Chapter 3

Fayetteville, Arkansas, May 18, 11:30 PM,

Mandy lay sprawled across the bed, moaning occasionally, but still unconscious.  Peppy had kept his cool when he came back to find his whore roughed up.  In the business it happened, a sort of normal wear and tear, depreciation of the assets.  But the pimp was scared.  Although he tried to act as if nothing were going on, his eyes kept darting furtively toward the door as he assessed his chances of making a run for it.

Peppy had talked to the police.  Paget saw it in his eyes.  No big deal there.  He couldn't have told them anything that they didn't already know.  But he shouldn't have done it.

"So, what you doing back here, Bobby Lee?" asked the slightly built pimp, trying for a conversational tone.  The strained sound of his own voice and the lack of response from Bobby Lee compelled him to continue quickly with an obvious lie.

"Man, it's good to see you!"

Paget smiled thinly and moved languidly to cut off the pimp's escape route.  Peppy fidgeted.  Adrenaline kicked up the volume of the ICE still murmuring to his autonomic nervous system.  Several hours had passed since he toked and, until he walked in to find Paget, he had been gradually descending from the high.  Now a slight tremor ran through his hands and he had difficulty standing still.  His eyes flitted away from Paget and back.  They wouldn't stay focused on anything for more than a few seconds.

Paget despised the disgusting little fake who always tried to come off like a tough guy.

How do you even keep your whores in line? he wondered.

"Police been all over town looking for you, Bobby Lee."

"You worried about me, Peppy?"

"Don't want nothing to happen to you.  Probably be smart if you split."

Paget's silence and his thin smile unnerved him.

"I'm only telling you because we're friends."

Peppy always reacted to the threat of the moment.  Right now he'd do whatever Paget wanted.  When the police showed, he'd spill his guts and tell them what Paget had done to the whore.  And that was precisely what Paget had come to Fayetteville for.

Peppy swallowed with difficulty and waited because he couldn't do anything else.  A low groan ending in an alarming gurgle brought his attention to the pitiful sight on the bed.  The pimp decided on a minor change in tactics.

"Why did you have to go and do that?" he asked.

Paget had never understood the relationship between Peppy and Mandy.  Peppy ran a cut-rate stable of strung-out teenagers and burned out older whores.  He had something personal going with Mandy, though it didn't keep him from having her continue to do tricks.  She even worked out of Peppy's own pad.  Paget shuddered at the thought of sleeping in a bed where another man had taken a woman.

"I did it because I wanted to."

He didn't like Peppy.  The man's dark good looks, his juvenile silky black goatee, and his whiney voice all irritated him, but he didn't hate him, at least not enough to do what he was going to do.  That part was just business.

Mandy groaned again, conscious enough to hurt, but not enough to be aware of what was happening.  Peppy looked at her again.  Still trying to find a way out of the situation, he decided that a macho approach was called for.

"Man, you shouldn't go damaging my merchandise like that.  She won't be able to work for month.  You costing me a lot of money, man.  She can't work I'm outa pocket beaucoup bucks."

"So file a suit.  Think a jury would award you a big settlement for me knocking around your---uh, subcontractor?"

He grasped Peppy in a one-armed hug and pulled him close.

"So, how much to I owe you for that piece of trash, Buddy?  I mean we can't let something like that come between us, can we?"

"Man, she make me a couple of thou a month easy, you don't mess her up."

"Some guys like that look," he said, slapping Peppy on the back as he released him.  "Put her back to work."

Peppy laughed nervously, trying to feign appreciation for the remark.

"I guess I'll see how many sick tricks I can line up for her."

Paget's frowned as if he were trying to understand something.

"You got her hooking out of your own pad, Peppy.  What's with that?  Economizing on rent?  Market depressed?  Or you got a thing for sloppy seconds?"

Peppy's jaw tightened.  Paget's eyes gleamed as he tried to provoke it.

"Or do we have a true love story here?  The tender story of a pimp and his whore!"

Peppy whirled away, pulled a switchblade from his pocket, and dropped into a crouch.  "Get the hell out, Bobby Lee.  I'll slice you!"

He waved the knife menacingly, but he didn't really want to fight.  He just wanted Paget to leave.  Paget's fist shot out, catching him in the left eye and sending him sprawling to the floor as the knife flew from his hand.  As he scrambled to reach it, Paget stomped down on his wrist and bent to pick up the switchblade.

"Sorry, Bobby Lee.  I wasn't going to hurt you.  Honest.  I was just trying to scare you.  The police got me spooked, I guess."

Paget nodded reasonably as he took a lamp and jerked its cord from the socket.  Peppy watched wide-eyed as he unscrewed the top nut holding the shade onto the bronze colored base.

