accomplished, the archeologist pumped his hand and hustled off like a hound on a scent. Brandon had not expected to see the man again. But Dell Warner’s name was among those in Kenlaw’s notes, and today Brandon had run into them—Kenlaw, having introduced himself as a friend of Brandon, had persuaded Dell to show him his family’s version of the lost mines. And that trail, it would seem, had grown cold again.
The chunky reddish-grey squirrel—they called them boomers—that had been scrabbling through the pine needle sod below them, suddenly streaked for the bushy shelter of a Virginia pine. Paying no attention, Dan romped around the corner of the cabin and bounded onto the porch. Brandon scratched the Plott hound’s blackhead and listened. After a moment he could hear the whine and rattle as a pickup lurched up the dirt road.
“That’ll be Dell,” he told Kenlaw. “Dan knew he was headed here and took the short-cut up the side of the ridge. Dog’s one of the smartest I’ve seen.”
Kenlaw considered the panting black hound. “He’s a bear hound, isn’t he?”
“A damn good one,” Brandon asserted.
“A bear killed young Warner’s father, if I heard right,” Kenlaw suggested. “Up near where we were just now. How dangerous are the bears they have up here?”
“A black bear doesn’t seem like much compared to a grizzly,” Brandon said, “but they’re quite capable of tearing a man apart— as several of these stupid tourists find out every summer. Generally they won’t cause trouble, although now and then you get a mean one. Trouble is, the bears over in the Smokies have no fear of man, and the park rangers tend to capture the known troublemakers and release them in the more remote sections of the mountains. So every now and then one of these renegades wanders out of the park. Unafraid of man and unaccustomed to foraging in the wild, they can turn into really nasty stock killers. Probably what killed Bard Warner that night. He’d been losing stock and had the bad sense to wait out with a bottle and his old 8-mm. Mannlicher. Bolt on the Mannlicher is too damn slow for close work. From what I was told, Bard’s first shot didn’t do it, and he never got off his second. Found what was left pulled under a rock ledge the next morning.”
Dell’s long legs stuck out from the battered door of his old Chevy pickup. He emerged from the cab balancing several huge tomatoes in his hands; a rolled newspaper was poked under one arm.
“These’ll need to go into the refrigerator, Eric,” he advised. “They’re dead ripe. Get away, Dan!” The Plott hound was leaping about his legs.
Brandon thanked him and opened the refrigerator. Finger-combing his wind-blown sandy hair, Dell accepted his offer of a rum and Coke. “Brought you the Asheville paper,” he indicated. “And you got a letter.”
“Probably my advisor wondering what progress I’ve made on my dissertation,” Brandon guessed, setting the letter with no return address carefully aside. He glanced over the newspaper while his friend uncapped an RC and mixed his own drink. Inflation, Africa, the Near East, a new scandal in Washington, and, in New York, a wave of gangland slayings following the sniping death of some syndicate kingpin. In this century-old cabin in the ancient hills, all this seemed distant and unreal.
“Supper’ll be a little late,” Dell was saying. “Faye and Ginger took off to Waynesville to get their hair done.” He added: “We’d like to have you stay for supper too, Dr Kenlaw.”
The redhead’s temper had cooled so that he remembered mountain etiquette. Since Kenlaw was still here, he was Brandon’s guest, and a supper invitation to Brandon must include Brandon’s company as well—or else Brandon would be in an awkward position. Had Kenlaw already left, there would have been no obligation. Brandon sensed that Dell had waited to see if the archeologist would leave, before finally driving up.
“Thanks, I’d be glad to,” Kenlaw responded, showing some manners himself. Either he felt sheepish over his brusque behavior earlier, or else he realized he’d better use some tact if he wanted any further help in his research here.
Brandon refilled his and Kenlaw’s glasses before returning to the porch. Dell was standing uncertainly, talking with the archeologist, so Brandon urged him to take the other porch chair. Taking hold with one hand of the yard-wide section of white-oak log that served as a low table, he slid it over the rough planks to a corner post and