Thinking they were out of harm’s way, they stopped halfway up the hill to rest. More shots sounded not far behind them.
“He’s actually chasing us!” Alan cried.
Kathryn was shocked. It was one thing to accidentally fire into an area where there were people, quite another to deliberately pursue them. She and Alan clambered up the rest of the hill and took off down the leaf-strewn trail that brought them back to the gully where the brook was. When they were safely across and up the other side of the gully, they stopped again to catch their breath and listen. Shots still sounded, but more distantly. Whoever it was must have given up. They proceeded down Gordon’s road at a slower pace with Alan in the lead. They’d climbed over the series of fallen logs, and Alan had already plunged into the tangle of brush when branches crackled behind Kathryn. She whipped around, afraid it might be their pursuer.
A large, light-colored buck stood in the road a few yards away. It looked at her with liquid brown eyes. She stared back, awestruck. Being this close to such a magnificent animal made her feel as if she’d been given a wonderful gift. Alan’s voice broke the spell. “Coming, Kathryn?”
The buck shook its antlers and stomped the ground. Then it turned and bounded into the woods.
“Kathryn?” Alan burst through the brush. “What is it? What’re you looking at?”
Regretfully, she withdrew her gaze from the woods. “I think I just saw the white stag.”
Chapter 14
“That was quite an adventure!” Alan collapsed into a patio lounge chair.
Kathryn sank into a chair beside him. “And one I’d rather not repeat anytime soon.”
“I can’t believe that lunatic actually chased us.”
“Me either.”
They were silent a few minutes, then Alan said, “That deer you saw—why do you think it was a white stag? How did you even know to call it that?”
“The owner of the general store told me there’s supposed to be a white stag in these woods. The deer I saw was light-colored, almost white.”
“So there are stories about a white stag in these parts, too. Guess it shouldn’t surprise me. The bar last night bore that name.”
“How do you know about the white stag?”
Alan cleared his throat, looked slightly embarrassed. “My grandfather back in Maine claimed to have seen one when he was hunting with friends. They shot at it, but it escaped. Another time a bullet found its mark and they saw the buck go down. But when my grandfather and his companions got to the spot where it had fallen, it was gone. They didn’t even find a trace of blood. The next year, my grandfather was hunting by himself when the same buck appeared in front of him—close enough for him to touch it. He was so amazed he never thought of shooting. The buck scratched a tree trunk with its antlers then disappeared into the woods.”
Alan paused to pick a burr off his pants and lob it into the grass. “Before I tell you any more, you have to understand that my grandfather, like others of his generation living in a remote, rural area, was very superstitious. To him the stag represented a spirit of nature with magical powers. He believed some of its magic had rubbed off on the tree. He stripped off a piece of bark, put it in a small plastic container, and wore it around his neck as a lucky charm.”
Alan chucked another burr. “A few years later, he was on a fishing boat with friends when a bad storm came up. The boat capsized and the other men drowned. My grandfather swore the piece of bark saved him.”
“Do you think it did?”
“Probably not. But I keep it with me just in case.”
“I’ve never seen you with any lucky charm.”
With a sheepish look, Alan fished his keys from his pants pocket. A small plastic vial dangled from the key chain. The surface was badly scratched, but she made out a sliver of bark inside. She’d seen this object many times without guessing it was a lucky charm. Rational Alan didn’t seem like someone who’d have one.
He put the key chain back into his pocket and stood. “Enough of this foolishness. I should check in with Sophie. Back in a few.” He bent and kissed her.
He acted like he’d revealed some deep, dark secret and was afraid she would think badly of him. He needn’t worry. A silly charm wasn’t going to change how she felt about him. But he might feel differently about her if he ever found out her worst secrets.
Chapter 15
“Your hat’s on the seat,” Kathryn said as they got into Alan’s Volvo to drive into Great Barrington for dinner that night.
Alan examined the baseball cap. “This isn’t mine. It says ‘Earl Barker Excavating.’ The guy who drove my car here last night must have left it. I’ll have to figure out how to get it back to him.”
“We can leave it at the general store tomorrow.”
So Earl Barker had been one of the crew who’d gotten Alan drunk. Alan tossed the hat on the back seat and undoubtedly forgot about it. But to her, it remained an unwelcome reminder of its owner.
Distracted, she forgot to watch where they were going. When she did focus on the road, nothing looked familiar. “I don’t think this is right.”
“Want to turn around?”
“Not yet.” They drove a while longer, then rounding a bend, they came upon the bar Alan had told her about. Pulling into the driveway to turn around, he swung past a pickup parked in front of the entrance. He stopped and backed up alongside it.
“What are you doing?”
“This truck belongs to the guy whose hat we’ve got. Might as well return it now.” He grabbed the hat and was out of the car and halfway to the entrance before she could stop him.
“Be right back,” he called over his shoulder.
“Right back” stretched on and on. What was keeping him? She left the car and entered the bar.
Mounted on the walls were old rifles, NRA bumper stickers, Posted signs, and a bedraggled assortment of stuffed game birds and animal heads. The main source of light was the strangest chandelier she’d ever seen. A huge, rusted metal trap was attached to the ceiling by tire chains. Colored Christmas lights dangled from the trap’s spiked jaws, creating an atmosphere both festive and grim.
