hers, but in fact she had taken no notice of them. Once Daniel had gone to see her about purchasing some ginseng, but she had declined to do business with them. That had been two years ago, when the Nunwati Nature-Friends were new to the area. Daniel thought that he might try again sometime, now that the group was more widely known. Their
Patricia Elf became so frightened at the thought of these marauders at large that she refused to work in the health food shop alone. After several days of confinement in the shop, Daniel decided that there must be a better way to pacify Patricia, a way that would enable him to sleep past eight in the morning without eliciting reproachful lectures on his disregard for her safety. Daniel decided to buy a gun. Marty at the Wampum Store (“Gold and Silver Bought and Sold”) offered him a Saturday night special that somebody had traded in for an I.D. bracelet, so Daniel bought the gun and went over to the sheriff’s office to apply for a permit. It was a first for Sheriff Duncan Johnson. Most of his constituents owned rifles and shotguns, which did not require permits, and he had never before been required to issue one.
After a futile search for pistol permit forms, Duncan Johnson mulled over the situation and hit upon a solution that seemed to him both simple and practical: he appointed Coltsfoot deputy sheriff. Deputies were entitled to have sidearms without benefit of permit, so Johnson swore him in and sent him about his business. Of course, Daniel did not have a uniform, nor did he participate in any legal functions; it was understood that his appointment was merely a formality designed to foil the bureaucrats in charge of permits. Duncan Johnson would not have dreamed of allowing Dummyweed to patrol the county. The fact that Coltsfoot personified the law on the night of Alex Lerche’s murder was pure coincidence-or, as Milo considered it, the malevolence of fate.
Duncan Johnson had gone to the annual North Carolina Sheriffs’ Convention, which was being held in Wrightsville Beach. The prospect of ocean fishing had been the main factor in the sheriff’s decision to go, but he also hoped to get elected vice-president or perhaps treasurer of the organization. Running for office was a habit with Duncan Johnson. He left the county, peaceful after the early tourist invasion, in the hands of Deputy Pilot Barnes, who had the sense to do what had to be done and leave the rest alone until the boss returned.
Pilot Barnes was doing well in his second day of substitute sheriffing, until 8:00 p.m., when a call came in about a wreck on Whistle Creek, and Pilot had no one to dispatch but himself. He hated to disturb Hamp McKenna, who was his eleven-o’clock replacement. He was debating between calling Hamp and closing the office, when Daniel Hunter Coltsfoot wandered in, asking if he could post a craft fair notice among the wanted posters. Pilot decided that Dummyweed was the least of three evils (by a small margin) and left him in charge of the office, while he went to see about the wreck. After all, he reasoned, Dummyweed was a deputy, and how much trouble could he get into in one hour on a slow night?
It was a wonder he hadn’t wrecked the car, Milo thought. His hands were cold with sweat. Despite the shock, though, he thought he had things under control. He was in charge now, and he couldn’t worry about the personal side of what had happened. Later, maybe. He was glad he had driven the Sarvice Valley Road so many times. His hands moved the steering wheel at the curves without his conscious thought, and he anticipated the winding of the road, taking it as fast as he dared. He ought to be back in an hour, if they didn’t waste too much time at the sheriff’s office. He would tell Comfrey Stecoah when they got back, he decided; right now, he wanted to bring in the law.
Milo had left Jake alone at the dig site with the body, and Elizabeth in the church comforting Tessa Lerche and Mary Clare. Or perhaps guarding them. Milo wasn’t ready yet to separate mourners from suspects. Victor had turned up in the middle of it all-naturally-and proceeded to dramatize himself by having an asthma attack. Poor Elizabeth. If she could cope with this, she could handle anything.
Milo drove into Laurel Cove, wondering for the first time if he should have come at all. Perhaps he should have telephoned from Sarvice Valley. Surely someone there had a phone; he hadn’t thought to ask. They might even tell him that he should have reported this to Bevel Harkness, the Sarvice Valley deputy. Milo frowned. He was damned if he would. Bevel Harkness ranked high on Milo’s list of possible murderers, and he intended to tell them that, too. He swung the car into his usual parking place in front of the sheriff’s office. He had been in so much wrangling over the computer damage, that he was beginning to feel quite at home there. He wondered if Sheriff Johnson was back from the beach yet, and whether the county’s other emergency had come down from the tree of its own accord. The man behind the desk was not Pilot Barnes; after a long look at his outfit, Milo decided that it couldn’t possibly be Sheriff Johnson, either. The person on duty was a well-built young man in his mid-twenties, wearing a full- sleeved colonial shirt, burlap trousers, and black moccasins fastened with silver conchos. Milo wondered if this person was a guide who gave tours of “A Backwoods Jail.” He glanced about in search of more reliable assistance.
“May I help you?” asked Dummyweed pleasantly.
Milo hesitated. “Are you a deputy?”
“Sure am. Deputy Coltsfoot,” he declared, warming to his role. “What’s up?”
“I’m here to report a murder.”
“Oh, wow!” breathed Coltsfood. “No shit? Who?”
Milo told him.
“Oh, wow!” said Coltsfoot again. “With a
Milo relaxed a little. “I guess I could use a cup now,” he admitted.
“No, man, that’s just the point. You’ve got to cut down on stimulants for the next couple of days-coffee’s out of the question. And you ought to increase your intake of vitamins, too. That’s to combat stress. Murders are really stressful, man, so you need to watch your metabolism. Got that?”
“Look,” said Milo with an edge to his voice, “a man is dead in Sarvice Valley, and I’ve left him being guarded by a college kid, with a bunch of hysterical possible suspects in the common room of the church. Now where the hell is somebody who knows what to do?”
Coltsfoot sighed. “Pilot
“Fine. Can you call him?”
“In the patrol car, you mean? I guess so. Do you know how to use the radio there?”
“No,” said Milo wearily. “I don’t know how to use the radio. Isn’t there somebody else we could call?”
Coltsfoot stood up, beaming happily with a new idea. “I tell you what. I’ll go along with you to the scene of the crime, so you’ll have somebody official there, and I’ll leave a note for Pilot on the desk here, and he’ll be along when he gets back. Okay?”
Milo nodded. It seemed to be the only thing to do if he wanted to get back anytime soon. He did wonder, though, if Coltsfoot was better than nothing.
Twenty minutes later Pilot Barnes returned to an empty office. He checked the bathroom, and looked into the holding cells in case Dummyweed had decided to grab a nap while he waited, but there was no sign of him. Pilot had just concluded that Dummyweed had got bored and gone home when he saw the note propped on his coffee cup at the front desk. He read the message three times. “Indian Attack in Sarvice Valley,” it read. “Man fatally tomahawked. Bring help. (Signed) Deputy D. H. Coltsfoot.” Pilot Barnes’ first reaction was one of distrust. Indian attack, indeed! “Bring help.” The Seventh Cavalry, maybe? He continued to stare at the note, trying to decide that it was a prank so that he could throw it away, but the more he studied it, the more he tended to believe that it was a garbled version of the truth. Pilot could well believe that there had been trouble in Sarvice Valley; the Cullowhees were an ornery bunch of folks, and trouble would be no stranger to that hollow of theirs. It seemed feasible that they had bashed somebody’s head in for any number of reasons: poker game, drunk fight, that strip-mining
