"How come we never dated in high school?" Ernie appeared out of the dark to ask right up front. He looked a little crocked, too. But what would compel such an overt question?

Maybe the fact that I practically pulled his pants down in the woods the other day? she chided herself. Suddenly, though, she seemed remorseful. "I don't know, Ernie. I guess it was all me. I didn't care about anything except getting an education and getting out, after . . . well, you know. What happened at Bowen's Field."

Ernie nodded, probably not expecting his question to cause such a dark note. He just nodded, then thrust a plate at her. "Try a mushroom stuffed with crab roe. They're great."

Patricia laughed. She ate one, then said very quickly, "I wish we had, though, Ernie," and wandered off.

"Wish we had what?" he practically shouted after her.

She giggled and wended through more people, sensing him behind her. "Where's Chief Sutter?" she asked to change the subject. "I haven't seen him in a while."

"I think I saw him leave earlier."

Patricia stopped, peering between some shoulders toward the woods. She grabbed Ernie's arm. "Is that Everd Stanherd out there?"

"Can't be," he said, squinting himself. "He's wanted by the police."

Even now she could see the figure standing between some trees, firelight from one of the cooking pits shifting across the thin, old face. For a moment it appeared as though his intensely bright eyes looked right at Patricia. "Don't you see him? He's right . . ." But before she could point, a pretty Squatter girl stepped right in front of them. Her ripe young body filled the skimpy shorts and makeshift top. A trinketlike cross dangled about her swollen cleavage, and the smile on her face seemed wanton, mischievous. Squiggles of some kind of dark face paint adorned her cheeks-like a child at a carnival. More bizarre lines curved down her bare belly and around her navel, while still more traveled down voluptuous legs.

Patricia was taken aback when the girl kissed both her and Ernie on the cheek, then placed pendants around their necks, after which she scurried away into the crowd.

"What is this?" Patricia touched the object about her neck, a furry preserved animal foot of some kind. "A rabbit's foot?"

"Not quite. It's a badger's foot."

Patricia winced. "Gross! Why would she . . . Like the Hawaiians and their leis, some kind of welcoming gift?"

Ernie snorted a laugh. "It's sort of a fertility thing with them, a romance thing."

"Huh?"

"Lemme put it this way. The Squatters must think you 'n' me would make a great couple. Guess they didn't see your wedding ring."

Patricia's fingers were unconsciously diddling with the dried foot. "How strange."

Ernie was obviously frustrated and maybe even embarra.s.sed. He peered back through the crowd. "What were you sayin'? You saw Everd? If ya did, we should probably call Chief Sutter."

"I don't think for a minute that Everd Stanherd had anything to do with Junior Caudill's death, and neither do you."

"No, I guess I don't," Ernie verified, "but why'd he 'n' his wife head for the hills the minute folks started sayin' he did?"

Patricia couldn't answer. She stood on her tiptoes to look over the crowd. The fire pit raged, but there was no one standing between the trees where she thought she'd seen the Squatter elder. "Maybe it wasn't even him," she dismissed. "Just someone who looked like him. What was it they called him? Remember the guy who gave us the oysters the other day?"

"Oh, Regert, yeah. That name the clan has for Everd is sawon. It means 'seer,' or somethin' like that."

Patricia kept looking out. "d.a.m.n, I'm sure it was him, though." Without even thinking, she grabbed Ernie's hand and pulled. "Come on; let's go check."

She was tugging him gently through the crowd. More firelit faces grinned at them as they pa.s.sed, many of them adorned as the girl had been, with the carnival-like face paint. Again, and even more strongly, Patricia didn't feel like herself, but whoever that other self was . . . she enjoyed the sensation. Another part, though-some remnant of her rational self-probably knew what her subconscious was up to. Lewd thoughts shouted at her in the baldest truth: I'm drunk, I'm h.o.r.n.y, and, gee, look what I'm doing now. I'm hauling this man into the woods on a stupid pretext-the same man I almost had s.e.x with the other day. I keep telling myself that I'd never cheat on Byron, but . . . what am I really doing?

