By one o’clock, he’d followed the trail to the edge of the woods behind Marlor’s cabin. He’d called the dogs to heel a half hour ago, and now they flopped obligingly down on the pine needles while he studied the cabin for signs of life. He thought he could smell stale wood smoke in the air, which told him that he might be in luck this time. He fished in his backpack for a couple of sandwich bags filled with dry kibble and fed this to the two dogs. He fished again and pulled out a mushy PB amp;J sandwich for himself, which he ate while studying the cabin and its surroundings. The woods were now perfectly still and he could just barely hear the brook that ran down the front side of the cabin. The temperature was beginning to drop and the breeze had made its decision after backing fully around to the north. He looked up and confirmed that the sunlight was fading, all of which meant he might be walking back through some snow. The good news was that the trail had been clear and had brought him right to the cabin. The bad news was that his GPS wouldn’t be worth much in snow, but unless there was a whiteout, he should be all right getting back.
He heard sounds from the other side of the cabin, and the dogs’ ears came up. He saw James Marlor appear at the corner of the cabin briefly and then trudge down out of sight, having headed in the direction of the privy. Cam smiled, pleased that his hunch had worked out. Perfect timing, too, he thought. When Marlor emerged from the privy, buttoning up his clothes, Cam was sitting on the front porch of the cabin with the two shepherds, his backpack on the floor in front of him. Frick lay down on the floorboards and casually eyed Marlor as he walked back to the cabin. Frack sat up, as usual, doing his wolf imitation, staring at the approaching man with those close-set amber eyes, but Marlor didn’t seem impressed by the dogs. He trudged back up the slope, ignored the two dogs, nodded at Cam as if he’d been expecting him, and stepped inside the cabin, leaving the door open. Cam stayed in his chair but put a hand on his revolver. He heard water being poured into a basin, the sounds of washing, and then Marlor came back out with a bottle of Booker Noe’s small-batch bourbon tucked under his arm and two tin cups in his left hand. In his right hand was an old government-issue. 45-caliber semiautomatic.
He kicked the other rocking chair around so that he could face Cam and then sat down. He put the big gun in his lap and then poured himself some whiskey.
“Drink?” he asked.
Cam looked pointedly at the. 45 in Marlor’s lap. Marlor just looked back at him patiently. “No thank you, sir,” Cam said finally.
“I’m going to be dead tonight,” Marlor announced in a totally matter-of-fact voice. “You can have a drink with me.”
Cam tried not to blink. “Put it that way, I guess I will,” he said.
Marlor poured him a splash and passed him the cup. He leaned back in the rocker, tipped his cup in Cam’s direction, and they both drank. A tendril of damp, cold wind came searching for them around the corner of the cabin, confirming Cam’s suspicions of approaching snow. The Booker, at 126 proof, cleaned his sinuses right out.
“Nice dogs,” Marlor said. “I had a shepherd once, but she was nuts. Hyper all the time. Chased cars. Caught one.”
“They get that way sometimes,” Cam said. “Usually, it’s the human’s fault. They feel it’s their duty to be with you, herding you, full-time. If you go away to work all day, they can’t do their duty. Drives some of them nuts.”
Marlor nodded, and Cam decided just to be quiet. He wanted to see what Marlor would do. For some reason, he wasn’t too worried about the gun anymore. It had taken a few minutes, though. Frick was dozing; Frack had his eyes on a squirrel that was tempting fate out in the yard.
Marlor’s face was gaunt, indicating he hadn’t eaten in awhile. He had aged since the meeting, and his eyes were more intense as he stared at nothing down the front slope, probably thinking that he was going to be dead tonight. He had an unkempt black beard and he needed a haircut. Cam could smell the wood smoke in his clothes. He looked like that portrait of Robert E. Lee painted after the War, with those haunted, defiant eyes.
“Why are you here?” Marlor asked him finally.
“Wanted to talk to you.”
“Which way’d you come?”
“I came by helicopter the first time,” Cam said. “Nobody home. This time, I hiked in from the north side.”
“What brought you back?” Marlor asked.
“I believe you used a cell phone from up here,” Cam said. Marlor sighed and nodded. “I wondered. You guys must be pretty good.”
“I wish we’d been better when we arrested those two bastards who destroyed your family.”
“Your people screw that up?”
Cam shook his head. “Not mine, directly, but our Sheriff’s Office. I remain very sorry for that.”
“You come alone?”
Cam smiled. “Here’s where I’m supposed to say I have lots of backup out there in the woods. Snipers in the trees. Helicopters on call. SWAT guys suiting up.”
Marlor grunted. “I’d have heard all that, I think,” he said.
“You never heard me,” Cam said.
“True,” Marlor admitted. “You’re comfortable in the woods, then.”
“Very,” Cam said. “Look, I’m not here to arrest you.”
“Got that right,” Marlor said, patting the gun in his lap.
“I really just want to talk.”
“Okay,” Marlor said, reaching for the bottle again. “So talk.” He poured and drank with his left hand; his right hand stayed casually in his lap.
“We found Simmonds,” Cam said.
Marlor nodded. “Okay.”
“We haven’t found Butts, though.”
“Probably won’t,” Marlor said. “Unless you do have a cast of thousands out there. Then you might.”
“I’m curious. What kind of gun did you use when you grabbed up Butts?”
“M-sixteen-A-three, with a plugged barrel.”
“Plugged?”
“Not enough recoil from blank rounds to cycle the action on an M-sixteen unless you plug the barrel.”
“That’s a pretty tough neighborhood for a white guy to go into with a load of blanks.”
“They didn’t look very tough to me,” Marlor said. “Of course, all I saw were assholes and elbows.”
Cam grinned. “Yeah, we heard.”
“I believe some of those tough guys leak a bit when they get motivated,” Marlor said. The sunlight was almost gone, the remaining light more a metallic glare than real sunlight. What could be seen of the sun had a ring around it in honor of the approaching front.
“You were a Ranger?” Cam asked.
Marlor eyed him over the tin cup. “Still am.”
Cam believed it. “I was army, too, way back when. Worked for an engineer battalion.”
“What was your MOS?”
Cam gave him the military occupational specialty code for sniper scout. Marlor, apparently recognizing it, grunted. “What’d you shoot?” he asked.
“Barrett fifty.”
“Fine weapon. Army school or marines?”
“The Corps.”
The wind picked up enough steam to start the pines moaning. “What was it you wanted to know?” Marlor asked.
Cam decided to go right to it. “We’re all curious-how’d you put those executions up on the Internet without being traceable?”
“Went down to an Internet cafe in Charlotte. Signed on to AOL, took out a free trial membership. Used a fake name, fake everything-they don’t care until it’s billing time, and you get a couple hundred free hours to start with. Then I created a second screen name, sent the video clip out to a blogger as an e-mail attachment. I just assumed he would put it out there for general entertainment. Then I walked away from the AOL account.”