Don't Cry for Me

by Sharon Sala

There was a sudden scent of mint beneath his nose, and then someone yanked the duct tape off his mouth. He moaned.

  “Sit him up,” Lonnie snapped.

  Hands yanked at Quinn’s body, dragging him backward and pulling him upright until he was leaning against a wall. He felt like a rag doll. His mind was working, but there were no bones in his body to hold him up.

  “Open your mouth,” Lonnie said.

  Like hell.

  “I said open your mouth, damn it,” Lonnie snapped, and splashed water in his face. “It’s just water. I want to talk. Your mouth has to be dry.”

  Quinn licked his lips, tasted the water and opened his mouth.

  Lonnie poured a good half a bottle into Quinn’s mouth, then laughed when he choked.

  “Sorry. Didn’t know you needed to be told to swallow. I thought you knew enough to do that on your own.”

  Rage came swiftly, blinding Quinn to everything but the urge to silence that laugh.

  “So, Quinn Walker, you’ve gotten yourself into a mess of trouble, haven’t you? I understand you wanted a list of my employees. Exactly why is that?” Lonnie kicked the bottom of Quinn’s boot. “I’m here. You wanted to talk, so talk. Why did you want the list?”

  “Take off my blindfold,” Quinn said.

  Lonnie frowned. “That’s not a question. It wasn’t even a request. In fact, it sounded like an order to me, and I’m the only one who gives orders around here.”

  Quinn didn’t move. He wasn’t giving the bastard an inch.

  Lonnie leaned over and slapped the side of Quinn’s face so hard that his head bounced back against the wall.

  Quinn grunted from the impact, tasted blood in his mouth and spat.

  “You bastard. You spit on my shoe,” Lonnie snarled, and slapped him again.

  “If you hadn’t made my damn mouth bleed I wouldn’t have had to spit, and if you’d taken off my blindfold I could have seen where I was aiming.”

  Lonnie thought about being pissed but surprised himself by grinning.

  “You’re absolutely right. I take full responsibility for that error. My bad.”

  He yanked the blindfold off Quinn’s face and then leaned in so close Quinn could smell that same scent of mint on his breath and realized it must be mouthwash.

  Lonnie smiled. “Now that we’re looking at each other in such a congenial fashion, what the fuck did you want with a list of my employees?”

  “Because somewhere on that list is the name of a man who’s been poaching up in the backcountry. He thinks he’s real smart, killing the animals using a bow and arrow instead of a gun, because an arrow is silent. But he made a real big mistake a while back. He shot a bear—a real big black bear—but he didn’t kill it. That arrow festered, and it got sick and couldn’t hunt, and then it came across a pair of hikers. The bear killed one man and crippled the other. The federal government wants the man for poaching, and the law wants him for involuntary manslaughter, because it’s his fault that bear went rogue and killed a man.”

  Lonnie blinked. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This didn’t have a single damned thing to do with his operation. All this fuss, and it could have been avoided. He turned and looked at Buell like he’d never seen him before.

  “You couldn’t just ask him why he wanted the list? He could have had it. This has nothing to do with us, and yet you had to make it into a big deal.”

  Buell glared. “I did exactly what you told me to do. That and nothing more.”

  Still pissed, Lonnie looked back at Quinn.

  “So tell me, how do you know it’s one of my employees? It could be anybody, even an outsider who doesn’t even live around here.”

  “No, it’s someone who works here. I know because of the prints I found at the kill sites. There’s a notch in the heel of one boot, and yesterday, when I stopped along the road to check my vehicle, I saw that same print in the dirt. I trailed it to the gate before it disappeared. For starters, I want the man who is wearing those shoes to explain how his boot print wound up at those kill sites.”

  Lonnie frowned. “But you don’t have any authority here, do you, ranger man?”

  “No, but Sheriff Marlow does, and I’ve already told him what I found. He’ll be here on his own soon enough.”

  Lonnie leaped to his feet. “You already told the sheriff?” He turned on Buell. “Damn you. All you had to do was ask a couple of questions and this could all have been avoided.”

  Buell glared.

