“You said that. Try to tell that to Prissy.” He held the poodle out to Ron.
“They’re harmless, Prissy,” he said.
The man, his face red with either too much sun or the excitement of the day, gaped again. “You’re a crazy man,” he said.
“No, sir. Just with the Fish and Wildlife Service.” And he turned and went back down the trail to his truck. Once there, he paused and looked back, seeing nothing but the now empty path and the forest. “By the way,” he yelled. “You’re welcome.”
Chapter Three
As Ron continued on he was impressed with the beauty of the surrounding forests. It seemed ironic that this place, having been within the confines of the Edmunds Army Base and Bombing Range, had been spared the commercial exploitation of so much of the rest of the state. Certainly the military had been unkind to some of the property, but largely the forests and streams and wetlands had remained completely pristine. He thought again of the rumors that Ivory-Billed Woodpeckers were there, tucked away in the lower bottomlands. He personally doubted it, had passed it off as wishful thinking from some of the environmental activists who were trying to save the place.
But seeing another deer posing by the road, and spying the ever-present raccoons poking at the verge of the roadside waterway, he was ready to believe the improbable. The pines were thick and tall, the oaks sturdy and old, the cypress trees green and ancient. One never could tell, he supposed.
And then there was Salutations proper. He passed another of the old warning signs from the military days, before the recent round of base closings, and saw the garish yellow-on-white sign proclaiming Salutations, USA. Beneath those six-foot letters, somewhat smaller: Another Berg Brothers Production. Cartoon characters cavorted along the base of the sign, which formed a bridge over the roadway twenty feet overhead. He did an approximation of the voice of Sid the Squirrel. “Welcome Home, Everybody!”
There was a pair of guardhouses, yet another remnant of the base days. But, while they had been repainted and refitted with the latest in air-conditioning, there was no one manning either of the stations. Since this place was still what amounted to a gated community, he was surprised to find no one there, at least to hand out propaganda on what a wonderful and perfect place this was to live.
Salutations was spread before him, what there was of it, so far. He had to admit that if one was into the middle class ideal, this was certainly the place to be. The town was quite impressive. The Corporation engineers had laid the town out pretty much along the lines of the existing streets and structures of the old military base. Everything was there in almost perfect grids. Everywhere there were patches of grass and manicured shrubs. Even old-fashioned village greens right up front, a great white pagoda standing in the middle of that brilliant grass almost glowing in its limed and fertilized glory.
Off to the right was what was serving as a police station. The building was a sprawling, single story structure done up in red brick and white trim, pale shutters bordering the kind of windows one would expect to see on a house, rather than a police station. In fact, it was a private security firm, owned and operated by Berg Brothers Studios, that gave the citizens their sense of safety from the outside world. There was some debate already about how and when real police were going to be integrated into Salutations. Currently, the place didn’t even have elected officials, but that was coming soon, since no other town was near enough to have incorporated these lands into its borders.
He drove on, passing the already thriving retail and entertainment district. The place looked busy with people, mainly young mothers, children in tow, and older women with silver hair and no one to fret over. He noticed a pair of competing groceries, the superstore types, and a small indoor mall took up most of a block. There was a sign for a cinema that was showing the latest films, including the newest Berg Brothers bomb that had ceased to show everywhere else save for the odd dollar cinema here and there. Ron admired the particularly long and tanned legs of a mom holding hands with her little blonde tyke, her short shorts giving a truly traffic-stopping view. He almost did run the next intersection and his tires barked