Endangered Species (31 page)

She didn't have to ask twice.  Hey, it was something to do.  Haying

completed the ritual toxification of boots and trouser cuffs against

social-climbing ticks, they walked into the woods on the opposite side

of the road from where the grader was parked.  This far north, the road

ran along the edge of navigable land.  To the west, hidden by dense

undergrowth and trees, Brickhill River meandered through the salt

marshes that formed the western half of Cumberland Island National

Seashore.  Eastward, toward open ocean, were two miles of maritime

woods, a designated wilderness area uncut by roads or trails.

Pleasurably aware of the soft duff beneath her feet and the simple joy

of her own body's motion, Anna walked with Dijon under the canopy of

live oaks.  They walked without talking.  It lent the exercise a needed

touch of tension, and if they actually hoped to catch Hanson in a more

compromising activity than merely zipping his fly, it would help to come

upon him unawares.

Much of the way was blocked by undergrowth.  They could have pushed

through the copses had they chosen to, but a knowledge of the creatures

dwelling therein dissuaded them.  In addition to the Golden Orb spiders,

the protected thickets were rich with the scurrying of rodents and hence

a favorite haunt of the island's rattlesnake population.  Anna didn't

mind the enforced circuitousness of the route.  If Mitch had half the

cunning and sloth his fellows attributed to him, he would also have

followed the path of least resistance.

Temperatures climbed to close to a hundred degrees.  Even their slow and

easy progress brought on a sweat.  The trickle undk,r her hair felt like

the creep of six-legged beasties and, for the first time in years, Anna

contemplated cutting her hair off.  The heat, the work, and the washing

were getting to be less of a trade-off for the occasional compliment.

For a second or two she dared hope vanity, like puberty, was something

one eventually outgrew.

"Here's our pal," Dijon whispered.  Anna stopped at his shoulder and

listened to the crunch of approaching footsteps.  They'd been walking

for twenty minutes.  At a rough estimate it would put them just less

than a mile into the woods.  No great distance in the scheme of things,

but a trifle ambitious for a man of Hanson's age and girth.

" Long ways to go for a pee." Dijon echoed her thoughts.

The whisper of crushed leaves that heralded the man's approach gave way

to the man himself.  He pushed clear of the grabby fronds of a palmetto

and started across the clearing in their general direction.

"Gun," Anna murmured.  Dijon tensed beside her.  It was the magic word

at FLETC, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, located an hour

or so away in Glynco, Georgia.

" Got it," Dijon breathed.

Hanson carried a Marlin 30-30 on his right shoulder, his elbow crooked

familiarly over the stock.  Maybe Marty hadn't been lying about hearing

the shot that wounded the Austrian, but simply suffered confusion as to

when and how many.  This would be about where Shawna, the Austrian's

girlfriend, had placed them-between Lake Whitney and the road.  A 30-30

wouldn't have done as much damage as a shotgun but most hunters owned

and used more than one weapon.

Slung over Hanson's left shoulder was a burlap bag filled with lumps.

Poking out from the tied-up neck of the sack was the handle of a small

folding shovel.

"Saint Nick's evil twin," Dijon said, and Anna smiled.

In a moment Hanson would see them.  To dispel the idea they were lurking

and spying, Anna stepped out of the brush and hollered.  Mitch looked up

at the sound of his name.  What could have been furtiveness-or just the

alarm of being hailed when it wasn't expected-flickered across his face.

A suffusing of bonhomie replaced it almost instantaneously.  He changed

course, stumping toward them waggling the fingers of the hand balancing

the rifle as if seeing them was the biggest treat he could imagine.

" Nice gun," Dijon said.

"Rifle," Hanson amended ." This is my rifle, this is my gun." He

gestured toward his crotch ." One is for fighting, one is for fun."

Ex-military.  Anna had forgotten.

" Hunting?" Dijon asked.

Hanson raised both palms-a neat trick considering his burdens-in mock

surrender ." You got me.  Don't shoot." He winked at Anna ." You can

cuff me though, if you promise to frisk me afterward."

Their lack of response didn't dampen his spirits one whit ." I've got a

permit to shoot pigs," he said ." They eat pygmy oaks.  One of Norman's

pet-endangered weeds.  Don't noise it about.  You'll have every bleeding

heart in the country screaming we're murdering Wilbur."

Dijon looked confused.

"Like Babe but older," Anna explained.

Dijon shook his head disgustedly ." What's the younger generation coming

to?" he said for her.

"Any luck?" Anna asked, eyeing the sack he carried.  There were no signs

of blood on the burlap and the lumps were distinctly unpiglike.

Not today, he said.

"What have you got in the bag?" she asked casually.

Harison laid a finger alongside his nose and winked in a practiced

manner ." Things to make little girls ask questions."

Anna winced ." You want I should kill him?" Dijon asked.

"Yes please.  What do you have in the bag?" she asked again.

"For me to know and you to find out," he said.  Again the wink .