She couldn't even fool herself.

Their footfalls crunched into the woods. I should let go of his hand now, she thought. But she didn't. She led him in deeper, until the moonlight showed them a footpath. "Let's go this way," she said. "He probably came this way."

Ernie said nothing, but he was frowning.

Moonlight painted one tree whose bark had been sc.r.a.ped away, and into the bare wood beneath more odd Squatter etchings had been cut around a makeshift cross. Would this be her good luck? And what of the bizarre badger foot the painted girl had christened them both with?

The night shimmered. As the cicadas thrummed, Patricia felt herself merging into that other self. Her heartbeat had already picked up; she could feel her nipples aching against the fabric of the sheer blouse. The evening heat was caressing her, sensitizing her skin through pores seeping sweat.

"Everd ain't out here, Patricia," Ernie finally spoke his mind. He likely had already deciphered her motives, even before she had herself. "This is dumb. Let's go back"

"No," she whispered. She was secretly desperate. "I'm serious. I really did see him." Now her fingers seemed manic, diddling with the dried foot as though it were some talisman that would embolden her.

"I'm goin' back," he insisted, agitation in his voice. "We both know what's goin' on here."

"What?" she questioned ineptly. "What do you-"

"If we stay out here, we're both gonna get in trouble, and it ain't gonna lead to nothin' no ways. I ain't comin' out here just to be jerked around."

Patricia let go of his hand and stopped. "Ernie, that's ridiculous," she insisted, but her head was reeling-not so much from inebriation as from l.u.s.t. l.u.s.t felt stuffed in her head. Her knees were almost shaking. "I really do want to talk to Everd Stanherd-"

"Fine. Then go talk to him. I ain't gettin' myself set up again to wind up lookin' like a fool. I'm goin' back."

When he turned, her heart twisted in her chest. All reason was lost now, along with her values and self-respect. "Ernie, wait. . . ."

He gruffed a sigh, stopped midstep, and jerked back around.

Patricia had already unb.u.t.toned her blouse. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s felt hot and very heavy on her chest now, as though all that drunken desire had pushed more blood into them. She skimmed off the blouse and let it fall to the twigs. She was leaning against the skinned tree, her head just under the crudely adorned Squatter cross. Her eyes riveted into him.

"Christ, I feel sorry for your husband, Patricia, 'cos you are one right pain in the a.s.s when you drink."

She barely heard him. She arched her back against the tree, elucidating her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and next she actually caressed them in her hands. When she pliered the nipples between her fingers, she moaned out loud.

"You're drunk," he declared.

"I know, but so what?"

She slipped her shorts down to midthigh, then openly played a hand through her scarlet pubic hair.

Ernie gnawed his lip, then decided. "You're all bark and no bite, Patricia. You got some midlife f.u.c.ked-up city-chick thing goin' on, like teasin' it up with some redneck sucker who had a crush on you since junior high's gonna show ya somethin' about yourself you didn't know. It's just bulls.h.i.t, and I ain't buyin' it, and even if you were game, all that'd do is make ya feel guilty in the morning 'cos you're f.u.c.kin' married and you and I both know you ain't gonna cheat on your husband. You might act like you'd cheat on him, but you ain't gonna do it, so's I'm wastin' my d.a.m.n time standin' here like a f.u.c.kin' idiot."

Ernie turned around and walked back to the cookout.

The reality collided with her. She was almost in tears when she pulled her shorts up and got back into her blouse. She stumbled to the fringes of the gathering, finally letting some common sense reach through her drunkenness. I am really one screwed-up woman. It doesn't have anything to do with my childhood, or the rape or my parents. It's got nothing to do with Dr. Sallee or Byron or Ernie or anyone. It's me, and I've got to get my act together, and I've got to start right now. . . .

The party was still in full swing as some of the older Squatters lit the great bonfire in the middle of the field. Patricia edged around the crowd, cloaking herself in shadows. She didn't look to see where Ernie was and she felt too embarra.s.sed to allow herself to be seen. After several deep breaths, she felt a little less drunk, and she walked back up the hill.

