Read Online Deep South by Nevada Barr - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Nevada Barr
Tags: Fiction, General, Suspense, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths, Mystery Fiction, Pigeon; Anna (Fictitious character), Women park rangers, Mississippi, Natchez Trace Parkway
Ads: Link
stupid.
Anna felt for her patient's face and tapped the cheek lightly.
"Come on. Wake up. Rise and shine." Dead weight. Dead moaning weight.
Anna rocked back on her heels and looked around.
The girl was crumpled against one wall. Above her was a lighter patch a couple of feet off the ground. A family plot would have to have an entrance. Leaning over the patient-never recommended for a number of perfectly good reasons pertaining to the well-being of both parties-Anna felt for the lighter section. Her guess was right, it was concrete capping the brick but built low to allow people in and out. Why it wasn't open to the ground, she didn't care to speculate, but the comings and goings of snakes and alligators would certainly be curtailed by this configuration. "Come on, honey, up you go. You've got to help me now.
That's my girl." With tugging, badgering, pleading and, once, in desperation, pinching, Anna got the girl's fanny up on the low part of the wall and her feet to the outside of the square.
Fortunately the girl didn't weigh much more than a hundred pounds, a hundred and one if you included her clothes. From the half wall, Anna knelt with her back to the little drunk, drew the slender arms around her neck and stood up. By bending forward, she could get the girl's toes clear of the ground.
Doubled over, carrying a body, Anna crept through the tombstones like a grave robber. Only the feverish heat of the bare arms and the warm breath on the back of her neck reassured her the child was drunk and not dead.
A hundred pounds was just twenty pounds shy of Anna's own body weight.
Even the short distance from the plot to the old church cost her dearly.
She was breathing heavily, and the muscles of her shoulders and thighs burned.
Trudging one baby step at a time, noting only the changes in footing, the coming of light to the path, the path becoming the asphalt in front of the church, the sudden downward slope, Anna entertained half a dozen plans: leaving the girl in the church while she fetched around the car, presuming there was an easy way around.
Driving back to Rocky Springs Campground and rallying the Confederate Army. Each plan she came up with that allowed her to dump her burden also required she leave it behind for a time. And one did not leave drunks, especially drunken children, alone. Wood chips came underfoot.
Anna walked near enough to the rail fence that she could touch it with her elbow and so keep on the path.
Several splinters shot home, but the pain was so minimal compared with that of her neck muscles that she scarcely noticed.
By the time she reached the parking lot, she was wringing wet with sweat. It poured in her eyes, stuck her shirt to her back and trickled between her breasts. In the West, sweat evaporated, thus performing its mission of cooling. In Mississippi, one merely contributed one's bodily fluids to the flow toward the nearest bayou.
After a bout of maneuvering, Anna got her charge dumped into the back seat of the patrol car and, at long last, got a look at the girl by the light of the overhead dome. She was young, sixteen or seventeen, and small-boned, with the charming unmarked face of a child. Anna felt old and stuffy as she realized she was a bit shocked by the scarcity of fabric in the girl's party dress. It was a tiny spandex number with rhinestone studded spaghetti straps and enough cut-outs on the sides to rattle the cage of any red-blooded male. Her hose had run, her dress and arms were muddied and she was missing one shoe. Other than that, she appeared undamaged. Around her neck was a gold cross. Anna snorted.
A meager talisman to ward off the kind of evils a dress like this was likely to invite.
No hope of ID. If she'd had a purse it was lost in the weeds, and there was no place in her brief costume to secrete so much as a driver's license. Anna would have to wait until she regained consciousness to find out who she was. Back at her house, Anna half dragged, half walked
Anna felt for her patient's face and tapped the cheek lightly.
"Come on. Wake up. Rise and shine." Dead weight. Dead moaning weight.
Anna rocked back on her heels and looked around.
The girl was crumpled against one wall. Above her was a lighter patch a couple of feet off the ground. A family plot would have to have an entrance. Leaning over the patient-never recommended for a number of perfectly good reasons pertaining to the well-being of both parties-Anna felt for the lighter section. Her guess was right, it was concrete capping the brick but built low to allow people in and out. Why it wasn't open to the ground, she didn't care to speculate, but the comings and goings of snakes and alligators would certainly be curtailed by this configuration. "Come on, honey, up you go. You've got to help me now.
That's my girl." With tugging, badgering, pleading and, once, in desperation, pinching, Anna got the girl's fanny up on the low part of the wall and her feet to the outside of the square.
Fortunately the girl didn't weigh much more than a hundred pounds, a hundred and one if you included her clothes. From the half wall, Anna knelt with her back to the little drunk, drew the slender arms around her neck and stood up. By bending forward, she could get the girl's toes clear of the ground.
Doubled over, carrying a body, Anna crept through the tombstones like a grave robber. Only the feverish heat of the bare arms and the warm breath on the back of her neck reassured her the child was drunk and not dead.
A hundred pounds was just twenty pounds shy of Anna's own body weight.
Even the short distance from the plot to the old church cost her dearly.
She was breathing heavily, and the muscles of her shoulders and thighs burned.
Trudging one baby step at a time, noting only the changes in footing, the coming of light to the path, the path becoming the asphalt in front of the church, the sudden downward slope, Anna entertained half a dozen plans: leaving the girl in the church while she fetched around the car, presuming there was an easy way around.
Driving back to Rocky Springs Campground and rallying the Confederate Army. Each plan she came up with that allowed her to dump her burden also required she leave it behind for a time. And one did not leave drunks, especially drunken children, alone. Wood chips came underfoot.
Anna walked near enough to the rail fence that she could touch it with her elbow and so keep on the path.
Several splinters shot home, but the pain was so minimal compared with that of her neck muscles that she scarcely noticed.
By the time she reached the parking lot, she was wringing wet with sweat. It poured in her eyes, stuck her shirt to her back and trickled between her breasts. In the West, sweat evaporated, thus performing its mission of cooling. In Mississippi, one merely contributed one's bodily fluids to the flow toward the nearest bayou.
After a bout of maneuvering, Anna got her charge dumped into the back seat of the patrol car and, at long last, got a look at the girl by the light of the overhead dome. She was young, sixteen or seventeen, and small-boned, with the charming unmarked face of a child. Anna felt old and stuffy as she realized she was a bit shocked by the scarcity of fabric in the girl's party dress. It was a tiny spandex number with rhinestone studded spaghetti straps and enough cut-outs on the sides to rattle the cage of any red-blooded male. Her hose had run, her dress and arms were muddied and she was missing one shoe. Other than that, she appeared undamaged. Around her neck was a gold cross. Anna snorted.
A meager talisman to ward off the kind of evils a dress like this was likely to invite.
No hope of ID. If she'd had a purse it was lost in the weeds, and there was no place in her brief costume to secrete so much as a driver's license. Anna would have to wait until she regained consciousness to find out who she was. Back at her house, Anna half dragged, half walked
Similar Books
