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with a minor, namely your granddaughter.”
    Cramp said, “Hell wit dat bullpuckey. You seen paper wit charges?” Only then did he finally look up at her.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWon’t neither. Word out Lositch got her tight ass in sling. I hear she put on warnin’ by state for not doin’ her job, eh? Way I see it, I disappear, she does, too.”
    Cramp stopped, twisted to his butt, took a pack of Camels out of his waist pack, and lit one after offering the pack to Wintermute, who accepted and sat down cross-legged, facing him. There was standing swamp water not four feet away, a carpet of Indian sweet grass between them and the water. The ground smelled vaguely of vanilla.
    Normally, Wintermute didn’t smoke, but today she sensed something momentous in the air and decided to partake. His violating ways aside, she’d always been oddly fond of Jacques Cramp, who never made excuses and always owned up to his faults and crimes once captured.
    The two of them sat smoking mindlessly, exhaling, and watching blue tendrils hang in the summer morning air. “Your family know you’re out here?” she finally asked.
    Cramp showed the game warden his callused hands, which looked like leather baseball gloves. “Pal dropped me nort’ of town, and I come up fum dere.”
    â€œCrawled?”
    â€œThe hull way on old tote roads. She weren’t too bad, hey. I seen bugs lots worse for sure, eh.”
    She calculated the crawl had been twelve to fifteen miles. “Long way,” Wintermute said.
    â€œMade it is da point; rest is just jaw-chew.”
    True enough . “Now what?”
    â€œGet camp, settle in, live high on hog,” the old man said, laughing and gasping for air.
    Wintermute laughed with him. The old man had always treated her with respect, as if they were the friendly opposition to be outsmarted. “Your camp provisioned?” she asked him.
    â€œGot all I need,” the man said, flipping Wintermute a key. “Do me favor? Scoot on up dere, open ’er up, eh?”
    â€œI could carry you,” Wintermute said. “Fireman’s carry.”
    â€œCome dis far on my own, reckon I can finish ’er dat way.”
    She had no rejoinder and walked to the camp to open the door. Two floors, eighteen by twenty feet, kitchen and larder in front of the ground floor area. She opened cabinets and found nothing, which led to a heart-sinking realization as she heard a single gunshot, ran outside, and saw the old man on his back, not fifty yards from the cabin. He had scratched “thanks” in dirt he had smoothed. He was shirtless, ribs protruding, his shirt tossed up on a raspberry bush laden with ripening fruit. A second note in the dirt read, “My PO wunt see me.”
    Wintermute thought she understood, and called Lositch, who answered with an irritable, “What is it?”
    â€œNo sign of Cramp. I’ve exhausted all my sources. I think he’s disappeared.”
    â€œFuck he has!” Lositch swore and cut the connection.
    Wintermute used her boot and a leafy branch to erase the man’s “Thanks,” picked up their cigarette butts, and carefully put the wiped key into his shirt pocket, where she found a note like the one on the ground. “My PO refewds see me.”
    Wolves and coyotes would make short work of the old man’s body, spread the bones around. Cramp would truly disappear, but the shirt would be found, leaving a circumstantial mess.
    The CO took a final look at the old man and his shirt and hiked back to her truck. Some violators weren’t all bad, or even bad all the time. And some presumed good guys weren’t good at all. Cramp had always been a great violator because he worked alone and planned meticulously, even his final act, it seemed. Wintermute admired the sheer audacity and remembered what some Hollywood star was supposed to have said, that revenge was a dish best served cold. She