"Well, I didn't exactly like almost getting my head blown off, either," Beckie said.
"I believe that," Cochrane said. "For now, I'm going to hope it was just an accident—some fool of a hunter getting careless."
"What if it wasn't?" Beckie asked.
"If it wasn't. . ." Chester Cochrane's long face got even longer. "If it wasn't, then it seems to me the war's come to Elizabeth, and that's not so good." He paused. "You know those strangers who came to visit Ted Snodgrass?"
"Sure. What about them?" Beckie said. Randolph Brooks and Justin Monroe were staying in Elizabeth's one and only motel. It wasn't called the Dismal Swamp, but from the look of the place it should have been. Justin had some interesting things to say about the food at the diner across the street. Beckie had eaten there a couple of times. If anything, she thought Justin was too nice.
"Do you suppose they were the people you saw up on Jephany Knob, the people who took a shot at you?" the sheriff asked.
"They didn't get here till the day after that happened, so I don't see how they could be," Beckie said, wondering if he'd gone nuts.
He sighed. "No, I don't reckon so," he admitted. "But we don't get a whole lot of strangers around here. Now we've got two lots in town. I just kind of wondered if there was any connection."
"I don't think so." Beckie did think he wanted the people with a gun handed to him on a silver platter. If he could do things the easy way, he wouldn't have to try to figure out what really happened. Beats working, she thought. Beats trying to discover who did shoot at me, too.
Sheriff Cochrane sighed again as they tramped up State Highway 14 into Elizabeth. They could walk on the asphalt— you'd hear a car coming in plenty of time to move out of the way. "Sooner or later, I'll get to the bottom of it," the sheriff said. "Somebody who knows something'll blab where he shouldn't, and word'll get back to me. People can't keep their fool mouths shut a lot of the time, even when they ought to."
"I guess so," Beckie said. They walked past Clay Street, and up to Prunty. "Can I ask you something?"
His big head went up and down. "Sure. What is it?"
"What's it like trying to be a sheriff when you already know all the people you're trying to ride herd on?"
"Well, it's interesting sometimes." Even the sheriffs smile looked mournful. Maybe he had some bloodhound on his mother's side. "Sometimes you have to do your job in spite of knowing people. If somebody punches somebody else in the nose, it doesn't matter if you went fishing with him day before yesterday. You've got to see that it doesn't happen again. I've lost friends on account of that, I'm afraid."
"I bet you have," Beckie said. She liked Cochrane better, or at least respected him more, for knowing he would come down on his friends if he had to. She turned onto Prunty to go back to the Snodgrasses' house. Would the sheriff follow her?
He didn't. He just tipped his broad-brimmed hat and ambled up 14 toward the county courthouse. When he got there, he'd probably fill out a form. Chances were it would stay buried on his computer's hard drive till the end of time. Or would he have to put it down on paper instead? He might have a couple of hundred years' worth of arrest reports in one file drawer. How much ever happened in Elizabeth? How much ever happened in this whole county?
When Beckie got back to the Snodgrasses' house, she wasn't surprised to find Mr. Brooks and his nephew there. Mr. Snod-grass was the only person in town Mr. Brooks knew. As long as the coin and stamp dealer was here, he could do some more business—and he could pass the time with someone who was interested in the same things he was. It beat the stuffing out of sitting in that grim-looking motel staring at the TV—or at the wall.
As for Justin . . . Beckie smiled to herself. Plainly, he knew a good bit about coins and stamps. But she didn't think that was the only reason he'd come over. She didn't mind. He was interesting to talk to—more interesting, and more complicated, than she'd expected someone from Virginia to be. And they both had to know nothing that happened here was likely to matter much. When they could, they'd go back to where they lived and get on with their real lives.
Gran was there, too. She was talking with her cousin—and shooting suspicious glances at Justin. Disapproval stuck out all over her, like quills on a porcupine. Beckie couldn't see why. Justin wasn't doing anything rude. He was just listening to his uncle and Mr. Snodgrass talk about coins, and putting in something himself every once in a while.
He did brighten up when Beckie came through the door. "Hi," he said.
"Hi, Justin," Beckie said. Gran's quills got longer and pointier. But then, Gran disapproved of everybody and everything. Beckie went on, "Want to grab a fizz and go out back and talk?"
"Sure," Justin said, and then, politely, "If that's okay, Mr. Snodgrass?"
"Don't see why not." Mr. Snodgrass chuckled. "When I was your age, I was more interested in pretty girls than in nineteenth-century silver, too."
Mrs. Snodgrass clucked. "Watch yourself, Ted. You'll embarrass him."
"I think it's terrible that—" Gran started.
Beckie didn't wait to find out what Gran thought was terrible this time. What Gran didn't think was terrible made a much shorter list. Beckie grabbed a couple of fizzes from the refrigerator. Justin followed her outside. Once he'd closed the door behind him, he said, "I'm afraid your grandmother doesn't like me much."
"Don't worry about it," Beckie told him. "You don't have to be special or anything for Gran not to like you."
"She seems nice," Justin said, which proved how polite he was.
"That only shows you don't know her very well," Beckie said cheerfully. "Have you heard any news lately? Do they know when they're going to lift this stupid quarantine? People must be going crazy."
"I bet they are," Justin said. "I talked to my mom down in Charleston. She says it hasn't got there yet."
"That's good, anyhow." Beckie made a face that reminded her more of Gran's usual expression than she wished it did. "You know what a mess this is when the best news you have is that a stupid disease hasn't got somewhere."
"Have they figured out what it is yet?" Justin asked.
"Modified measles—that was on the news last night," Beckie answered. "No word when they'll have a vaccine, though."
"Measles." Justin sounded worried. "That's not so good."
"I know. The regular kind will kill you if you get it and you don't have a lot of immunity." Beckie thought about American Indians and Pacific Islanders, then wished she hadn't.
Maybe Justin was thinking along with her, because he said, "Nobody's likely to have a lot of immunity to this strain." Beckie nodded. He added, "What a great thing to talk about on a nice summer afternoon." She nodded again, even more unhappily.
Four
Justin was as thrilled about going back to the motel as he would have been about getting his wisdom teeth yanked. At least dentists knocked you out when you lost your wisdom teeth, and they gave you pain pills afterwards. Bioengineers said they were only a few years away from taking wisdom teeth out of the gene pool so no one had to worry about them any more. They'd been saying that for as long as he could remember, though, so maybe they weren't so close as they thought.
As for the motel... It was clean, anyhow. Why not? Justin thought. They would have had plenty of time to wash things since the last time anybody stayed here. Clean or not, there'd been a lot of dust on top of the TV set.
"How do you suppose they stay in business?" he asked Mr. Brooks.