  Lonnie frowned, then squatted down beside Quinn and looked him in the eyes.

  “What am I going to do with you? You’re useless to me. I have no reason to keep you alive.”

  It was no more than Quinn had feared, but hearing it said aloud was shocking. He had to find a way to make Farrell think he had a secret they needed to know. Then he realized Farrell wouldn’t know about the lab results on Willis Colvin. He wouldn’t know the authorities already suspected him. He grinned.

  Lonnie frowned. “What’s so funny?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” Quinn said.

  Lonnie hit him several times in rapid succession with no more emotion than if he was brushing crumbs off his shirt.

  “I don’t hear you laughing anymore. Are you still laughing?” Lonnie asked.

  Quinn groaned. His vision was blurry, and the area he could see was growing smaller. But instead of begging for mercy, he looked up, locked gazes with Lonnie and, even though he knew what was coming, smiled again.

  After that he lost count of the blows, until finally he passed out in the middle of a curse raining down on his head.

  As Quinn slid sideways onto the floor of the old mine, his dog tags slid out from beneath his shirt onto the dirt. Lonnie eyed them curiously, then rocked back on his heels and stood up. His knuckles were burning. The rage-sparked adrenaline was beginning to ebb, leaving him shaking and spent.

  “Stupid, hardheaded fucker.” He pointed at Carter, who was standing by in silent horror. “You, throw some water on his face, and when he comes to, come and get me. I’ll find out what he’s smiling about, and then I’ll drop his ass down one of these shafts. No one laughs at me.”

  * * *

  Long after midnight had come and gone, and at Mariah’s urging, they’d sent Dolly to sleep in the loft. Meg and Mariah pulled the sofa out into a bed for themselves. Meg drifted off to sleep with her hand on Mariah’s arm.

  Mariah couldn’t sleep for worry, and she didn’t even want to try, because she knew the turmoil of the evening had set her up for combat. She didn’t want Meg and Dolly to see her flip out again.

  She lay quietly in the bed with a knot in her gut, staring up at the ceiling, wondering if the owl was up there tonight, wondering if it knew about Quinn. Had he seen him on his night flight? Was Quinn lying at the bottom of some cliff? Had he been attacked by an animal? Every scary scenario she could think of came and went until exhaustion claimed her, and then so did the war.

  Mariah had never known there was a taste to fear until Afghanistan, and then it was with her daily—sharp, metallic, with just a pinch of blood. Tonight the taste was strong as they took cover from a sniper who had them pinned down in the bones of a shelled-out house. Her training kicked in as their unit returned fire. Mortar fire was exploding all around them. The night sky was lit up like the Fourth of July, and someone was screaming in pain. Seconds later the house they were in went up in a ball of fire.

  Mariah sat up with a gasp, her body bathed in sweat, her heart pounding against her chest. She rolled out of bed and ran to the window, but the night sky was clear. When she turned and saw Meg, not Quinn, in the bed, she remembered and wanted to weep. If she could only wake up from this nightmare as easily as she had awakened from those of the past. She’d come here to heal and find peace, only to learn that some wounds never heal, and there was no escaping evil, no matter how far you ran or how high you went.

  Her fear was so strong that she felt as if she were choking. She looked toward the kitc
hen, half expecting to see Quinn standing at the stove teasing her about something she’d done, but he wasn’t there. She’d lost her anchor. Tears would have been a relief, but she was too numb for emotion.

  Moses padded across the floor to where she was standing and put a cold nose on the back of her leg. She knelt and put her arms around his neck.

  He whined once, soft and low.

  “I know. I’m scared, too,” she whispered. Then she got up and went to the door. “Do you need to go out?”

  Moses trotted outside onto the deck, paused at the steps and looked back.

  “Go on,” she said. “I’ll be right here.”

  The pup bounded down and into the grass, made a few quick circles out in the starlit meadow, did his business then ran back. She locked the door, and then, after sharing a cookie with Moses, she went back into the living room, curled up in Quinn’s chair with the pup in her lap and finally drifted off to sleep.