The only person who even noticed her leaving was Everd Stanherd himself, who was looking out from the trees he'd been hiding in. He watched her walk home.

"Maybe she can help us, like you said," Marthe Stanherd remarked. She held her husband's hand in the dark.

"Maybe, my love," he replied in his strange, buoyant accent. "Or maybe I'm wrong about everything, and the great Lord G.o.d has deemed me unfit to be a seer even for myself. . . ."

(II).

Chief Sutter had felt not quite right all day. This morning, for instance, he'd wakened with a grand erection-rare for a man his age-but when he took a look at his wife snoring next to him, he realized he'd sooner attempt to copulate with a grounded manatee. The box of jelly-filled doughnuts he'd picked up for breakfast at the Qwik-Mart was stale. He'd had a headache and a half since morning, which turned into a headache and seven-eights by noon from the pollen and the heat. All kinds of s.h.i.t was going down in his town, none of which Sutter could reckon, and the only thing he had to look forward to all day was the Squatter cookout, which had kicked off just fine, and then he got a call from Trey on the radio. Something happened at the station. Jesus.

"What are all the d.a.m.n lights doin' off?" were the first words to exit Sutter's mouth when he came in.

Trey looked up from his desk with an expression like bewilderment. The younger man rubbed his face. "Things are startin' to get really f.u.c.ked-up 'round here, Chief. I don't know where to start."

Sutter looked at his watch, his patience ticking away with it. "Why'd you call me down here at midnight, Trey? And why'd you turn off the lights? Start talkin'. Now."

"Ricky Caudill's dead, Chief," Trey blurted.

"Bulls.h.i.t." Sutter bulled past Trey's desk to the cells. The only light that remained on was the hall light, which bled into Caudill's unit. The cell door stood unlocked.

"f.u.c.k!" Sutter shouted.

Eventually Trey came down the hall. He was edgy, fidgeting. "That's how I found him, Chief. Looks like . . ."

Sutter was leaning over the cot. "It looks like all his blood's gone is what'choo were about to say." The wizened face looked pale as old candle wax. There was no blood on the floor, none on Caudill's clothes, no evidence of a wound. "It's f.u.c.kin' crazy," Sutter murmured, staring.

Trey turned on the cell light. Sutter unb.u.t.toned Cauldill's shirt to reveal a sheet-white chest underscored with blue veins. The lack of color in the flesh made Ricky's chest hairs look like jet-black wires. The nipples were purple. Sutter lifted up the arm that dangled off the cot, then pushed Caudill's body on its side. "No lividity," he said.

"What's that, Chief?"

"We've seen corpses before, Trey. After they're dead an hour or two, the blood settles to the low points a' the body and turns blue. But not here. It's impossible."

"I know, Chief," Trey agreed wearily. "Lotta impossible s.h.i.t been goin' on lately, and you know what folks're sayin'."

Sutter turned and bellowed, "I ain't believin' no s.h.i.t about Everd Stanherd hexin' people! Ain't no reason for Everd to hex Ricky or Junior anyway!"

Trey shrugged where he stood. "There is if it was Ricky 'n' Junior who killed the Hilds and the Ealds."

Sutter's face was reddening. "Why would they do that? You're sayin' the Caudills were into selling crystal meth, too?"

"I don't know, Chief. Gimme another explanation, then. Somebody killed Ricky in his cell, drained all his blood without spillin' a drop? You tell me."

"There ain't no f.u.c.kin' such thing as hexes 'n' curses 'n' magic! We're cops, for G.o.d's sake!" Sutter yelled. "You hear me?"

Trey waited through a moment of silence. "Roger that, Chief. I don't believe the s.h.i.t either, but then again . . . I don't know what to make of any a' this."

"Did you call the coroner's office?"

"No."

"Why?"

Trey let out a breath at the same time he took an inadvertent glance at Ricky Caudill's grub-white corpse. "This place is givin' me the creeps, Chief. Let's go back out front and talk."

