Murder Takes to the Hills (17 page)

“The only decent place in town…Gertrude’s. Perhaps she will grow to love us as time goes by.”

“That’s a ghastly thought, but I suppose you’re right. Their food is good.”

“I knew greed would triumph,” she said loftily.

Gertrude’s seemed even more popular this morning than when we were last there. They weren’t the breakfast crowd; these people had an early breakfast at home. They were here at this hour for coffee, maybe a pastry and news. I imagined the Dermott’s late-night roundup had been recounted countless times by now.

It was a little strange. It started with Gertrude approaching us with menus and a toothy grin, asking, “What’ll it be, girls, booth or table?” Then several people I didn’t know nodded and smiled or said hello.

Lou approached us, in obvious good spirits. “I understand you two earned your spurs last night.”

“Yep.” Cindy tucked her thumbs in her waistband and added, “Next week we start lasso lessons.”

A number of people smiled, and one man said, “I saw you riding Clay’s Princess yesterday. This time next year you’ll be in the Johnson City horse show.”

I turned to Lou. “How did Jasper the English setter make out?”

“Barring complications, he’s got his leg. But he’ll also have a permanent limp. Oh, don’t look so sad, he’ll get around fine. Dogs—most animals—adapt better than people. He’s a great boy, he’ll handle it.”

“That’s wonderful, really. I’m sure his owners are grateful. This town is lucky to have you and your partner.”

She bobbed her head in thanks and moved on to pay her bill.

Greed did win out. Surprisingly I saw cheese blintzes on the menu and—wary but hopeful, I ordered them. They were delicious, with crisp bacon and a peach chutney to die for. I asked the waitress if I could buy a jar and she brought one to the table. The professionally printed label read: Homegrown Peach Chutney from the kitchen of Sara Blackstone.

She raised horses, she raised vegetables, she made preserves. Did she ever sleep? No wonder she stayed so slim.

Cindy—for her—also let greed have its way. A Denver omelet complete with home fries. Amazingly, she left Fargo only about half of everything. I generously added a bite of one blintz to the doggie bag.

I started toward the door, while Cindy paid the check, and I noticed a woman struggling to open the door as she juggled a rather large carton. I took a couple of quick steps and pushed it open for her.

“Thank you.” She was a little out of breath. “You’re one of the women who saved the cattle last night, aren’t you?”

“Well, I helped a bit. I’m Alex Peres and…” I turned to Cindy, now beside me. “This is Cindy Hart, who also helped. Probably more than I. Being originally from Tennessee, she is apparently a natural farmer and livestock expert.”

“I’m Sophie Dermott. Robert, my husband, and I just wanted you to have a little ‘thank you’ for all your efforts. There’s a couple of nice steaks in here. Oh, and I must tell you. Rob fixed the fence this morning and said to tell you, there’ll be an alarm put in tomorrow to go off if it happens again. And he’s warning the neighbors to be on their guard.”

She held the box out toward me and I automatically took it—and nearly dropped it. It felt more like half a cow was in there.

We thanked her profusely, and then Cindy inquired, “Sophie, how did you know we were here?”

“Oh, a friend stopped by, happened to mention she seen you going in. I figured I could catch you. The steaks are frozen, so you’ll probably want to go straight home. I must run, Rob will be needing the truck.”

Ah, the joys of a small town.

At home we opened the box, and no longer wondered at its weight. Six
filets mignon
and six glorious T-bone steaks were still frozen solid as we popped them into the freezer.
 
We left two filets in the refrigerator to thaw; dinner was no longer a question mark.

The question was what to do for the rest of the day.
 
I felt lazy after the large breakfast but knew I wasn’t going to get away with it. I was right. Cindy suggested we take Fargo and climb up to the tarn near the top of the mountain.

“What, exactly, is a tarn?” I wanted to know.

Cindy smiled. “Well, according to my grandmother it’s a body of water larger than a pond and smaller than a lake, whatever that may be. It’s kind of like her recipe for devil’s food cake: you start with a large cup of flour. My grandfather said tarn was short for
tarnation
, because the water is always so
tarnation
cold. I believe both are basically correct. But if you are the scholarly type, you will wish to know it’s an Old English word left over from Anglo-Saxon days—meaning small mountain lake.”

 
What none of Cindy’s family, nor she, had mentioned was that you reached a tarn by one
helluva
hike. Uphill.

But the climb was beautiful. The trail ran beside the creek and then away and then back to it. I discovered three more river rocks of the right size, so we had two pair of bookends now—or would, when we picked them up on the way home. Periodically, the trail was covered with last year’s pine needles. Our hiking boots caused them to give off a clean, slightly acrid odor.

I saw a small flat piece of wood that looked like it might have been part of an orange crate. It had a nail hole in one end. What it was doing here, I couldn’t guess. But I picked a large oak leaf, jammed the stem of it in the hole and set my sailboat on the water.

Cindy picked a nearby dog-tooth violet and laid it on the craft, intoning, “I christen thee the Argo II.” We watched until it sailed jauntily out of sight and I wondered if it would make it to the lake far below. I looked at Cindy and we both laughed: it was fun to play.