Anna was beginning to think it was a habitual disarmament technique.  It

set her teeth on edge.

" Can I look?"

"Got a warrant?" Hanson lost none of his good humor but the joke was

over.  He wasn't going to share the secrets of the sack and there wasn't

a damn thing Anna could do about it.  Not legally, anyway ." Where y'all

headed?" Hanson's bright blue eyes flitted from Dijon's face to Anna's

." You're a ways back.  Spot a smoke?"

"No such luck," Anna said ." I'm beginning to think Cumberland is

fireproof."

"Hot day for taking in the sights," Hanson pressed ." But I'd take it as

an honor to show you around."

For whatever reason, he was determined not to leave them on their own in

what was apparently his neck of the woods.

"Anna had to pee," Dijon announced.

Mitch raised his eyebrows.  A mile-and-a-half round trip was a long ways

to find a ladies' room.

"Shy bladder," Anna said, and: "If you'll excuse me She walked

purposefully in the direction the sack-wielding Hanson had come from.

Behind her she heard a brief splutter but there was no way he could

follow.  Ladies' rooms, even when comprised of palmetto and pine, were

sacrosanct.

What she expected to find-especially in the few minutes a respectable

bathroom visit allowed-she wasn't sure.  Something in the combination of

gun, sack, shovel, and winks made her want to take a look at where

Hanson had been, before he had a chance to retrace his steps and erase

any tracks he might have left behind.

Walking rapidly, she scanned the earth and surrounding foliage for any

signs of activity.  Hanson had made no effort to disguise his trail;

there was no need to.  In the deep and shifting leaf litter, so dry that

puffs of dust settled over footprints minutes after they were made, Davy

Crockett would have had trouble tracking a moose.

Anna followed her earlier theory of taking the easy way.  After five

minutes of searching she was rewarded by signs of fresh digging around

the base of a pine.  A patch of ground a foot square and several inches

deep had been disturbed, the soil overturned onto the needles.  The

edges of the dig were square and clean, marks smooth and six to seven

inches across: the size of the spade on a folding shovel.  Three feet

from the first dig was a second.  This one was almost hidden under the

rotting remnants of a fungus-encrusted log .

Beyond the crumbling trunk lay a broken piece of one-by-twelve .

Partway up, on the bark of the pine, was a cut.  Fresh sap oozed from a

gash an inch wide and half an inch deep where a chip had been hacked

out.

"Did you fall in?" A hearty voice pushed through the tangle of woods

between Anna and the men.

She ignored it.  Running, she zigzagged through live oaks and skirted

undergrowth, looking for other disturbances to the ground or the

surrounding plant life.  Thirty yards further in, just where the way

opened through a daunting wall of palmetto, she found the marks of

another dig, this one long and narrow, a trench four feet long, three

inches wide, and about that deep.

"Are you okay?" came a bluff shout.  Dijon had failed to curb Hanson's

rescue-or survival-instincts any longer.  The two men were shouting

after her.  Soon they would follow if they hadn't already started.

Anna didn't want Mitch to know what she'd found until she figured out

just what it was she had found.  Running as swiftly and lightly as she

could in the heavy boots, she made her way back past the place she'd

first discovered turned earth.  Rebuckling her belt as if she'd recently

doffed her trousers, she emerged in the path of Dijon and Mitch only

slightly out of breath.

"We were coming in to pull you out," Mitch said jovially.

The routinely scatological turn of his humor left Anna unamused.  Coy

crudities, like bad puns, created a conversational vacuum.  Luckily

little was required of her.  A noncommittal grunt seemed to fill the

bill and the three of them walked out of the woods, Hanson's chatter

clearing the way of all indigenous fauna.

Back at their vehicles, the maintenance man carefully stowed his burlap

sack and rifle in a locking toolbox behind the seat of the grader. Then,

elbows on the tailgate of the pumper truck, settled in to chat till the

rains came.  A subtle form of filibuster.  Hanson had no intention of

leaving the area till Anna and Dijon were safely on their way.

There was nothing for it but to concede.  Mouthing the usual

platitudes-"Better get back to work.  Be seeing you.  Take it easy"Anna

climbed behind the wheel.  In the side-view mirror she noted that Hanson

watched them till a turn in the road took them from view.

"So what did you find?" Dijon asked.

"Digging," Anna said succinctly.

Dijon thought about it for a moment ." Morels?"

"Not mushroom country or morel season.  Besides, there's no law against

gathering mushrooms.  He would have shown them to US.

" I knew that.  just testing you."

"Ginseng?" Anna ventured.  Ginseng root was highly prized by the Chinese

and had a growing consumer base among herbalists in the United States.

At preserit market value it sold for about four hundred dollars a pound.

The humble root was reputed to cure most ailments and serve as a

preventative for the rest.  Digging ginseng in the wildlands of the

South and East had been a means of income for generations of locals.

The national parks were dedicated to protecting the fast-vanishing

plant, but because of the wealth of plants and the easy access, park

lands were favorite targets of the gatherers.