"Hey you and me go way back," said Peppy as he scooted away.  Let's just---"

The toe of Paget's boot caught him under the chin.  Dazed, he fell backwards.  Before he could recover Paget waded in, swinging the lamp.  He had intended for Peppy to talk to the police, but all that was forgotten now.

Canaan Camp

"Something about him makes me uneasy," said John Campbell.

Joshua smiled tolerantly.  "He wasn't raised as you were, John.  He's had a troubled life, but he's come a long way to be where he is."

Campbell had never doubted Joshua's judgment, but he was beginning to.  Cal Hodges had ingratiated himself too quickly.

"His past doesn't worry me," he said carefully.  "It's the way he behaves.  He doesn't behave like a new convert."

"Well he hasn't been converted yet, John, not completely."

"Then why is he staying with you?"

"Are you questioning me, John?"

If Campbell believed in anything, he believed in Joshua.  But in his gut he knew that Hodges didn't belong in Canaan.

"I would never question you, but I don't trust that man."

Joshua smiled tolerantly again.  His favorite child and most trusted assistant felt threatened.

"Think of him as an enemy who is turning our way, John.  Perhaps God has sent him to become a great and powerful warrior for us."

"I can't see him as another St. Paul."

"Careful, John," said Joshua irritably.  "Satan enters a man through his pride.  Look to yourself.  Beware of ambition."

"Ambition?  All I want is to serve you."

"By questioning my decisions?" asked the old man petulantly.

"I didn't mean to question your decision---"

"Of course you did!  It's exactly what you did."

Joshua regretted the sharp words as soon as they loosed.  He rested a hand on the younger man's shoulder.

"I'm sorry, John.  I shouldn't have snapped at you, but I know this young man was sent to us.  I feel that he is going to do something important.  You must trust my judgment, son."

Although John shared in the consensus that Joshua was a prophet, familiarity had eroded his once uncritical awe. 

"I do trust you, Father Joshua.  Totally."

It was true, but he was beginning to see that Joshua was all too human, and feared that he was far from infallible.

Fayetteville May 19, 11:30 AM

Paget awoke refreshed, but still wired.  He shaved and showered leisurely and then went into the living room.  Shivering from the frigid, maxed out AC, he heard Mandy moan.  Surprised that she was still alive, he picked up the lamp and finished her off.  While taking a second shower, he remembered Peppy's cache of drugs.  There had been pot, along with the pills and capsules, and a small baggie of white powder that he was pretty sure was coke.  The stuff might help him survive the mind-numbing boredom back at the camp.  After getting dressed, he packed the pimp's stash into a carry bag and then left the apartment.

On the way out of town, he stopped to top off the tank with money from the apartment.  Despite the shade of the canopy, he fidgeted in the sticky heat while waiting for the balky pump.  He reminded himself to keep it near but below the speed limit when he left.  Being asked to show a license would not be good, especially since he had enough PCP in the trunk to wire a medium sized town for a month.  Grumbling to himself that he must have picked the slowest pump at the station, he thought again about what he might be able to do with the rohypnol.  He liked using the correct term for the roofies.  Knowing stuff like that set him above the riffraff.

He had never used the drug of course.  Only pathetic losers needed the stuff---normally, that is.  Paget flashed on a scene:

Joshua calls Miss Dusky up to the house to help clean, and then leaves here alone while he goes down to the church for the afternoon.  I use the "I'm a real shy but helpful guy" thing to set her at ease and then slip her some into some wine and---

The nozzle jumped in his hand and the pump began the irritating beeping.  He had just slammed the nozzle into its slot when, he noticed a couple of college kids with backpacks in the sunlight beyond the canopy.  The boy said something drowned out by the steady noise of highway traffic.  He grabbed her upper arm, and the girl jerked away, blonde hair swirling into her face.  She brushed it away angrily.

"Slap her," Bobby advised under his breath.

He watched with mounting interest as the girl snatched up her backpack and stalked toward him, her short angry steps caused her white halter to bob enticingly.  Paget clenched his teeth as she neared with her head down.  As she turned around the back end of his car, he moved into her, dropping his cup on contact.  Ice and soda splattered on the oil stained pavement.

"Oh!" gasped the girl.  "I'm sorry.  I should have watched where I was going."

"It's okay," he said flashing her his best killer smile.  "It was about empty anyway.  I hope I didn't get any on you," he said looking at her sandaled feet, feigning concern.

Mid thigh shorts accented her long tanned legs.  Tightly trim waist made her at most nineteen or twenty.

"Not much," she said.  "Besides, it wasn't you.  It was my fault.  You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

We'll see who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, Pale Babe, he thought.

She saw immediately that he found her attractive, as she did him.  He had an interesting face, but Jackie was no fool, and wasn't about to become too friendly with a perfect stranger.

"Having a bad day?" he asked sympathetically.