Sutter's temper was ranging up and down. He didn't like not knowing things, and right now the only thing he did know was that something was seriously offkilter. "Turn some f.u.c.kin' lights on," he griped in the station lobby. "It's dark as a f.u.c.kin' tomb in here."

There was a click. Suddenly a cone of light blossomed at Chief Sutter's very own desk. But Trey was standing beside him.

Then who the h.e.l.l was sitting at Sutter's desk?

"Good evening, Chief Sutter," Gordon Felps greeted him. Only the bottom half of his face could be seen in the light. "We were going to talk to you eventually, but certain events have expedited that need."

"Mr. Felps? What are you-"

"It's best if we just begin as openly as possible," the blond man said. "You are the law, after all. But sometimes the law is malleable, for the greater good. The Squatters, for instance."

Confusion immediately swept Sutter. He looked to Trey, who remained standing beside him. "What's going on, Trey?"

Trey sighed. "Chief, it's like last week, when we shook down those s.h.i.theads in the Hummer. Common drug dealers. We f.u.c.ked 'em up and took their cash, and booted 'em out of town, right?"

The reference threw Sutter for a big loop. That had been private police business, the details of which he didn't particularly want to admit in front of Felps or any citizen. "Trey, you better level with me about what's goin' on here."

Trey nodded, crossing his arms. "That's what I'm doin', boss. And you are the boss; don't get me wrong. We want you in with us."

"I'm not likin' the sound of this."

Trey held up a finger to make a point. "Lemme put it this way. Those sc.u.mbags in the Hummer, okay? What if we'd gone a step further, Chief? I mean, what we did was illegal. You weren't exactly keepin' the Const.i.tution in mind when you knocked that black dealer's teeth out and busted his leg-"

Sutter was enraged. "You were part a' that, too, so don't ya go sayin' that-"

"Chief, Chief, that's not what I mean, so listen to me. We both f.u.c.ked those guys up, and we took their watches and their cash-you and me. And we've done stuff like that before because-let's face it-the common man don't give a s.h.i.t if the police steal from criminals and bust their faces in. Forget about the letter a' the law-this is commonsense stuff we're talkin' 'bout, stuff that all cops do, 'cos if we don't take the law into our own hands when we can get away with it, criminals' ll drag this great country of ours right down the s.h.i.tter. You agree with that, Chief. We've talked about it. What it all boils down to is this: so what? We f.u.c.ked up a coupla criminals. We stole from a coupla thieves. And in doin' so, we did help make the world a teeny bit better, didn't we? 'Cos those two a.s.sholes are probably still in the hospital. They ain't never gonna sell drugs here again, right?"

Sutter's blood pressure was starting to creep. "Right, Trey, so stop d.i.c.kin' with me and tell me what this is really all about."

Trey nodded again, sticking to a.n.a.logies. "Let's go one further, okay? Let's just say we'd killed those two losers in the Hummer. They kill innocent people with the drugs they sell. We know they're guilty. Sure, the Const.i.tution 'n' all says they're innocent until proven guilty in court, but-s.h.i.t, Chief-we saw it with our own eyes. We don't need no judge to tell us. Those guys sell hard drugs, and folks eventually die from those same drugs. So say we killed 'em to boot. That's against the letter a' the law, too. But what about the common man's law? It ain't that big a deal, right? We killed a couple of killers and the world's a better place for it. Right?"

Sutter's eyes shone hard on Trey. "What the f.u.c.k are you tryin' to tell me?"

"What Trey's trying to relate to you, Chief," Gordon Felps stood up and said, "is that we're all trying to make Agan's Point a better place, while we're serving our own better interests at the same time."

"The Squatters," Sutter croaked.

"Yes, Chief. They're a negative element, and they need to go. I won't lie to you. I want them gone so that I can make a lot of money by turning Agan's Point into the clean, upscale community it deserves to be. Trey wants them gone so that he can benefit financially as well. The Squatters are slowly sliding away from acceptable levels of morality. They're getting Into the drug trade themselves, which can only be bad for Agan's Point. If the Squatters leave, then Judy Parker will sell the land to me and we can get on with the business of progress."