  * * *

  It was just after daybreak, and Mariah had already showered and dressed, and coffee was freshly made. Moses was noisily crunching his kibble. Dolly was still asleep, but the scent of fresh-brewed coffee had gotten Meg out of bed. She was sitting at the kitchen table sipping her first cup when Moses looked up and barked.

  “Someone’s coming,” Mariah said, and ran to the door. “It’s Ryal.”

  Upstairs, Dolly began stirring as the others ran out to meet him.

  Mariah knew the moment she saw him that he’d been up all night, and from the look on his face she could tell there was news.

  He didn’t waste time. “We found his Jeep four miles into the park. The door was open. The keys were in the ignition, but he was nowhere in sight.”

  Mariah moaned as Ryal put his arms around her and gave her a hug.

  “Come inside, both of you,” Meg said. “Ryal, there’s fresh coffee. Mariah, come sit with me. We can hear what he has to say sitting down as easily as not.”

  “What’s happening?” Dolly called down from upstairs.

  “Come down, Mama. There’s news.”

  As soon as the women had gathered, Ryal began to talk.

  “Here’s what I know. It took a little while to notify Sheriff Marlow, then get the search team organized and decide on starting points. Considering the size of the park, our immediate resources were small, and without knowing which direction to look, any decision we made was automatically going to leave most of the park unexplored. One of the other rangers found the Jeep, and he also found an interesting clue beside it.”

  “What?” Mariah asked.

  “A boot print with a wedge-shaped notch in the heel.”

  Mariah felt sick. “The poacher. Quinn went after that poacher on his own, even after his boss and the sheriff told him not to, and now he’s…” She couldn’t make herself go on.

  Dolly slid into a chair at the table.

  “So what’s happening now?” she asked.

  “They’re setting up a new search site where they found the truck.”

  “No, that’s wrong,” Mariah insisted. “They need to be looking at the old mine where Quinn found the footprints. We won’t find Quinn until we find out who the poacher is.”

  “She’s right,” Dolly agreed. “Has anyone called Jake Doolen? He and his dogs could find Quinn. I just know it.”

  Ryal frowned. “I’ve told you everything I know, which isn’t much.”

  Mariah felt helpless. “This is ridiculous. Everything bad that’s happening is coming from that mine. Quinn said the sheriff thinks there’s a new drug operation on the mountain. There was pure cocaine in that dead boy’s body. I grew up on the streets. I know that unadulterated drugs are just as deadly as drugs cut with bad stuff. If there’s a drug operation at the mine and Quinn was nosing around there looking for his poacher, some very bad people could have gotten the wrong idea about his interest. People who run drugs are as lethal as the shit they sell. If Quinn’s in there and still alive, he won’t be for much longer.”

  Ryal was stunned. “I didn’t know about the drug report on Willis Colvin.”

  “It’s probably not public information,” she said.

  He stood abruptly. “I’m going home. I need to make some calls, and all the numbers I need are there. If I hear anything new I’ll let you know.”

  Mariah was pale, but oddly calm. “Thank you for coming, Ryal.”

  He turned and hugged her. “You’re family, and you’re welcome. I’ll be in touch.”

  At that point Dolly stood up. “Meg, get your stuff. We’re going home to tend to the chickens and milk the cow, and then I’m calling the Doolens. There’s nothing that says I can’t hire them on my own.” She looked at Mariah. “Will you be all right here on your own for a bit? We’re coming right back.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Mariah said. “Besides, I won’t be alone. I have Moses.”

  Moses heard his name, sidled up beside her and put his nose in the palm of her hand. Mariah slid her hand along his muzzle to the top of his head.

  Within minutes they were gone, but there was a plan forming in the back of Mariah’s mind as she began digging through the closets, and then out in the storage room off the deck, looking to see what was available.

  * * *

  Beth met Ryal at the door as he parked. Rufus barked once from where he was lying but didn’t bother getting up.

  She could see how tired Ryal was, and she saw the worry in his eyes.

  “Any news?”

  “They found his truck with the keys in it, door wide-open and the poacher’s footprint in the dirt beside it.”

