She raised a hand against the sun. "Why the fib?"
"To see if you knew anything about the outdoors. You don't."
"How could I have known you didn't catch the fish?" Her frown reflected her disapproval.
Gray dug the spoon into the cereal. "The fins of a hatchery fish are worn down and nipped. Its pectoral fins may be missing altogether."
"Why?"
"Fins wear off on the concrete runways. And during feeding time the fish in their frenzy bite each other's fins. Wild fish are prettier, with full rays to their pectorals and dorsal fins. Those trout we ate were raised on a farm down in southern Idaho, probably near Hagerman. No outdoors person would mistake wild trout for farm-raised trout."
"Well, golly," she said in broad hick's accent, "I sure am dumb and you sure are smart."
Gray wiped the corner of his mouth with a finger. "I learned quickly in Vietnam to always test my partners. I need to know what you know and use what you know and make allowances for what you don't. I'm not going to let my life depend on a stranger."
"I don't know anything about the wilderness." She walked behind him toward the south end of the porch. She gripped her bathrobe around her. "If you had simply asked, I would have admitted it. Like, if I ask if you know anything about being a dolt, you can admit that you do."
Gray mumbled around a mouthful of cereal, "Don't get yourself bitten by a rattlesnake."
"Thank you, Marlin Perkins," she replied. "I won't."
"Yes you will, if you take three more steps toward the end of the porch."
Adrian's hands came up as if someone had thrown her a basketball. Her mouth widened. She danced backwards, away from the chair and the reptile that was near it.
The rattlesnake was lying half on and half off the south edge of the porch, absorbing the early morning sun, its flat head on the wood and its rattles over the side. With the black and white diamond patterns on its back, the rattler's scales resembled bathroom tiles.
"Goddamnit, Owen, you let me get too close to that snake."
"You were perfectly safe. They crawl, they don't fly."
"What's it going to do?" Adrian's voice carried a trace of fear unsuccessfully masked.
"It's going to sit there until the sun goes behind a tree or a until a mouse comes along, whichever happens first. They don't move much on hot days."
"Get rid of it. Shoo it away. Look, it's staring at me."
Gray lowered the bowl to the apple box. He crossed the porch, passing Adrian toward the snake. The snake's tail came up as its body contracted into a loose coil.
"Rattlers are less dangerous than people think," Gray said. "Watch this."
The snake's rattles — a series of horny buttons at the end of its tail — trilled loudly, sounding more like an electric spark than a baby's toy, a throat-grabbing, relentless, sinister burr. Gray slowly moved his right hand away from his body. The snake's villainous eyes followed the hand. Its forked tongue flashed in and out and its scales glimmered in the sun. While the snake's head was turning, Gray's other hand shot out and snatched the rattler just below its head. The reptile squirmed frantically as Gray lifted it. The snake wrapped itself around Gray's wrist and forearm. Adrian had stepped back as far as the door. Her right hand was at her mouth.
"My father and I tried venom harvesting for a while. We'd catch a rattler like this, then press open its mouth with our thumb."
When Gray pressured the back of the snake's head, its mouth opened, revealing its half-inch fangs below pink fang sheaths.
"We used to collect the venom in bottles," Gray said.
Glittering liquid appeared at the tip of the fang. Several drops fell to the porch.
"I saved my father's life once," Gray said, still holding the rattlesnake's head in Adrian's direction. "We were climbing a steep embankment and my dad was reaching up for a handhold when his hand found a rattler sleeping in the sun. The snake bit him on the back of the hand. So I got out a knife, cut little Xs where the fangs had punctured the skin, and sucked the venom out. My dad said later he was lucky the snake didn't bite him on the ass, because I would have sat there and watched him die."
Gray stepped down from the porch, peeled the diamondback from around his arm, and tossed the snake toward the remnants of the woodshed. The rattler crawled quickly under a pile of shingles.
Adrian exhaled loudly. "What an incredible showoff you are."
"But you have to admit you are impressed."
After a moment, she grinned. "A little."
Gray returned to the apple crate. He poured more Wheaties and milk, wiped the spoon on his trousers, then handed her the bowl and spoon.
He lifted the sniper rifle. "Scientists should study rifles more."
Around the Wheaties in her mouth, she said, "They should study you more."
"I've never fully understood everything a rifle does, but one thing I've noticed is that the weapon slows time. The passing day has a curious dilation whenever I hold a rifle. Tell me what you hear when I fire this rifle."
Gray yelled a warning to the troopers that he was about to use the weapon, then tucked the butt into his shoulder, aimed the rifle at a tree stump off to his left, and pulled the trigger. The rifle sounded loudly. Rotted pieces of bark jumped away from the stump, leaving a small black hole in the old wood.
She looked at him quizzically. "I heard a rifle shot, then some echoing from the mountains."
"But there was much more." Gray returned the rifle to the box. "The sound began with a fierce little slap, like metal on metal. Then came a brief pause full of rushing wind. Next came a bass thump, followed by a trumpeter with a mute making a wa-wa-wa tone. After that came the roar of passing train. When that trailed away, the echoing began. The sound was full of nuances."
"You sound like one of those snooty wine critics. They say it has a nice nose and a pleasant but presumptuous fullness when all they've really got is a simple glass of wine."
"It isn't just the rifle shot I'm talking about. When I'm holding a weapon, everything seems in slow motion, like everything is moving underwater. It's an odd effect and beyond my explanation."
She smiled. "Did these Wheaties stay crisp in the milk longer?"
He stared at her. "Maybe I should be talking to that rattlesnake."
Her spoon paused over the bowl. "The victim never hears anything, does he?"
"The bullet gets to him before the sound does."
"That's eerie," she said with a subdued voice.
Gray's gaze was again on the tree. He whispered, "He never hears a thing."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"The damned thing is reaching for me!" Pete Coates exclaimed, kicking his right foot. "Christ, that hurts."
"Watch where you're walking," Gray said mildly. "And it's only a wild blackberry vine. It won't kill you."
"Goddamnit, it's torn my new pants. I just bought these new slacks at Moe Ginsburg's last week."
The blackberry had sharp spines on almost every part of it — the leaves and leaf stalks, and on the grasping vines, where they were curved like talons. This plant had grown over a mountain maple, smothering it, and had reached along the path for more victims. It had found Coates, or rather Coates had found it.
"Is it any wonder I hate leaving New York?" With two fingers Coates pried the blackberry vine away from his pants leg. "It's got my thumb now." He flicked his hand. Blood oozed from the meat of his thumb.
"Looks like Central Park is about all the wilderness you can handle, Pete."
Gray and the detective were walking downstream along Black Bear Creek a hundred yards from the cabin. Gray carried the Weatherby Magnum on a sling over his shoulder. He was also wearing a backpack over a duck-hunting vest. A deer path shadowed the stream, curving with it, never straying far from the bubbling, swirling water. The trail was so narrow that Gray and Coates had to walk single file. Boulders edged some of the stream, and dark pools of still water gathered behind them. The current slipped from behind rocks, cascading in white and blue to the next pool. Sword and maidenhair ferns edged the water with their pure green, a color Idahoans believe with some justification occurs only in their state. A willow trailed its branches in the water, the current tugging at its leaves. The stream's sibilant whisper was mixed with the mirthful, flutey trill of a western tanager high in an aspen above the water.