"Sort of.  Sorry it had to affect you too."

She gave him a polite, but dismissive, smile before continuing toward the station and a pay phone.

"You shouldn't be doing what you're doing, you know," he called after her.

She turned back to look at him.

"What?"

"Sorry.  I probably should just mind my own business, but you and your . . . friend were hitching, weren't you?  Even if you have a guy with you, that's not a good idea.  I just hope you're not . . . uh, incautious enough to go try it on your own."

Her lips pursed in irritation.  Jackie had endured enough condescension for the day.

"Are you always so full of advice with strangers?" she asked tersely.

"Hey, no offense.  It's just not safe for a young---for a woman to take rides with strangers.  If something happened to you and I hadn't said something, I'd feel real bad about that."

"No offense taken," she said, somewhat placated.  "You're right, of course." 

She ran fingers through her blonde hair.  "A bad day is no excuse for ill manners."

Someone hit brakes, panic stopping on the highway.  When she looked past him to see what had happened, he took the opportunity to examine her more closely.  His eyes traveled down from her face, and he tried to imagine what she would look like, how she would act if he could only set the hook.

Keep flipping the bait in front of her.  Sooner or later Pale Babe will suck it in.

"Where were you headed?" he asked.

She hesitated, but decided telling him could do no harm.  Besides, after Gerald had been such a jerk it felt good talking to a handsome guy.

"Kansas City.  We were going to see my mom for the weekend.  Now I've got to call one of my sorority sisters for a lift back to the dorm."

She set the backpack down.

"Thanks for your concern," she said.

Still here, he thought, his pulse kicking up a notch.

"Too bad you can't go see your mom."

Jackie didn't usually talk to strange men, but everything about him set her at ease.  He was dressed casually in a light blue button-down shirt snug in the shoulders.  His biceps were well defined, but not grossly so.  He was obviously interested in her, which was flattering.  She needed that today.  The late model sedan he drove spoke of solid respectability.

"How long since you've seen her?" he asked.

A voice warned her not to encourage familiarity, but she wasn't a kid anymore, and it was the middle of the day in a crowded parking lot.  So what could it hurt?  Besides, it felt good after the fight with her boyfriend.  It was like she was getting back at him.

"New Years," she said.  "I haven't seen her since the holidays."

"Six months?"  Paget reached into his pocket and pulled out a money clip.  "That's a long time."

He peeled off ten twenties and extended them toward her.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Look.  There's a bus station about three blocks from here," he said extending the bills to her.  "This should be enough to get you a ticket there and back.  Go see your Mom."

"I can't accept that.  I don't even know you."

He had anticipated the response and was ready for it.

"Look.  I just had a run of luck in the market---made a big profit.  I can afford it.  Believe me.  Besides, rescuing a damsel in distress---I mean what could make a guy feel better than that?"

Jackie hesitated, obviously tempted.

"Hey.  Come on.  Take the money.  Your mom wants to see you."

"Do you live here?" she asked.

"Why do you ask?"

"Maybe when a girl meets an interesting and decent guy she'd like to know if she might meet him again."

"Not much chance of that.  I live up in Lexington."

"Missouri?"

Nibble the bait.  Come on, he thought as he nodded.

"That's north of Kansas City, isn't it?" she asked looking down in thought.

"Yeah.  I'm headed home too.  I'd ask you if you wanted to ride along, but we've already talked about not riding with strangers.  I'd really like you to take the money."

"It's not that I'm ungrateful, but let me think about it minute.  By the way, I'm Jackie Benson."

"I'm Bobby Mentira," he said, watching her face intently to see if she got it.

Mentira meant either "lie" or "liar."  He liked doing things like that.  It added spice.

"My father was Latino," he said when he saw she didn't get it.

A speculative look narrowed her eyes.

Come on.  Suck it in, he thought.

"I can't take your money, but . . . if you wouldn't mind I'd like to ride along with you," she said with a nervous smile.  "Would that be all right?"

"I can't think of anything I'd like more, Jackie.  I honestly can't."

"I have to use the bathroom first.  Can you wait?"

"Sure.  By the way, can I get you something to drink?  I seemed to have spilled mine, and I need to get another for the road."

"Get me a Diet Coke," she said cheerfully.  "But I'm buying the next round."

Paget let his eyes follow her until she disappeared inside.  A quick look toward the highway assured him that the boyfriend was gone.

Tough luck, Gerald, he said to himself as he popped the trunk.  Don't worry.  Bobby Lee's gonna take real good care of your little blonde friend.

He took two small pills from a Ziploc bag.  Without alcohol, it would probably take more than one of the roofies.  Inside, he bought a bottle of soda and took it into the bathroom, where he used the handle of his knife to pulverize the pills on the edge of the sink, before scooping the power into her soft drink.  He twisted the top on tightly, and inverted the bottle, hoping the stuff would dissolve.  On the way out he bought his fountain drink.

