Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

I headed to the post office with my dog, Maggs, to pick up the package that my old boss had sent to this oddly named town of Rocky Start and to get away from the four women and the SUV.

Maggs and I had been shadow-walking just off the Appalachian Trail for months, following along beside it through the woods while avoiding the people on the main trail as much as possible, and today we'd headed for the town Herc had sent my boots to. It was a pretty little place, off to itself in the woods, spread out for a half mile covering a flat bend in the river away from the highway. When we got into town, I heard some shouting from a store, and then a guy stumbled backwards out of the door, dragging a crazy lady swinging a black statue. Parked across the street was a big black Mercedes with the subtle, but important, modifications indicating it was armored, its windows tinted and engine running.

All of that seemed odd, but none of it was my problem.

But then he backhanded her. I don't care who started it or who was in the right or wrong, you don't hit women. You might have to kill one if she's trying to kill you, but that's a different scenario. I went closer, noting that the woman was a furious, middle-aged version of the girl-next-door, all curly dark hair and flashing dark eyes. Cute in a she-demon kind of way, but then I'd been on the trail for months; some trees were looking good to me. I didn't know who the guy was, but he had a telltale bulge under his jacket on his right hip.

He was reaching for that bulge as she swung the statue toward his balls, so I grabbed the guy's collar and pulled him backward and behind me into the street to save both of them, just as a middle-aged Asian-American woman carrying a taser came bursting out of an office behind the SUV, yelling something about a pike.

The guy rolled to his feet while the crazy-lady-next-door bitched at me for saving her, and then Maggs barked and she said, "Behind you," and I had to deal with the jerk as he charged me. I got him with a leg sweep but he handled it like a pro, going with the fall, rolling and immediately back on his feet.

I dumped the ruck and we were squaring off when a woman in the Mercedes called out and brought him to heel and he left, so he probably had some mother issues. Those are the worst. The SUV drove off, smooth on a jacked-up suspension to handle the weight, the powerful engine rumbling, so that problem was gone.

Two more women had come out of the shop, a dark-haired teenager who was obviously not afraid to use a shotgun and an older, stacked woman in a big black hat who was holding a small version of the classic Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife in a way that showed she knew how to use it. And then there was the Asian-American woman in the sharp suit with a pink taser in her hand and a look on her face that said somebody was going to die. And weirdest of all, the feisty, grown-up girl-next-door, blazing eyes and dark curls bouncing, swinging what appeared to be the Maltese Falcon. That last was a new one to me, and I'd seen a lot of weapons in my life. Being wise to the ways of the world, particularly those that involved danger, I moved on down the street, away from the quartet of females ready to inflict pain.

Definitely not going back there.

I continued down the main drag. There was no sign of the Mercedes; it had turned, probably heading out of town if the people in it had any sense. All I could see was a handful of folks going about their business, most of them middle-aged or older. Rocky Start did not look like the kind of place that kept its young. The trees were turning at the higher elevations, and it was going to be a beautiful fall here in a week or two, but it would also be beautiful miles down the A.T. where I planned on being shortly, where there would probably be fewer armed women.

The guy bothered me. He was definitely hinky. The woman must have caught him by surprise—who expects a Maltese Falcon?—but he'd recovered nicely and the stance he'd assumed to face me spoke of someone who'd had training, but not enough since his foot placement was slightly off and he'd run into the leg sweep at full speed.

The armored Mercedes also bothered me. It did not belong here. Very Important People rode in those, particularly VIPs who were worried about threats to their well-being. I knew because I'd taken down one or two in my time and also ridden in them on protective gigs.

Still, not my business.

I checked my map app and found out there were two post offices because the town was bisected by the state line between Tennessee on the north and North Carolina on the south where the jagged line that separated the two states ran east-west for a mile or so. That explained the blue line running down the center of the appropriately named State Street and evidently up through the building called "Oddities" behind me. Two post offices seemed extreme, but I'd done contract work for the government and knew redundancy and stupidity were built into all elements of the bureaucracy. It had kept the country running this long through a lot of shit, so who am I to complain? Plus, it had paid me pretty well for many years.

I noticed several onlookers who'd come out of the storefronts during the kerfuffle, the most notable of which were an older Black woman dressed in a white suit in front of Merriweather's Funeral Home , and across the street, a big, doofus-looking guy wearing glasses, headphones, and a black suit. He had come out of the place called Nice Funerals. I was wondering if the two of them were waiting to see if there would be any business. Both eyeballed me as I walked the line down the middle of the street, as if measuring me for a wood box.

So. Two post offices and two competing funeral homes. What the hell kind of town was this? Because there wasn't much of a town outside of this main drag. None of the buildings were higher than two stories, most of them old and worn brick, the ground floors being small mom and pop shops. The place dated back at least a century when these mountains had been harvested for timber before that same bureaucratic government stepped in and made things like national parks and national forests. Score one for the bean counters and bureaucracy.

The two POs were directly across the street from each other, and North Carolina had a CLOSED sign on the door. Tennessee won by default, although I had little doubt that my boots had been shipped to the North Carolina side because that was my life.

