Read Online Ghost Roll by Julia Keller - Free Book Online Page A

resources. These are our mountains. Ought to be our decision about what happens to them.”
    Nick created a crooked arch with both sets of fingertips. He waited a few seconds to let some of her anger burn off, and then he said, “It’s progress, Bell. Progress and change.”
    â€œAnd you think I’m against all that.” She was irritated. What did he take her for—some barefoot granny back in Briney Hollow who still reminisced about the superiority of horse-pulled wagons and outdoor privies?
    â€œNo,” he said. “I just think you’re anticipating the extra aggravation that strangers always bring—even strangers who’re investing money in the region. Can’t say you’re wrong about that. I’ve met the company’s marketing guy. Name’s Ed Hackel. Not exactly the shy, retiring type, that’s for sure. Slicker’n goose grease. After he shakes your hand, you feel like you oughta check for your watch and your wallet. But then again—that kind of job, you’ve got to be a hustler.” He let the arch collapse and put his palms flat on the desktop. Scooted his chair in closer. “Heard any timetable yet for breaking ground?”
    â€œThey’ve run into a snag.” She watched as the news altered his posture, causing him to sit up straighter. “That marketing guy you mentioned—Hackel—has been calling the county commissioners about twice an hour all month long and raising nine kinds of hell. There’s a thin strip of land on the southern border of the acreage that the company’s already purchased. They’ve got to have it. Provides their best access to the interstate.”
    Fogelsong nodded. This was old news. “Belongs to Royce Dillard. They’re giving him a pile of money for it.”
    â€œYeah. Trouble is, he changed his mind. Doesn’t want to sell.”
    â€œLord,” he said. “That’s Royce for you.” Dillard was a recluse, a man who lived in rural Raythune County in a cabin he’d built with his own hands, amidst a silence broken only by the barks and howls of a retinue of old dogs—mutts and castoffs, mostly, dogs whose homelessness had destined them, before Dillard’s intervention, for legally sanctioned elimination by an animal control officer. Dillard was only seen in Acker’s Gap every few months or so, when he walked into town pulling an old wagon and bought his supplies. He stopped as well at the post office, where he’d sweep the accumulated mail out of his post office box into a plastic grocery sack.
    â€œIt’s not like they’re asking him to give up his home,” Nick mused. “His cabin’s on a little sliver of land over by Old Man’s Creek. They’ve got their eye on a bigger chunk he bought back in the eighties. With the settlement money given to Buffalo Creek survivors. Way I hear it, he’s always planned to open some kind of animal sanctuary on the spot. Dogs, I believe, are about the only living creatures Royce has any use for. The parcel’s just been sitting there, though, all these years.”
    â€œCompany’s got to have it. No land—no resort.”
    Nick nodded. “Predictable, I guess, that he’s making a fuss. Royce is an odd bird. But he’s got his reasons for being a bit peculiar. Had more than his share of tragedy, that’s for damned sure.” He thought about it. “When he was five, six, seven years old, there’d be a TV crew here every February twenty-sixth, on the anniversary of the flood. Wanting to do an update. Wanting to know how much he remembered about that day. Then it tapered off. Folks forgot.” Nick rubbed his chin. “Don’t imagine Royce ever forgets. Not for a day, maybe not even for an hour.”
    Bell stood up. Time to go. She could have handled this errand by phone, and right now, very much wished she’d done so. What did she hope to