As expected, he got back to the car way before she did.  What the hell women always took so much time in the bathroom for, he had no idea.

When Jackie came back to the car, Bobby leaned across to open her door.

"Put your seat belt on," he said.

"Yes, sir, Mr. Law Abiding Citizen," she said lightly.

"Always, Miss Benson."  He twisted off the cap to her soda and handed it to her.

She took a sip.

"Ughh.  Tastes funny," she said, wrinkling her nose.

Don't you do this to me.  Don't you dare.

"That diet stuff always tastes funny," he suggested as he pulled onto the highway.

"I think this one's turned bad."  She screwed the top back on.  "I can't handle that.  I'll get another one the next time we stop."

The urge to hit her was almost more than he could stand, but with effort, Paget controlled his rage.

Okay.  Okay.  Miscalculation.  We'll think of something.  She's in the car.  No way is she slipping off the hook now.    

By the time they crossed into Missouri she was in full yak, going on and on about some sorority crap.  He threw in a word whenever he could to keep up his end of the conversation because he knew that the more women talked the more comfortable they became.  He paid little attention to what she was saying, because he was busy thinking about how he could play it.  By the time they reached Springfield he had a new plan.

"I've got find a way around the oil," he said as he approached the 60 exit.

"Oil?"

"Tar actually," he said as he hit the ramp.  "Sign back there said they're resurfacing the interstate north of town.  Didn't you see it?"

"No.  Are you sure?"

"Yeah.  We'll take 17 up.  It'll take us a little out of our way, maybe fifteen minutes or so."

A half hour later they were still traveling east, and Jackie felt the first stirrings of unease.  "Where are we?" she asked, trying to sound casual.

"Highway 60," he said distractedly as he searched the roadside ahead.  "We had to detour, or don't you remember that?"

She stiffened at the change in his manner.

He signaled as they approached the access to an outer road running parallel to the highway.  "Let's pull off get some gas and that soda you wanted."

She glanced at the gage, seeing that he had used barely a quarter of a tank.

"I'm good.  We don't need to stop."

He pulled onto an outer road and accelerated toward a weedy parking lot where a rusty sign advertised gas at sixty-nine cents.  The isolated station's windows had been broken out.

"Nice price," she joked nervously.  "But I don't think we'll find anyone to take our money.  Let's go back to the highway."

"Let's not," he said, barely slowing down as he pulled past the rust streaked above-ground tanks and drove around behind the abandoned station.

Terrified, Jackie unsnapped her belt and dove for the door as the car came to a stop behind the derelict building.  He grabbed her hair and hauled her back.

"Now guess what happens," he said tonelessly.

Holding her fast, he unfastened his seatbelt with his left hand, flipped off the ignition, and opened his door.  He then clamped his arm around her neck, loosed her hair, and clapped a hand over her mouth to cut off her screams.  Then he dragged her across the console and out of the car.

Fayetteville, May 20, 4:45 PM

"Peppy Pearson," said the beat cop.

"Yeah.  It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy," said the detective as he studied the battered face.

The head was grossly misshapen, sunken, and pitted by repeated blows.  The term "blunt trauma" seemed inadequate.  Pearson dealt drugs, so it didn't take a genius to come up with a probable motive.  He went to the bedroom to examine the other victim.  Her head also had been savaged.  The apparent murder weapon, a heavy metal lamp, lay beside her.  The perp had taken the time to remove both the shade and the cord, meaning that the crime hadn't been sudden or impulsive.  Spatter and streaks of aerosol blood on the headboard, wall, and the ceiling argued for a right-handed killer delivering most of the blows while kneeling on the bed.  Cast off in the other room suggested Pearson was killed where he lay, so the vast quantity of blood here must belong to the female.

"Sir, what do you make of this," asked the policeman who had first responded.  "Did they start to clean up the scene and then decide it was too big a job?"

The detective looked at the bundle of bloody bedclothes in the corner.

"I don't know.  From the bloodstains in the other room it looks like she was killed here, and then taken out there . . . and then brought back in here.  It doesn't make sense."

"Drugs," said the other with a shrug.  "You need me in here?"

"Go outside for your nicotine fix, Chuck.

He shot the body from several angles, and then took more shots of the blood spatter pattern.

Overkill.  Higher than a kite?

He looked at the body again.  Cops inevitably get to know a lot of prostitutes.  He saw them as victims of life.  Maybe Mandy Easton had chosen the demeaning lifestyle because of the drugs, or maybe it was the other way around.  Occasional violence was part of what she bought into when she chose the life.

"Mandy, what a price you paid," he said softly.

Moving down her barely recognizable face, he photographed the bruising on her upper arms and chest.