We passed a small meadow dotted with some yellow flowers. Across the far end of it trotted a fox, dutifully followed by her two kits. Fargo wanted to play and barked twice. As smartly as a unit of the Marines, the threesome made a right turn and disappeared among the trees.

A blue jay flew low over us, squawking loudly at our trespass upon his territory. Less aggressive, a red-headed woodpecker ceased drilling on a dead pine limb and watched us warily until we passed, and then went back to his lunch.

Finally, we reached the tarn. It was a deep blue even as it reflected the lighter blue and white of the sky.
 
I wondered how deep it was. I unclipped Fargo’s leash and he ran forward to get a drink. Then he decided to wade a few steps forward and suddenly found himself swimming.
 
Obviously it shelved off quickly, and obviously it was too cold even for the intrepid Fargo. He clambered out,
 
shook himself and found a sunny patch of grass to roll in.

We had been warned against taking any sort of real picnic into the uninhabited areas where bears might get a whiff and decide to join the party. Consequently, all we had with us were a couple of peaches and two chunks of cheese, which we hoped would lack the charm of fried chicken or ham sandwiches or whatever for
Br’er
Bear. Even so, we ate rapidly and kept Fargo close beside us as he devoured his biscuit.

Our only “garbage” was the pair of peach pits, which we put back in their plastic bag and returned to the backpack. Then Cindy produced her surprise.
 

“Reward time!” She announced and pulled a peanut butter jar from the pack. It was filled with claret, and as we took turns sipping it from the jar. I lit a cigarette and figured it really didn’t get any better than this.

I waved my arm around. “Now who in their right mind would want a bunch of cottages and condos added to
this
landscape?
 
And who would want a nice paved road where fox babies go to play?”

“Greedy people who don’t endorse the rights of animals…or other people,” she replied. “And stupid people who think they can buy a house in the middle of a forest and that nothing will change.”

“It would be a crime.” I dipped my cigarette in the water,
fieldstripped
it and put the filter in my shirt pocket. “But how do you stop it?”

“Well, the people who have bought property along the foot of the mountain fall into two groups, mainly. They are either farmers who have bought as far up as pastures and land good for crops or pigs can be found. Or they are people like Ken and Frances. They bought a lot of extra property to block off access to the wild part of Crooked Creek Mountain.
 
It will work for a while, anyway. In the meantime, you try to get protective laws.”

“I’ve noticed a bunch of signs like
No trespassing, No hunting, No motor vehicles.
Do they work?”

“Fairly well.” She reached for our elegant wineglass. “The Rangers do what they can. They pretty well keep the little four-wheelers off the trails. Even the sheriff shoos
furriners
away, although he turns a blind eye to the farmer who takes an occasional deer on posted property.”

She took a sip of wine and set the jar back on the ground between us. “The sad thing about this whole mess we now seem to be involved in, is that a lot of people would lose money on these houses even if they weren’t jerry-built.”

“How’s that?”

“Think about it. The bears are not going to move out overnight. Would you send your child out to play over there?” She waved an arm toward the woods. “Especially if she were eating a fat tuna salad sandwich?”

“No,” I answered. “And I wouldn’t want her deciding to take a little wade in this tarn, either. It shelves off so fast even Fargo had to work at pulling himself out.”

“Not only that,” Cindy added. The water is terribly cold and never really warms up and is very deep. The old locals still call it bottomless. You can get cramps in no time. All you need is one kid mauled by a bear and another drowned and this place would be a ghost town. No one would be able to sell the houses or condos they had bought but no longer spent time in, and Advantage would be stuck with any they hadn’t already sold. And in a month, half of the bears would have been shot on sight.”

“So everybody loses, including the animals.” I shivered and took the last sip of wine.

Fargo gave a low rumble in his chest, and following his line of sight I spotted mama bear and the two little teddy bears watching us. Thinking they might be thirsty, I suggested we vacate the pond-site. We quickly put the water bottles and jar into the backpack, and slowly walked back to the trail.

As we went over the crest, I looked back and—sure enough—mama was on her hind feet giving us a final look. I waved and started the downhill trek.

Along the way, we picked up the three river rocks I had set aside earlier. Cindy put one in the pack and said the others were all mine. I carried one in each hand, and we reached the cabin just as my knuckles were about to drag the ground. My calves had already turned to Jell-o from the downhill hike, and visions of deck chairs danced in my head.

I did manage to hose the dried mud off of the rocks and line them up with the other one along the edge of the back porch. I could hear Cindy talking to Fargo on the front deck. I headed for the shower and happened to notice Cindy’s bottle of bubble bath stuff.

With absolutely no guilt I poured a slug of it into hot, hot water and disappeared from the chin down.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Why is it bad habits are so pleasantly easy to adopt? Thursday morning found us back at Gertrude’s caloric trough, smiling at familiar faces, saying good morning to people we now knew—at least casually.

As we made our way past the counter to the tables area, I said good morning to Deputy Spitz, who had been a member of our cattle roundup team a few nights back. Usually, the few times I had seen him in town, he reminded me of my brother Sonny…with a perfectly pressed, spotless uniform and boots polished to a shine that made one blink. Not this morning.

His uniform was spotted with dirt, the knees of his pants stained by grass and the handsome boots a muddy mess. More disturbing than the condition of his uniform was the strained look on his face.