old Blakeney compound — a narrow lane to the left, heavily overgrown, dark and unoccupied state trooper car barely visible in the moonlight — with trepidation. That bitch Gertrude. She wasn’t even his own aunt, she was the aunt of his late wife… and yet here he was, bowing and scraping to her every whim like a damn lackey. One of these days, he thought grimly as he rounded first one bend, and then another, those bottles of Olde Petersburg Vodka would do her in — and, although he’d never say it out loud, that day couldn’t come soon enough, and he could then devote all his off-hours to making caddis fly lures and fishing for the elusive brook trout….
Wham. Shit, what was that — a blowout? Oh God, this was the last place he wanted to have to change a tire.
He slowed the Honda, then crept forward gingerly. The right front end was shimmying like crazy, all right. He stopped and turned off the engine, leaving the headlights on, thinking. He had three options: get out and swap the tire for a spare; try driving home on the rim; or just abandon the car and walk back.
He immediately discarded the last option. No way was he walking back to Pike Hollow past the Blakeneys — not during a full moon, and with the state trooper who was supposed to be surveilling it off having dinner or something. And driving on a rim seemed almost as bad an option, incurring expenses he could ill afford to pay. With a sigh, he reached for the glove compartment, opened it, pulled out the flashlight he kept inside, and — reluctantly — opened the driver’s door.
Swallowing painfully, he stood by the door, looking around, senses on full alert, ready to jump back in and lock the door if anything seemed amiss. There was a break in the trees overhead and the moon was in view, almost comically large, the pellucid night sky allowing a veil of pale yellow to fall over his surroundings. There was no wind, and the numberless trees that surrounded him were standing, almost as if at attention, awaiting something.
Leaving the driver’s door open, he switched on the light and walked around the hood, glanced left and right again, then knelt to inspect the tire. To his relief, it seemed to be all right after all — it was just stuck in a huge rut that ran along the shoulder of the cracked highway. He must have drifted into it without noticing.
He stood up. Time to get this damn-fool errand over with and hurry home.
But just as he began to make his way back around the hood, something short and hairy shot between his legs, whimpering, heading into the darkness away from the car. Buster. He’d jumped out of the front seat while Sam had been inspecting the tire and run off.
“Well, if that don’t beat all…” Buster wasn’t Rin Tin Tin, but he had plenty of pluck, and it wasn’t like him to run away — and it sure as hell wasn’t like him to desert his master. Something must have scared him — scared him enough to make him forget all his normal instincts.
It had not gone unnoticed by Sam that Buster had run into the woods in the opposite direction from the Blakeney compound.
“Buster!” he called, beginning to walk in the direction the dog had run, toward the dark wall of trees. “Bus—”
Suddenly he stopped in mid-call. Some instinct told him to be silent — silent as the grave.
He turned off his flashlight. Now there were only the headlights of the car and the glow from the open door.