So much bruising!  Did he beat you to make you tell him where Peppy kept his stuff?  Or was he just an extremely sick trick?

As he turned to leave he kicked something and sent it rolling across the floor toward Pearson's body.  He bent down without touching it, recognizing at once that it was the bronze ball nut from atop the lampshade.  With mounting excitement, he inserted a pen into the screw hole and took it to the light to dust it.  The ridge details of a partial were sharp.

"Bingo!" he said aloud.

Mark Twain National Forest, Hawthorn County, 8:15 PM

Paget didn't know exactly where he was, which worried him because he might not be able to find the place again.  Having come to end of the logging trail, he sat with the motor running, staring at the trees and thick undergrowth ahead.  He drove past the end of trail, riding over saplings and loose rocks until he judged he could go no further without running the risk of either damaging the car, or getting it high centered.  After some fifty feet down the hill, he stopped.

He flipped open the blanket and fixed his eyes on the hollow between of her throat.  Pulling the lolling head forward, he reached behind to unclasp her necklace, the only thing he hadn't left behind.  He pushed her head back and held the necklace before her staring eyes.

"I'll just keep this to remember you by, Pale Babe," he said as he pocketed the jewelry and got out. 

When he opened the door, the body tumbled sideways, held half in the car by the seat belt.  He reached in and released the catch, letting the body spill headfirst from the car.  After untangling her foot from the seat belt, he tugged the blanket away from the body for a last look.  He lingered, unwilling, now that the time had come, to end it.  He stood over her as he replayed the end in his mind, and then knelt to arrange her, trying several poses until he was satisfied.

"Finally got what you deserve," he said.

Paget hid the body in a thicket, arranging it in a suitable position in case he had a chance to come back.  Back at the car he examined the seat.  It was clean, but she had stained the blanket he had bought after killing her.  Transporting her in the trunk would have been safer, but he had wanted her up front with him.  Folding it quickly, he hurled it into the underbrush where it caught on a bush hanging like a flag.  Cursing, he waded through the brush after it.  Refolding it, he placed it flat on the ground and anchored it with a rock.

On the way back to the highway, he thought about the roofies he had wasted on the girl.  He should have forced her to take some with alcohol.  Having her unconscious would have ruined it, but at least he would know what to expect from the stuff.  Being around Joshua was like listening to one of those TV preachers twenty-four seven.

Maybe I can use the stuff to shut the old faggot up before he drives my crazy.

"It would be like a mute button," he said, laughing aloud at his own joke.

On the way back he daydreamed other scenarios for using Peppy's stash on the old man.

Maybe I can make him more entertaining.

He considered it humorously at first, and then more seriously.

Why not?

There's no reason why not.  He felt good.  He'd be in control. 

"Non-traditional use though," he said to himself with mock gravity.  "The purists would be offended that I'm using it for a purpose not intended."

He laughed.

Little Rock FBI Field Office, May 21, 1:15 AM

Tanner's job should have been over.  Paget had clearly committed both sets of homicides.  The locals should soon apprehend him considering his recklessness.  Even with a manhunt on, he had returned to his hometown to score drugs.  His behavior was a classic example of stressed perp behavior.  Post offense they often increased their consumption of alcohol and/or drugs to relieve the tension. 

The new photos were instructive in the clinical, theoretical sense.  Whether he could use them to predict anything helpful to state authorities was another matter.  Fayetteville believed their homicides resulted from a simple drug deal gone wrong.  Like Marked Tree, they appeared to have evolved from a lesser crime.  Everyone wanted Tanner to predict what Paget would do next, and where he might go next.  He only wished he had that ability.

Something about the two crimes bothered him.  Despite being similar in appearance and only slightly older than the Riepe girl, the Fayetteville woman had been treated far differently.  The violence had been prolonged in both cases, but this time the elements of fantasy were totally absent despite the fact that Paget had plenty of time in which to indulge himself.  The signature aspects seemed to be devolving, which just didn't happen.  Sadists like Paget refined their torture.

Phencyclidine?  A PCP rage could account for the uncontrolled violence.

He scanned Paget's history again.

No history of drug arrests, but Pearson was a pusher.

The tox report showed only alcohol and pot in the systems of the Fayetteville victims, but something else had been found in the apartment:  a single pill.  It had been identified as a member of the benzodiazepine family:  flunitrazepam (also known as rohypnol, or more popularly roofies).  The usual source for the date-rape drug was Mexico.  In combination with alcohol roofies acted like the legendary Mickey Finn, producing up to a couple of hours of total or partial unconsciousness along with amnesia.  There was nothing unusual about a drug-dealer having the stuff, but would Paget take a supply of the stuff?

No.  Sexual sadists want conscious victims.

