shifted into reverse, the back-up lights came on, and the pickup rolled calmly backward and off to the side of the road by the man down on the pavement. A man stepped slowly from the cab of the truck and paused, drawing in a long, slow, deep breath, as if to scent the night. Moving without haste, he reached behind the seat in the cab, withdrew a rain slicker, and put it on over his work shirt. He flipped the hood of the slicker up over his head. His face, within the hood of the slicker, remained shaded from any view. Like a shadow, he walked with steady, composed steps to the man down on the road.
Shoulders steady, his hooded head bent forward, the man from the truck looked down at the man on the road. After a few motionless moments, the hooded head turned to the side and spat casually onto the pavement. The man on the pavement lay on his back, crumpled in a heap, gasping for air, his lips trying to form the words he would speak if only he could draw a breath.
“Heh . . . heh . . . help me.”
The hooded head cocked to the side for a moment, considering the subject on the ground, and then the man from the truck pushed his glasses up his nose, squatted, and looked into the eyes of the man on the ground. The fallen man’s eyes fluttered, trying to focus on the image leaning over him.
“Puh . . . puh . . . please.”
The man from the truck rose and turned his hooded head up, into the night, and sniffed. Once. Twice. Three, four, five times. He found the scent of something recently passed. Something fresh, yet ancient. Something indescribably wild. The man from the truck drew one long inhale through his nose, held it, then exhaled slowly as he squatted again, slid his arms under the neck and knees of the fallen man, and lifted him from the pavement. The man on the pavement found his voice and howled in pain.
“Shhhhhh,” said the hooded man.
The hooded man slid the other man lengthwise into the bed of his pickup beside two battered plastic coolers, something covered with a muddy blue tarp, and a dog kennel. Save for its pink tongue, the dog was invisible within the dark hollow of its kennel. A mild, eager whimper issued from the kennel as the man in the slicker settled the other man’s body into the truck bed.
“Shhhhhh,” he said softly to the dog.
The hooded man lifted the blue tarp, revealing a gas generator and two red plastic fuel cans. He spread the tarp over the other man and gently tucked it around his injured body. The other man groaned and whimpered. After a long look in each direction along the road, the hooded man climbed back into the truck cab and turned the ignition. As the truck idled, he leaned across the seat, opened the glove box, and felt among its contents until he located what he sought. The rear window glass of the truck cab was missing, and he leaned his hooded face through the opening to look down on the man gasping in his truck bed. After a moment he reached his right arm through the open window. In his hand he held a small-caliber pistol. He held it to the top of the other man’s head and fired one round into his brain. The head of the man under the tarp jerked slightly, then his body fell limp. The kenneled dog yipped briefly at the report of the gun.
“Shhhhhh,” the hooded man said to the dog, then pulled the hem of the tarp over the man’s face, settled back inside the truck cab, returned the pistol to the glove box, and drove his truck back out onto the road leading south toward Sherwood.
Spring
1
HER SHIFT WAS OVER, BUT SHE WASN’T DONE FOR THE day. Not quite yet. Sandy Holston initialed the last of the day charts she’d been reviewing and dropped it into the appropriate hanging folder in the rack by the desk behind the nurse’s station. She scooped her purse from the floor under the desk and slid the strap over her shoulder. The purse was small in comparison to the bags carried by most of the other nurses and nurses’ aides. Sandy carried little in it, only the essentials—wallet and checkbook, of course, keys, a small hairbrush, an old tube of lip balm, a four-inch case knife, and a plastic case containing two tampons, in case of emergency. She carried no makeup—never wore it. More recently she had added the cell phone that, as a birthday present, her friend Margie Callander had bought for her and insisted she carry because it was high time she at least pretended to live in the twenty-first century. Sandy had tried to explain to Margie that, as kind and generous as the gift was, it wouldn’t be of much use. After all, she spent the vast majority of her time either at work or home, both equipped with landline phones, or up at James Keefe’s little bungalow wedged in the ravine along the upper Ripshin River, where Margie knew full well a cell signal didn’t have a prayer of ever reaching. “Indulge me, honey,” Margie had said.
Sandy’s purse also contained a thin spool of 6X tippet and a small plastic case of flies. Just a few of the basic patterns—a couple of prince nymphs, two Adamses, three yellow stoneflies, and a woolly bugger. The tippet and flies were for the spare fly rod she kept lodged behind the seat of her truck—in case of emergency. And the purse itself, a thing of olive-drab canvas, complemented its more curious contents. Sandy had fashioned it herself, recycling pieces of an old fishing vest. She’d cut away one of the compartmented storage pouches and stitched one of the shoulder straps back onto it so she could sling it over her shoulder. The purse served a practical function and was crafted accordingly. The shifting intricacies of women’s fashion were for women other than Sandy Holston. “I like it, it’s cute,” Margie had said when she first saw it. “And so you, that’s for sure.”
Sandy notched her thumb under the shoulder strap of her purse and stepped out from behind the nurses’ station as Joyce, her replacement, arrived for her shift. Joyce Malden, one of the other supervising nurses for this wing of the Ripshin River Valley Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center, thrived on whatever gossip happened to be winding its way through the Ripshin River Valley, gossip she seemed compelled to share whenever possible.
Older and heavier than Sandy, Joyce Malden let out a huffing, heavy sigh as she slung her huge shoulder bag to the floor beneath the desk. “Sorry I’m late,” she said.
“Not a problem. Right on time, pretty much. Have a good night.” Sandy turned to leave the nurses’ station, but she was too slow to escape Joyce’s newest bit of news.
“You know the man who went missing up in Sherwood?”
Sandy was caught in place, her body leaning toward the long hallway leading away from the nurses’ station, her head turned to Joyce’s insistent voice. She nodded, her body straining away from Joyce’s enthusiasm. She’d heard a bit about the story a few days ago while driving to work, listening to the local news and weather on the radio in her truck. A car found abandoned on one of the county roads leading into Sherwood. A man reported missing by his wife, who was out of town visiting family and couldn’t raise him on the phone. The man’s absence confirmed by his employer, who said he hadn’t been to work for two days. No apparent signs of foul play. No significant clues forthcoming at this time. Investigation continuing.
“Well, the missing guy is the husband of Rhonda Mullins. Can you believe it?”
Sandy knitted her brow.
“You now, the woman who volunteers here? Does the crafts class for the residents on Monday afternoons, beading and all that stuff? Always brings a big tray of cupcakes?”
Sandy shook her head slowly. “Don’t think I ever met her.”
“Oh, that’s right. You’re usually off on Mondays.”
Sandy usually worked weekends and took her days off during the week. And did so gladly. Far fewer other anglers plodding up and down the trout streams of the Ripshin Valley during the work week. A much better chance on those days of having the streams to herself.
“Anyway,
