Grinny was looking down at me with a furious expression on her face. “You got some nerve, boy,” she growled, “comin’ up here and doin’ that.”
“I didn’t come up here,” I said angrily. “They brought me. That’s called kidnapping back in the World. You have a reason for doing that?”
“You ain’t kidnapped. You was brought here so’s I could ask ye straight: What’re you here for? Why you pokin’ around in Robbins County, askin’ folks ‘bout Creighs?”
“I want to know what happened to that park ranger, the one who was beaten and raped at Crown Lake.”
“What’s ‘at got to do with us?”
“Don’t know,” I said. “But we want to find out who did that and bring him in.”
“Who’s we?” Grinny said. Nathan and his shotgun had not moved one inch. The old man groaned on the ground, but the other one exhibited the stillness of the grave. I wondered if I’d hit him too hard in the temple. I hadn’t meant to hit him there, but those snaggly yellow teeth had looked both serious and toxic.
“The National Park Service,” I replied. “The Carrigan County Sheriff’s Office. The rangers at Thirty Mile station. And probably the decent, law-abiding people in this county, both of them.”
She snorted at this insult. “They hire you up?”
“That’s right,” I said. The truth would have been too complicated. Grinny leaned forward, and the heavily stressed rocking chair complained again.
“Well, you hear me, mister,” she said. “What goes on in Robbins County ain’t none of your bizness nor anyone else’s. If we got menfolk out in them woods doin’ that kinda shit, we take care of it, our way, not your way. Our lawyers come in two sizes: ten-gauge and twelve-gauge. You follow?”
“Well, that sounds good,” I said. “But a body or two delivered to the Thirty Mile station might be more convincing.”
Grinny raised her eyebrows, as if she hadn’t thought of that.
“You remember ’em dogs?” Nathan asked. “On the Rocky Falls road?”
I looked at him blankly for a second, then remembered the tall man up on the ridge with the binoculars. Had that been Nathan? I nodded.
“That convincing enough for ye?”
“That was the man who assaulted the ranger?”
“It was. You want meat for your lawyers’n such, you go on down there, pick up what’s left. Ain’t much, I reckon, but you’s the one needs convincin’.”
“Like I was sayin’,” Grinny said. “We take care’a things our way. You get on outta here now, and don’t you come back to Robbins County.”
I assessed my situation. The men in the shadows had gathered closer, but they weren’t doing anything except watching. Yet. The old man on the ground was crabbing his fingers toward his dropped shotgun. When he saw me watching, he withdrew his hand. The other one still hadn’t moved, although he did appear to be breathing now. Nathan’s shotgun still hadn’t wavered. I concluded that this was not the time for speeches. All this complex calculation took me a good three seconds.
“All right,” I said. I turned around and started walking down the meadow toward the tree line by the road. My back prickled in fearful anticipation, but I forced myself to simply walk away without a backward glance at all those shotguns. When I got down to the actual road, the cabin was out of sight. I turned across the hill to the road and picked up the pace. The road was a glorified dirt track, and the woods on either side were entirely dark. It was going to be a long night, I thought, as I rubbed the aching muscles, what was left of them, in my left arm. Then I heard a large dog start baying somewhere behind me, joined quickly by several others. An image of the pack tearing up the fat man crossed my mind and I cranked on a few more knots, although I could stumble only so fast down a rutted road in the dark. The dog noise kept up, but it didn’t sound like it was getting any closer. Grinny Creigh sending me one last message: Keep going, stranger, or worse things can happen than getting shot at. I pulled out my cell phone, but, as I’d expected, there was no service. Cell phone service seemed to be available in inverse proportion to how badly you needed it.
I had walked for almost forty-five minutes, still not reaching level ground or a paved road, when I heard a vehicle approaching from behind me. I stepped off the road into the trees and watched a pickup truck with too much engine come around the corner above me, showing only parking lights. When it drew abreast, the offside window came down and Rowena Creigh’s face appeared.
“Need a ride?” she asked.
I hesitated.
“C’mon, it’s fifteen miles back to Marionburg. I don’t bite, less’n I get really excited.”
I said okay and climbed in. The truck was not new, but there was obviously a huge mill under the hood. The interior smelled of perfume and cigarette smoke. She was wearing a white sleeveless blouse knotted under her breasts, cutoff blue-jean shorts, and sandals. Her long legs gleamed in the light from the dashboard. She put the truck in second gear and let it roll itself down the road, the engine rumbling in protest.
“Better’n the way you came, don’t you think?” she asked.
“I didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter,” I said. “But I do appreciate the lift.”
She laughed. “Grinny wants to see you, she’s gonna see you. One way or another. That’s how it is around these hills. You’d best believe that.”
“I saw a fat man get run down and torn to pieces by a dog pack the other day,” I said. “Those the same dogs I just heard back there?”
“Wouldn’t know anything about that,” she said, fishing a cigarette out of her blouse pocket and punching in the truck’s lighter. “That there’s menfolk business.” She looked across at me, a teasing look in her eyes. “I just live there.”
“Sure you do,” I said.
She lit the cigarette and returned the lighter. She took a deep drag and blew out a big cloud of smoke. “Uncle M. C. wasn’t too happy with you bein’ in Rob-bins County. You some kinda lawman, ain’t you?”
“He really your uncle?” I asked, avoiding the question.
“Hell if I know,” she said, rolling down the driver’s-side window to let a little of the smoke out. “Uncles, brothers, cousins, husbands-what’s it matter when the county phone book has only eleven different names listed?”
I laughed despite myself. The dirt track ended at a two-lane blacktop, and she turned right. She flipped on her headlights and put the hammer down. The truck jumped forward and I found my seat belt. She wasn’t wearing one. “Rocky Falls looks a little bigger than all that,” I said.
She grunted derisively. “Rocky Falls ain’t what I’m talkin’ about. I meant the county. You really a lawman?”
“Nope,” I said. “Used to be, but I’m retired. Now I do investigative work for hire. How about you? What do you do?”
“Me?” she laughed. “I’m Rue Creigh and I cause trouble. I drive around makin’ all the menfolk crazy and their women huffy. I smoke and I drink and, lemme see, there’s a third thing, but damned if it hasn’t slipped my mind just now. But it’ll come to me.”
I could just imagine, which was probably the object of the lesson. “Nice truck,” I said.
“Meanin’ what-how do I come to have it, seein’ as I’m just a layabout?”
“Interesting choice of words, but let me guess. Grinny Creigh got it for you.”
“Good guess, lawman. And Ym guessin’ you know how she manages that. But you need to be real careful if that’s what you’re really doin’ up here, ‘cause Grinny don’t abide strangers pokin’ into her business. Got her a regular hateon for that.”
“I told her why I was here, to find out-”
“That’s finished business,” she interrupted. “You want some sign of the old boy done that, you’ll need to get you a pooper-scooper.”
Suspicions confirmed, I thought. I saw a sign indicating we were crossing into Carrigan County and relaxed fractionally. The road paralleled a rushing mountain stream, with towering green hills on either side. There was no moon, but the air was incredibly clear. “That’s awfully convenient,” I said. “But we have only your word for that.”