Pot, PCP, Roofies, Meth---what difference does it make.  He went for a score and something went wrong.

Tanner got up to stretch.  It was nearing two o'clock, but he had nothing to go home to anymore.

"I don't blame you, Marge," he said aloud.

He turned back to the work that really was his life now, like his ex-wife had charged before leaving him.  Even Paget's mayhem was more comfortable to think about than that.

Flunitrazepam is an anxiolytic.  A macho guy like you wants his victim conscious, but maybe the drug could help you gain control and isolate her.

But Paget might not have taken the roofies.  Even if he did, he might have just taken them because they were part of the stash.

Okay.  So Fayetteville is home.  You feel comfortable there.  Now you've got transportation, and probably both a supply of drugs and money from your latest victims.  But you've got both post offense anxiety and good sense, but you're not through.

It was only a gut feeling.  If Paget was beginning to come apart, more violence in the Fayetteville area was a good bet, especially if he got heavily into the drugs.

"Or maybe good sense will prevail and you'll run again," he said, thumping a mug shot of Paget.

"But where are you going to go?"

Blue Creek, May 22, 7:45 AM

Richard finished a nothing shift by filing nothing paperwork.  The night's highlight had been discovering that a reported drug party on Otter Creek had only been three cars of highschoolers skinny-dipping under the bridge.  He found no liquor, and no one appeared intoxicated, but the speed with which they took his suggestion to call it a night suggested that several cans or bottles had found their way into the bushes.  Rather than look for them, he followed the kids back to town.

"Guess we can finally forget about Paget being in the area, Carter," said Shug as Richard passed his desk on the way out.  "They just made him for a double homicide down in Fayetteville."

"Catch him?"

"Not yet, but it's just a matter of time.  The guy's careless."

"I hope so, Shug."

The nickname still felt odd to him, but the sheriff preferred it.

Shug, was pronounced like the first syllable of sugar.  Such odd nicknames were common in the hill country.  Shively's came as a result of a tough two yards he picked up one Friday night.  After the two hundred and fifty pound fullback blasted through an equally large nose guard as if he were wet paper, the coach had responded with, That was sweet, boys---pure sugar!  From then on, whenever a few hard yards were needed, the quarterback would say "Let's pour a little sugar on ‘em."  Shively had been "Shug" ever since, a name that proved as effective on the campaign trail as it had on the high school gridiron.

"Isn't this something?" said his boss.  "I got to work while the new deputy gets a whole two days off."

He carried his hat in his hand as they went to the door.  Shively literally couldn't put it on until he was outside, beyond the reach of the six foot eight inch doorways. 

"This is the first weekend I haven't worked since I been here," said Richard.

"Nonsense.  You just got four days off in a row."

"Unpaid vacation is not what I call days off.  By the way, thanks for getting Hall to drop the charges?"

"Thank his wife.  She knew he'd been . . . keeping questionable company, but having it all hung out there in public wasn't what she wanted."

"I owe you."

"Good.  I'm glad you know that.  Pay me back by not using excessive force anymore."

"His head hit a rock, Sheriff.  It was a freak accident."

"You were mad."

"I don't much like seeing a man knock a woman around, even a prostitute."

"Next time, restrain the guy.  If I wanted someone to suplex assault suspects, I'd have hired the Red Neck Assassin."

The reference to the pro wrestling circus brought a chuckle from Betty, the dispatcher.  Richard hoped the incident didn't generate his own nickname.

Alley Spring, May 23, 6:15 AM

They pulled into the Alley Spring parking lot at sunup, intending to get an early start down the Jack's Fork River, but the canoe rental didn't open until eight so they drove around until they found the Hill and Holler, a café with knotty pine walls festooned with horse and buggy era tools.

"Nice décor," Richard said eying the steel traps above their booth.  "Duck under the table if the New Madrid fault gives way though."

"I love to see you this way," said Jill reaching for his hand.  "I'm glad you went to see the doctor.  What did he say?"

He squeezed her hand, but his smile tightened.

"Just that I'm . . . that it's that post traumatic stress stuff," he mumbled.  "It's nothing to worry about, just memories and imagination.  As far as sleep goes, I just need to cut down on the caffeine.  Oh yeah.  And he said something about cutting back my salt."

Jill knew that if she insisted on continuing, she would get nothing but single word answers until he became irritated enough to stop talking completely.  There would be no fight, but it would spoil the rest of the day.  A waitress arrived, bringing menus and a way past the strained silence.  Richard ordered the biggest breakfast on the menu, the Lil' Abner.  Jill surprised him by ordering the same two-plate meal.

"You can eat all that?" he asked.

"I am eating for two," she said.

