Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

I watched Rose go down the street for a moment, ignoring the old guy glaring at me from his truck. She was kind of hot, braless as she was under that loose dress—you can find out a lot when you're searching for a wallet—and she had a nice swing to her step as she walked away. Insane and definitely bent, but cute. Then I looked at the old man in the truck who seemed impatient and apparently knew what a Mercedes G63 was, so I retrieved the shoe box from inside the Amazon box and sat on the curb again. I tugged off my old boots and replaced them, wiggling my toes, reveling in the feel. Sometimes it's the little things in life. I laced up and shoved the old boots into the box. I should have changed out the socks, too—you learn that early in the Infantry—but the old guy was getting testy and I didn't want to dig through my ruck in front of him.

He was still frowning at me as I stood. "Where you headed?"

"Back to the A.T."

"Get in. I'll give you a lift to the highway." This had echoes of the opening to Rambo , except I was too old and too tired to burn the town down and my knife was a lot smaller. More useful, but definitely smaller.

I tossed the box with my old boots in a nearby trash can, put my ruck in the bed of the pickup, opened the door, signaled for Maggs to get in, and climbed aboard the old rust-colored truck. Maggs sat between us on the bench seat and I noticed she did smell a little raw. The girl was right. Maggs could use a good cleaning up. Of course, so could I.

Pike was rolling before I had the door shut, but he wasn't moving fast as he did a leisurely U-turn to go back up the main drag. I noticed a pistol in an open-top holster bolted to the driver's-side door, within easy reach of his hand and ready to be pulled. He noticed that I noticed.

"Name's Pike. I'm the law." He shot me a glance. "And you are?"

I'd had to give my name to Ferrell to get my boots—and I was pretty sure it was all over town by now given the speed of the local grapevine—so I said, "Max Reddy."

"Where you coming from?"

"Up north."

"Where you going?"

"Down south."

"Uh-huh," he said, stopping at the lone stop sign on State Street and turning to look me over. "We don't get many strangers here. No A.T. through-hikers. Town's too far off the trail." He made it sound like I'd broken the law.

And we weren't moving. Probably so Pike could stare at me. I noticed in the side mirror that Rose was on the sidewalk, slightly behind us now, and thought it interesting he hadn't invited her in for the ride, although it would have been a tight fit with Pike, Maggs, me, and her. That would have been even more interesting.

"I meander," I told Pike, taking my eyes off the mirror.

"You meander," he said as if evaluating the statement. "So, you're walking the trail, is what you're claiming."

"Yes," I said, watching as Rose swung by, passing us. A lot of energy in that woman. Hips that moved, too.

"There aren't many trails from here to the A.T. so you have to move cross-country, which is tough bushwhacking in these hills." He nodded his head toward the west. "A.T. is five miles yonder where it cuts this road. Hikers resupply in Bearton farther down the line. Post office there is just a half mile off-trail. They welcome through-hikers."

The implication there was obvious.

Pike went on. "Either you're really lost or up to something."

I pointed down. "My boots were mailed here."

"Really?"

"Really."

He was studying me now and those eyes were keen, but after several moments, he put the truck in gear and drove through the intersection, arriving at the end of the street just as Rose was going into her store. He waved to her, made a U-turn, drove back down the street, turned left at the end and drove out to the highway. When we got there, he pulled off the road to let me out.

"Thank you," I said, opening the door.

His next words got my attention. "I expect you'll be moving on right quick now, won't you, stranger?"

Subtle he wasn't. "Did you find the guy claiming to be this Oz's son?" I asked, trying to level the playing field.

"Funny thing about that," Pike said. "I did not. He seems to have vanished."

"Isn't that kind of odd, given it's your town and it's not that big and they were in a pretty conspicuous vehicle?"

"Do not push me, son."

"I have no intention of doing so." I got out of the truck and called Maggs to join me.

He nodded east down the road. "Keep going straight and you'll hit where the A.T. crosses in about five miles," he said. Then he grinned at me. It wasn't heartwarming. "Got your wallet?"

I patted my pocket, and yes, it was gone. Great.

"Don't be going back for it," Pike warned.

"I have no plan to." I nodded to him and grabbed the ruck out of the truck bed, and he pulled away laughing as I barely got it out. He pulled a hard U-turn and headed back the way we'd come.

There was a story there, and I was going to move on before I heard it. Rose could have the damn wallet. It didn't have anything irreplaceable in it, just a cover ID and money, and I had more cash in the backpack. My old boss Herc could get me another valid, backstopped ID and mail it to my next pickup spot. Hopefully one closer to the trail and with fewer crazies.

I ignored Pike's order to take the road to the A.T. since following the highway would take me even farther out of the way, not to mention involve me with too many people. I checked my app and found that back down the highway there was a forest road that ran behind the town, crossing the Little Melvin River which delineated the south boundary of Rocky Start. I shouldered my ruck and ambled back down the highway until I found the road in a clearing in the trees. I crossed into the woods. Past the town, I reached a one-lane, steel-trestle, wooden-planked bridge over the Little Melvin River, a fast-moving, dangerous-looking mountain stream. On the far side was a gravel and dirt road.

I crossed the bridge and stopped when Maggs went still. On the left, I saw a white, one-story cottage, shutters painted blue with a white picket fence, with a deep overgrown trench on the inside of the fence and a gated wood bridge over it. That was weird but it wasn't enough to put Maggs on alert. Then I saw movement off to the side of the house, and a llama came out of the bushes and stared at me across the trench, clearly warning me off.

Yeah, a llama.

If anything tells you it's time to move on, it's when you start seeing llamas. I looked down at Maggs, who was staring at the beast now, her head cocked as if puzzled.

"I don't blame you," I said. "Let's keep moving."

I crossed another one-lane bridge over a stream, then found a narrow trail branching more to the west, and I took that so we could shadow the main trail again. Maggs moved parallel to me but off-trail to the left, which was her way.

About ten minutes later, I hit the tripwire.