Behind the bar, Lucas Rogers dispensed beer from the tap with the same nonchalance he dispensed his wretched coffee. In his daytime incarnation, Rogers seemed benign enough. Yet in the smoky, dimly lit bar he looked almost sinister.
“Sorry, Miz Stinson, but I gotta ask you to leave. Stags only tonight.”
“And every night,” a man wearing paint-splattered overalls chimed in.
“Kathryn?” Alan turned toward her from where he sat with another man at the far end of the bar.
The other man turned also. “Hey, Starstruck.”
Damn! “I thought you were coming right out,” she said to Alan.
“Sorry. We got talking and—”
“Miz Stinson,” Lucas Rogers said.
“Now, Lucas,” Earl drawled, “how about you cut us some slack and let the lady and her friend stay a bit?”
Rogers shrugged, but she was having none of it: “You only want us here, so you can trick my friend into drinking too much again, just like you tricked me into drinking that rotten coffee black.”
“You still mad about that?”
Alan shot her a puzzled look.
She tugged on his arm. “Let’s go.”
Earl rose and stepped in their way. “Can’t have you leaving mad. Oughta settle our differences first. You’re a lawyer, you can appreciate that,” he added with a sly glance at Alan.
“How do you know?”
“Told me yourself last night. Don’t you remember? Had ourselves quite a chat.” Amusement flickered in his blue eyes.
Alan coughed. “Now I do.”
“I’d like to continue the conversation, if Starstruck’s willing to let bygones be bygones?” Both men
looked expectantly at her.
“All right, we’ll stay, but only for a short while.”
Earl ushered them to a table. “Pick your poison, the drinks are on me.”
Minutes later, he returned with a glass of beer for Kathryn and two bottles, toting them like chickens whose necks he’d just wrung. “Shall we show Starstruck how we open our beer around here?”
Alan looked bewildered.
Earl bit the cap off a bottle, spat it into his hand, and placed it on the table. “Remember? You did a fine job last night.”
“Oh . . . right.” Before Kathryn could prevent him, Alan followed suit. Blood trickled from his mouth when he finished. How appalling! Alan had never done anything like this in front of her before. While he dabbed his bloody lips, she examined the two bottle caps, then turned angrily to Earl: “You gave him the one with the serrated edge and took the screw top yourself.”
“My mistake. Thought they were the same. Can’t seem to do right by you, Starstruck. And that’s a real shame. I was hoping we could talk more about your grandfather and the white stag,” he said to Alan. “My great-great uncle saw him, too, you know.”
“Really?” Alan said with interest.
“Yup. Thought he was the only one till you told me about your grandfather.”
“Kathryn thinks she saw a white stag today,” Alan volunteered.
“Well, I’ll be. Tell me all about it.”
“There’s not much to tell.” But she told him anyway.
Earl was silent a long moment, absently moving the bottle caps around the table. Finally he said, “He say anything to you?”
Kathryn exchanged astonished glances with Alan.
“No. Was he supposed to?”
“Just thought he might’ve. ’Cuz he spoke to my great-great uncle.”
A talking deer? This had to be a tall tale. Like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. She decided to play along. “No kidding. What did he say?”
The lights of the trap-chandelier blinked off and on. Red, green, blue, yellow. In the changing light, Earl appeared sinister, but also strangely seductive. He looked at her through half closed eyes like Amore sometimes did, drowsing in the sunlight. A braying laugh came from the bar then it was quiet again.
“Nothing at first,” Earl said. “My great-great uncle saw the stag twice as a young man. Both times he could’ve shot it, but didn’t. The third time the stag appeared to him in a dream. Told my uncle that because he’d let him live, my uncle was gonna have a long life. But he wouldn’t see the stag or any other living thing again, except in dreams.”
“What did that mean?” Alan asked.
“That my great-great uncle would go blind.”
“Your great-great uncle was Old Man Barker?” Kathryn asked eagerly.
“How’d you know?”
“He’s mentioned in Emily Goodale’s recollections. She and the other children were terrified of him because they heard he killed someone.”
Earl’s face turned an angry red. “Are you calling my great-great uncle a murderer?”
“That’s not—”
“Calm down.” Alan jumped to her defense. “Kathryn’s only repeating what she read.”
“Well, she should know better than to repeat a falsehood,” Earl growled.
“What did happen?” she asked. Maybe now she’d finally get the whole story.
Earl rose abruptly. “Hate to break up the party, but I just remembered I’m wanted elsewhere. Gotta lady friend who doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” He pulled the baseball cap from his jacket pocket and waved it at Alan. “Thanks for returning this, counselor. Drive carefully now. Ciao, Starstruck.”
Ciao—was he mocking her again? And Alan, too, calling him counselor and telling him to drive carefully?
“That was fast,” Alan said. “You really pushed his buttons when you made that comment about his great-great uncle.”
She shrugged. “Let’s go.”
“I’ll use the head then we’re on our way.” Alan disappeared into the rear of the bar.