Voicing the trite thought brought a smile she could feel all the way to her ears, and the thrill of hearing her voice it prickled the back of Richard's neck.  Her obvious joy made him feel like he could face down anything, especially something as silly and harmless as a nightmare.  If this wonderful woman was going to have his baby then there couldn't be anything terribly wrong with him.

"Doc and I have a therapy session on Wednesday," he said, surprising her.

"Therapy?  I thought he was a GP."

"He fancies himself an amateur shrink.  We're going to tip a few and drown some worms."

"Okay, so you're going fishing," she said, deciphering the slang as if it were code.  "But I totally missed that first part."

Though English was her second language, Jill spoke and wrote it better than most of the educated people he knew, but slang sometimes still threw her.

"We might share a beer or two when we take a breather from hauling in monster bass," he explained.

"I thought you might like him," she said, pleased with herself.  "You have a lot in common?"

It shouldn't have surprised him that she knew of Hoag's military background.

"We'll swap fish stories and talk about women," he said.

"Oh.  You will tell lies."

"Men always lie about the one that got away."

"Are we talking about fish or women?" she asked with faux sternness.

"Well, let's see," he said, feigning seriousness.  "I don't remember any women that got away, but then again I only hooked this one keeper."

"Let's terminate this extended metaphor before someone gets himself in trouble," she said as the waitresses came with their plates.

Jill stared agape at the eggs, ham, hash browns, and waffles.

"Oh my!" she gasped.

"Maybe you're having twins," he suggested.

The Alley Spring mill was a two story red clapboard building restored to working order.  Tourists could watch the undershot water wheel drive the grindstones, and purchase bags of authentic stone ground flour and cornmeal.  Neither the mill nor the canoe place would open for another half hour, so they walked around.  Strangely light blue water welled from the bottom of the circular millpond.

"There's no river," said Jill in surprise.

"It's a spring," he said.  "That water you see bubbling up down there has that blue color because of dissolved gasses."

"What is that?" she asked pointing down at what appeared through the shimmering spring water to be untrimmed hedges growing along the rim of the spring.

"That's watercress, I believe."

Jill gazed into the fountain of the deep with the childlike awe that the wisest of adults retain their entire lives.

"If this were in Europe, the Romans would have made a city here.  Today it would be a spa."

"Ah the Romans' penchant for cleanliness!  They may have been blood-thirsty bastards, but at least they were clean blood-thirsty bastards."

"You must not curse when we have a child," she said, although he could tell from her expression that she appreciated his effort at wit.

"Bastard is a legitimate word for polite conversation."

"A child would not be capable of making such fine distinction," she said seriously.

"First no smoking and now no cursing.  Pretty soon I'll have no manly vices left."

"Am I being bitchy?" she asked seriously.

"No.  You're being your Aunt Mirabelle.  That's a good thing I think.  I wish I could have met her."

They rented a canoe to float down the Jack's Fork and on to Owl's Bend on the Current River where an employee would truck them back to their car.  Richard let a boisterous party of canoeists to get well clear before putting in, the sound of drunken floaters not being his idea of a nature experience.  Although Jill could swim like a fish and the Jack's Fork ran around gravel bars, not over boulders, he chose a wide-bodied Grumman canoe, erring on the side of caution.

With hardly a trace of civilization intruding they slid silently through narrow winding stretches of green water sometimes overarched by a canopy of sycamore, maple and cottonwood where pendants of possum grape vines dangled almost to the water's surface.  On open stretches willow thickets and gravel bars shimmered in the sunlight.

"No two years are the same," he said as he pulled in his paddle to drift with the current.  "The gravel bars are always changing and shifting position."

"Unspoiled," she almost whispered, "It's as if we are the first people to ever visit it."

"In the spring we could be.  Sometimes, if they have an extended period of rain, the water can go up twenty feet.  That changes everything.  It's a new river."

"Twenty feet?" she asked skeptically.

"Look," he said, pointing up at a white barked sycamore leaning over them.

In its gnarled crotch, high above their heads a mass of flood debris was packed together like a bird nest.

The sound of rushing water drew his attention downstream.  When they took a turn around a gravel bar, Richard saw a narrow chute that fell by what he guessed was ten to twelve feet in a short span.  He back-paddled, then turned the canoe in a wide arc toward a shallow area to the left so that he could study the situation.  Peering past him, Jill pointed to a clump of tangled willows.

"Over there, Richard."

He paddled over to investigate.  Here the water flowed in a wide, but very shallow, slip of slowly moving water through which weeds with leaves almost identical to the willow trees grew.  If they went this way there was a good chance they would ground, but they could walk the canoe through to the next pool with nothing but wet shoes as a consequence.

"Lets go down this way," he said.

"Why not go through those little rapids," she said enthusiastically.  "That would be fun."

"If we turn crosswise the canoe will tip.  The baby---"

"I'm less than two and half months pregnant.  The baby has plenty of padding."