Maggs and I stopped at the Tennessee PO, and I signaled for her to wait outside the door and went in. There was no one behind the counter, but there was a bell. Before I tapped it, given the weirdness I'd already seen here, I surveyed the place, noting a pair of expensive cameras in the far corners of the room. Pretty high-tech for a small town. Then I leaned over the counter to take a look. Nothing suspicious to see except an M1014 Benelli semi-automatic shotgun with a collapsible stock in a specially made sheath, ready for quick deployment. Not standard post office issue. Last I'd seen one, it had been issued to Special Operations close-quarters battle teams for sweeping rooms with a half dozen blasts as fast as one could pull the trigger. I hoped my package wasn't postage due.

I lightly tapped the bell. It took several seconds, then an older fellow in USPS uniform—blue shorts, white shirt, plus gray hair and bushy white eyebrows—came out. He looked me up and down, then nodded and swallowed, dabbing his lips with the napkin tucked in his collar, which was already crowded with a bow tie.

"Max Reddy? "

I tensed, half expecting dark figures to lunge out of the shadows. "Yes."

"We received your package yesterday."

I had to ask, although I didn't want to. "How do you know it's mine?"

"The wife and I know everyone in town and the package was sent care of the post office to someone we never heard of. Max Reddy. So we figured it was a stranger passing through. We don't get many strangers. Passing through. None staying. You are him, right?"

"I am he," I said, for lack of anything else and noting the emphasis on "none staying." So far, this wasn't turning out to be a friendly town. I waited for Postmaster Lionel Ferrell (according to his name tag) to produce the package, but he just stared at me.

"The package?" I finally prodded.

"Oh," he said, as if surprised. "It was sent to Rocky Start, North Carolina. Across the street. My wife has it there."

"That post office is closed."

"Yep," he said. "Postmistress is out doing the route. We flip every morning for that. She lost today. Made her none too happy, not that she's ever happy. A grim woman, she is."

"Could you perhaps get it for me?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Nope. Not my jurisdiction. The United States Post Office is a branch of the federal government, son, and as such we are governed by very strict laws regarding the storage and delivery of mail." He said this by rote, bored and apparently willing to ignore the coin flip thing, which most certainly wasn't in the official manual.

The door opened behind me and the young shotgun girl came in, sans weapon, looking like she owned the place. Maggs padded in after her from the porch. Which Maggs isn't supposed to do. I waited for Ferrell to throw a fit about the dog being inside. I was, of course, wrong.

"Hiya, Poppy," Ferrell said, changing demeanor in a flash.

The girl smiled at him. "Hiya, Mr. Ferrell." Then she transferred her big brown eyes to me and lost her smile. "You're not taking care of your dog. She hasn't been groomed in a long time and she looks underweight. What's her name?"

"Maggs. But?—"

She shook her head. "Let me help clean Maggs up and feed her; I'm good at that."

"Yep," Mr. Ferrell agreed. "Poppy's pretty much the town vet these days since that moron Alfie ran off to Peru with his assistant. Louise ." He said the name with loathing. "I give it a couple of weeks and he'll be back, tail between his legs, poorer and no wiser. No Louise, neither." He looked at me. "She's a dangerous woman, that Louise, with her womanly wiles." He shook his head. "Women. They'll turn on you in a second. No offense," he added to Poppy.

"None taken," she said cheerfully.

"I'll see to Maggs," I said, irritated by the accusation that I wasn't taking care of my dog, even though the girl was right about the lack of grooming, although the same could be said of me. I turned back to the postmaster. "Could you unlock the door across the street so I can get my package?"

He shook his head. "The wife doesn't like me messing with her stuff. She doesn't like me much in general right now. That woman can carry a grudge. She should be back before dinner."

I sighed. "You want me out of town? Get my package and I'm gone."

He looked at me keenly. "You here because of Oz?"

"What's Oz?"

"Not what. Who. Friend of ours." Ferrell nodded at Poppy, whose smile faded. "Died two days ago. Terrible thing, but he was getting on in years. Just keeled over. Message there for all of us." He pursed his lips. "I hear tell there's some stranger in town claiming to be Oz's son, giving Rose at Oddities some trouble. That you?"

"Nope," I said, and beside me Poppy shook her head vigorously in support, which helped alleviate some of my irritation.

"Good," Ferrell said. "Don't like vultures winging into town. Not much for strangers either. "

No shit . "Could I just get my package?" I pointed at my toe sticking out of the boot. "It's boots. I need them."

Poppy made a small distressed sound as she looked down.

Ferrell's chin went up. "I also hear there's a fellow who ran off the man claiming to be Oz's son. That you?"

"Apparently."

"Yes, it's him, he's the good guy," Poppy said firmly. "But now I need to clean his dog up and feed her as a thank you."

I said, "No," but the door opened again, and this time it was Feisty, out of breath and bosom heaving, her cheek red from where that jerk had hit her. "Hi, Lionel," she said cheerfully, and Lionel grinned and said, "Hiya, Rose. Looking good."

"Thank you, Lionel," she said, practically twinkling at him. Just a cute woman in an apron who'd tried to beat a guy up with a Maltese Falcon and was now holding a taser.

And smiling at me.

I really needed to get out of this town.