Kathryn got up and strolled toward the entrance, thinking she’d wait for him in the car.
The door swung open and Garth Barker burst in. His ugly, squeezed-together features compressed even further when he saw her.
“What the fuck’re you doing here?”
“We’re just leaving,” she said coolly, though she was shaking inside.
Garth glanced around, obviously baffled by the plural pronoun. “You an’ who?” he sneered. “Your shadow?”
“I came with a friend.”
Garth scanned the room again. “Don’t see no friend of yours here.”
“He’s in the head,” Lucas Rogers volunteered.
“Yes, and I’ll wait for him outside.” Kathryn made a move toward the door, but Garth blocked the way. “I ain’t finished. Better stop messing with my womenfolk if you know what’s good for you.”
Kathryn was stunned. “I give a pregnant woman a ride up the hill and you accuse me of meddling?”
“Damn straight I do!”
“What’s going on?” Alan came up behind her.
“Bitch thinks she’s a fucking social worker.”
“I do not.”
“There’s obviously been a misunderstanding,” Alan said, assuming the role of mediator. “If we can discuss this calmly, I’m sure—”
“Misunderstanding, my arse,” Garth interrupted. “Bitch stuck her nose where it don’t belong.”
Alan’s pale face flushed with anger. He looked like he was ready to haul off and hit Garth. Instead, taking her by the arm, he pushed past Garth to the door. She knew she should let it go, but couldn’t resist a parting shot. “I’ll leave your women alone if you quit planting snakes in my house.”
“Snakes?” Alan stared at her with alarm.
“Dunno what the fuck you’re talking about,” Garth grumbled.
“Oh yes, you do. You put that snake in my house. And I wouldn’t be surprised if you also—”
Before she could accuse him of chasing her and Alan from the woods with his shotgun, he interrupted, “How would I do that? Ain’t got no key to the Farley place.” A crafty expression came over his face. “Was probably Earl. He’s the one who’s banging Brandy. And Diana before her.”
“Come on, Kathryn.” Alan guided her out.
*****
“Did he really put a snake in the house?” he asked when they were safely in the car and on the road again.
“I don’t know for sure, but he’s a likely suspect.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”
“I didn’t want you to worry, and it was only a stuffed snake.”
“It frightened you, though.”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore. We’ve had enough trouble for one day. Let’s go to Great Barrington and try to enjoy the rest of the evening.”
Alan patted her knee. “We’ll do that.”
Minutes later, Alan frowned and raised a hand to shield his eyes.
“What’s the matter?”
“The truck in back of us has its brights on.”
Behind them two yellow orbs gleamed like the eyes of a huge beast. They rounded a bend and the orbs vanished. “That’s better.” Alan put his hand back on the wheel.
The truck reappeared, blinding Alan again as it bore down on them. “Shit!” He accelerated. The truck did, too. “Idiot!” he cried, flooring the gas pedal. The Volvo rocketed forward. So did their pursuer. Kathryn glanced at the speedometer. Sixty. Sixty-five. Seventy. Way too fast for a winding country road. Heart pounding, she gripped the door handle as the Volvo careened around another bend. It swung wide, landing on the wrong side of the narrow roadway.
“Pull over and let him pass.”
“No! I’m going to lose h
im.”
“Alan, please!” she shrieked as they spun into an S-curve. They’d just rounded the second loop when the deer appeared ahead of them, frozen in the light like a creature in amber.
“Hit the brakes!”
“I am but—”
The deer loomed before them. Bigger and bigger. Brighter and brighter. Sucking them into its glowing vortex.
“No!” Alan wrenched the steering wheel to the right. The car spun off the road, and they plunged into darkness, bucking and bouncing over rough ground. At last it came to a shuddering halt. Air rasped in Kathryn’s lungs. Her heart beat a drum roll. A horn blared nearby.
“Are you all right?” Alan shouted over the blast of the horn.
“Think so. You?”
“Yeah, but I better check on that truck.” He fumbled in the glove compartment for a flashlight, left the car and set off in the direction of the noise. She followed on legs wobbly as a newborn colt’s.
The truck straddled the roadway, front end smashed in, windshield shattered. Surprisingly, there was no sign of the deer it must have hit. Garth was crushed against the steering wheel. His eyes were shut, his face cut and bloody. Shards of glass embedded in his skin winked like diamonds in the light from Alan’s flashlight.
Part II: Snakes
Chapter 16
“Let me do the talking,” Alan said, as they waited for the ambulance to arrive. They stood by his Volvo, now moved from the field to the side of the road behind Garth’s smashed pickup. “I’m going to say we came upon the accident after it already happened.”
“Why not just tell the truth?” Kathryn asked.
“In this kind of situation, it’s best to keep the story simple. The police can figure out he hit a deer. They don’t need to know we were in any way involved.”
“But we didn’t do anything wrong. He was the one who came after us.”
“Trust me. I know how to handle—” The rest of the sentence was drowned out by the scream of an approaching ambulance. Moments later, the flashing lights of both the ambulance and a police cruiser engulfed them. A grim-faced Hank Lapsley left the cruiser, motioning for them to stay put while he inspected the pickup and the EMTs did their work.
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