"Okay," he said reluctantly, "but keep your paddle in the boat and let me handle it.

He slipped them into the mouth of the chute with more trepidation than the circumstances warranted.  The accelerating water did most of the work as they sped through the S shaped torrent, while he cooperated with the current.  A last forward lurch propelled them onto the calm surface of a large pool.

"Bravo!  Well done," said Jill.  "See there was nothing to worry about."

He released his breath as if he had just survived a death-defying stunt.  Looking back up the chute, he wondered what about such an innocuous stretch of water should have concerned him so.  He had cast fishing line while running such water before, but now his pulse was racing.

"That was fun," said Jill beaming enthusiastically.

The Current, like the Jack's Fork, was spring-fed, but considerably larger.  A willow tree ahead lay low in the water, dipping rhythmically as the river tried to pry it loose and carry it downstream.  For the moment a tenuous equilibrium sustained, but the relentless river would sooner or later have its way and pieces of it would fetch up on a gravel bar to sustain beetles and grubs, and become camp wood.  Perhaps a remnant would sprout among the detritus to be reborn.

They were emerging from the wild.  Further down forestland alternated with privately owned property upon which moderate to expensive houses and summer cabins stood.  Stairways led from floating peers up steep slopes to decks well above the high water mark.  Owners watched an unending parade of canoeists and tubers during the summer.  This far up, however, the river was still pristine.  Crows commented on their passage, herons flew away to regain solitude, and jays warned of their approach.

As they rounded a bend, the water burbled loudly as it ran through a narrow chute off the main channel to their left.  Richard looked ahead, and his heart kicked in sudden dread.

"My God!  A child!" he gasped, frantically thrusting his paddle into the water.

Startled by his words and the sudden rocking, Jill grabbed the sides of the canoe with both hands to steady herself.

"In the river?" she asked, searching for what he had seen.

A fully clothed elderly man stood waist-deep in the river, searching intently about him in the water a hundred yards ahead.

"Oh no.  Oh no," she said as she picked up her paddle and tried to help him.  "Do you see it?"

"No," he grunted as he paddled furiously.

Now they could see the crowd standing at the shoreline.  The man, dressed in black trousers, white shirt, and dark tie, made his way slowly back to the bank, moving deliberately as old men do.  Richard pulled his paddle in and drifted with the current as the sound of a cappella singing carried above the noise of the rushing water. 

Shall we gather at the river;

The beautiful, beautiful river;

Gather with the Saints at the river;

That flows by the throne of God.

Richard back-paddled, steering toward the shallows where he dug his paddle into the gravel to hold the canoe steady.  Jill self-consciously pulled a T-shirt on over her swimsuit.

The man handed his glasses to an elderly woman before holding out his hand for a teenager in a long pale blue dress.  He led her out to the area where Richard had thought his was searching for a drowned child.  With a folded handkerchief in his left hand, he had the girl grip his right wrist with both hands as he said something to her.  She nodded.  He turned to the silent congregation, raised his right hand, and intoned in a loud, clear voice.

"By the authority of Shiloh Baptist Church, and upon her profession of faith, and in accordance with the ordinance commanded by our Savior, I baptize this my sister, Emily Myers, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

As he finished, he placed the handkerchief over the girl's mouth and nose, put his right hand between her shoulder blades, and bent at the waist, tilting her until she was submerged briefly in the cold water.  As she rose from the symbolic watery grave, he helped her regain her footing.  Then the two walked back to the gravel bar as the congregation began a rendition of Amazing Grace.  Each came forward to shake hands with the girl and the preacher, both of whom now stood draped in towels brought for the occasion.

When he was sure that the ceremony was over, Richard loosed the canoe and let it slide past.

"Thank you for your consideration, young man," called out the preacher as they passed.

"It was a nice thing to witness," said Jill.

"Bless you, young lady," he said with a wave.

Jill returned it with a smile.

"That was quaint, don't you think?" asked Richard when the water had carried them around the gravel bar and beyond view of the congregation.

"Quaint is a rather condescending word, don't you think?" rejoined Jill as she took off the shirt.

"Come on, Jill.  They've been building baptisteries since the Middle Ages."

"Yes, but it is the way I imagine New Testament baptisms to have been.  It was beautiful," she said softly as she replayed it in her mind.  "It is not a christening.  Is it their confirmation?"

"It's a public profession of faith," he said.

"Were you baptized?"

"No," he said irritably.  "Look, can we talk about something else?"

"I didn't mean to intrude," she said, obviously hurt.

"You aren't intruding.  I just don't like to talk about religion.  It . . . complicates things between people.  I'm sure those people were sincere, and that's all that counts."

"People can be sincerely wrong," she said.  "Not that I think those people were.  It was beautiful and . . . it seemed holy."