  Beth felt sick. “No, oh, no, what are they doing? Do they think he’s—”

  “I don’t know what they think,” Ryal muttered. “But something Mariah said set me to thinking. Do you happen to know where we put Agent Ames’s phone number?”

  Beth’s eyes widened. “As in FBI Agent Ames? The man who helped get me back to testify at Ike Pappas’s trial?”

  “Yeah, that one.”

  “I think so. Come with me. You need food and a shower and about eight hours of good sleep.”

  “I can sleep when Quinn is home, but I’ll take some breakfast. And that number.”

  Beth dug through the desk drawer and finally pulled out a business card.

  “Here it is. Do you want your eggs fried or scrambled?”

  “Fried, please, and two pieces of toast. I’ll be there as soon as I’ve gotten hold of Ames.”

  Ryal sat down in a chair by the window as he made the call. Two years had come and gone since Beth had testified at the trial. He hoped Ames remembered him. The phone rang three times, but just as Ryal feared it was about to go to voice mail it was answered.

  “Ames speaking.”

  “Ames, this is Ryal Walker, from Rebel Ridge, Kentucky. Do you remember me?”

  Ames smiled. “I’m not likely to forget you and your people. You did something the FBI failed miserably at. You managed to keep your girl alive and help us put a very bad man behind bars. So what can I do for you?”

  “Do you remember my brother Quinn?”

  Ames thought. “Isn’t that the one who’d been in Afghanistan? The sharpshooter?”

  “Yes. Listen, he’s gone missing, and it’s kind of an involved story, but I’d appreciate it if you’d hear me out, because I’m calling in a favor.”

  Ames leaned forward, resting his elbows on the kitchen table. “I’m listening.”

  Ryal began to explain what had happened, all the way from when Quinn found the hikers to the suspicious “new mushroom” business to the Colvin family’s drug-related deaths, ending with finding Quinn’s abandoned vehicle only a few hours ago.

  “The problem is that the sheriff’s hands are tied because he doesn’t have enough evidence against the owner of the mushroom farm to get a search warrant. And the park service has no authority off the reserve.”

  “That’s quite a mess you have going,” Ames said.

  “You have no idea. Will you help?
”

  Ames frowned. “Here’s what I can do right away. I have a friend in the DEA. We’ll do some digging and see what we can turn up on this mine owner. What was his name again?”

  “Lonnie Farrell. He’s been living in Chicago for years, but he was born and raised here on the mountain. He got arrested for making and selling meth when he was fourteen, and spent the next four years in a juvenile detention. When he got out he went to Chicago, and he’s been working for some shady guy up there ever since.”

  “You said this Farrell set up his mushroom business in an abandoned coal mine?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you happen to know the name of the mine?”

  “Everybody up here knows it. It was the Foley Brothers Mine but it’s been shut down for twenty or thirty years, at least.”

  “Okay, thanks. That gives me a place to start. Let me see what I can find out.”

  “One more thing. I realize I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but if, by some small miracle, my brother is still alive, he won’t be for long. If there is a new drug operation in the area, once the people running it hear they’re under suspicion, they’ll just pick up and leave. And they’re not going to leave my brother alive when they do.”

  “I hear you. I’ll call you as soon as I know something.”

  Ryal sighed. He’d done all he could do. “Thank you for hearing me out.”

  “Hey, like you said, I owe you. Tell your Beth that Agent Ames says hello.”

  “Yes, sir, I will.”

  “Ryal. Your breakfast is ready,” Beth called.

  Ryal said goodbye to Agent Ames and hung up the phone. “Be right there.”

  * * *

  When Jake Doolen heard Dolly Walker’s voice on the phone, he was so startled that he sloshed coffee out of his cup.

  “Well, good morning, Dolly. This is a nice surprise.”

  “Thank you, Jake, but this isn’t a social call. We have trouble. Quinn’s gone missing. They found his truck early this morning, but he was nowhere around, and the law is fiddle-footing around wasting time on warrants and judges while my boy’s life may be hanging by a thread. Will you help me?”

  Jake sat the cup down and turned off the fire under his eggs.