I tapped the second set of coordinates. “This also showed up on the geocache site leading to Soldering-iron Man?”

“Not exactly. The coordinates were different, of course, but so was the number in parentheses.”

=(5)=

N XX.XXXXX° W XXX.XXXXX°

I stared at the pad and did all I could in the face of the information, which was shrug.

We pulled on our daypacks and for four hours I followed McCoy on his rounds: checking stands of white-haired goldenrod, a species only found in the Gorge; checking erosion blocks designed to keep sections of trail from gulleying; noting a deadfall across the path so the maintenance crew could tend to it with a chainsaw, and looking in on the occasional backpacking camper or campers to make sure they were following rules about campfires and so forth.

Interspersed with these bouts of “business”, McCoy pointed out a few things I would have seen on my own, and a hundred more I wouldn’t have noticed. At a cliff face he explained strata, naming the epochs and conditions that had created the demarcations. He showed me where Native Americans had built camps and villages. He pointed out caves cut by underground streams, rolled away logs to display salamanders and other hidden critters.

We paused for lunch on a high ridge, the panoramic Red River Gorge spreading below like a postcard from Heaven. Mix-up chomped jerky sticks and took a nap. In minutes we pulled our packs back on. We were descending switchbacks on a curving trail when I saw a slender, white-bearded man approaching on the right-turning path ahead, visible across a slight ravine. His shoulders were wide, hips slender. He wore large sunglasses, a wide-brimmed safari hat, a blue shirt and khaki pants. He carried a walking stick and had a set of compact field glasses strung from his neck. He moved with ease, as if the trail were a city sidewalk.

“That’s Dr Charpentier,” McCoy said, sounding pleased. “You’ll enjoy meeting him.”

I saw Charpentier pause to study something in the trees, then resume his approach. The trail curved behind a stand of rhododendron and I lost sight of him.

We kept walking, but the trail remained empty, as if Charpentier had vaporized. I turned back to McCoy and a hundred feet behind saw Charpentier moving away with carefree grace. For a split-second I wondered if some mystical forest physics had occurred, Charpentier passing through us like neutrinos through the earth.

“Uh, Lee….” I said. “How did Charpentier do that?”

McCoy pointed up the hillside. “A spur trail goes to a campsite above. He walked past us up there.”

“Charpentier’s antisocial?”

“Focused. When he’s thinking about something important, he doesn’t stop to chat.”

I shot a final look at Charpentier. He’d turned our way with field glasses to his eyes. I had the uneasy feeling they were trained on me.

In return for being my guide, I offered to fix supper for McCoy and he was happy to accept. We’d have a nice conversation, I figured, though it might veer into an area the ranger wasn’t expecting, one including the irritable Miz Donna Cherry.

I found a roadside stand offering silver queen corn, tomatoes, sugar onions, banana peppers, new potatoes the size of golf balls, and a local offering called greasy-grits beans. The grocery store provided smoked hocks. I cooked the beans, potatoes, onions and hocks together in stages, steamed the corn. I sliced the tomatoes and mixed them with sautéed peppers and onion, drizzled vinegar and olive oil over the concoction.

McCoy arrived at seven bearing two bottles of wine, red and white, just to be prepared. We ate like stevedores and I asked questions sparked during the hike. We retired to the porch to watch the falling sun light the sky behind the western peaks. I leaned back in my chair and set my heels on the porch railing. Mix-up gnawed at a ham bone, a dog in bliss.

“Lemme ask a question, Lee. Sheriff Beale about took my head off when he found me at the scene. It wasn’t the height of professionalism. What’s his story?”

McCoy took a sip of wine. Sighed. “Roy’s daddy was sheriff, granddaddy before that. Roy’s part of a lineage that connects to a different time, back when a sheriff made up the rules as he went along, favors for kin and friends, revenge on enemies. Roy’s daddy died six years back, slammed by a heart attack while bedded down with a friend’s wife.”

“So Beale Junior got the sheriff job?”

“There was an interim sheriff for three years until the term ran out and it came election time. Like his daddy, Roy’s kin to half of everyone in the county. I reckon every relative that voted for Roy figured no one else in their right mind would.”

“Doesn’t inspire confidence.”

“Roy’s father and grandfather were stubborn and humorless men. Hard as flint, the both of them. Roy’s soft as a pillow, so he has to act the role he’s seen. Sometimes when I hear Roy talking and swaggering, it’s like hearing a high school student doing Henry V. The only problem is, I saw it done by Olivier.”

I laughed at the analogy. McCoy leaned back and folded his arms over his chest, studying the darkening sky. “Thankfully, Donna Cherry is in charge,” he said. “Sort of.”

“I noted she sometimes seems to out-rank the locals, sometimes not.”

“The state police and county agencies are stretched thin by budget problems. The state created Eastern Kentucky Combined Law Enforcement, where professionals help coordinate law-enforcement efforts in rural regions. We’re in region five, Cherry’s region. She was working in Berea, population of fifteen thousand folks or so. But she’s originally from here in Woslee County, the first in her family to attend college, about the first to finish high school.”

I put my hands behind my neck, stared into McCoy’s eyes. Smiled.

“Does Donna Cherry often use you as her spy, Lee? Or is this something new?”

He froze in his rocking.

“Pardon?”

“You stopped by this morning out of nowhere. Took me on a hike. Asked me a lot of questions. Probably would have asked me to dinner if I hadn’t invited you. This was all at Cherry’s suggestion, right? I can almost hear her voice. ‘Couldja get close to Ryder, Lee? Make sure he ain’t turned from a psycho tracker to psycho killer.’”

It was a poor impersonation of Cherry. My brother was a natural mimic and could have nailed the voice. McCoy cleared his throat and turned, embarrassment coloring his face, no attempt to lie his way free.

“Donna wanted me to take you out on the trails and get a read on you. She thinks I’m a decent judge of character.”

“And your verdict?”

He nodded toward the table inside, still set with dishes. “I’m pretty sure insane killers can’t cook that good.”

“Did Cherry make any judgment on her own?” I asked. “About moi?”

McCoy colored with embarrassment again. “She said we had to check, but that you were probably too, uh, goofy to be a killer.”

9

The next morning I arose to the rat-a-tat of a woodpecker’s beak against a nearby tree. The proverbial early bird, up and working at daybreak. I stretched and yawned and recalled a passing storm during the night, hard rain pounding the metal roof of the cabin, keeping me awake for a few minutes until lulled back into delicious sleep.

My first week was more than half gone, the free week. I had three more weeks of vacation coming. I’d initially planned to take the freebie in the Gorge, then head some other direction. But I was enjoying the mountains, the climbing lessons, the hikes with Mix-up. And, truth be told, the background hiss of a murder investigation was comforting as well, like an old companion in the neighborhood.