Read Online Hunting Season 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
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camouflage dress, posed around the empty-eyed carcass of a deer.
The rifles were equipped with night scopes. The men had traces of blacking on their faces, aping commandos on night maneuvers. Anna shook her head. The stealth and technology men put behind stalking a timid herbivore with the cognitive capacity of an eighteen-month-old child mystified her.
She turned the photos over but luck was not with her; no names had been scrawled on the backs. Still, she slipped one in her pocket for future use. Chances were good at least one if not all of his hunting buddies would also he a poker-playing buddy.
The room offered up little else. Doyce's personal life was evidently centered on eating and sleeping. There were no books, only magazines, two on hunting. A third, imperfectly hidden behind a shoebox half full of loose change, matchbooks and spent shotgun cartridges, was a Penthouse from August 1998. The little things that tell of life and interests, checkbooks, letters, lists, pictures, gifts from friends and family, were missing.
The door pushed open and Raymond "Digger" Barnette shoved his long face into the room. "Are you about finished up?" he asked. "I need to get back up and see how Mama's doing."
"Finished," Anna said. She fished the snapshot of the hunters from her pocket. "Mind if I take this?"
Raymond looked at it for a long time as if seeking to see if there was anything objectionable in it. "Go ahead," he said grudgingly.
"I'll get it back to you," Anna promised.
"Keep it."
Anna buttoned the photo back in her pocket.
Clintus met her in the foyer. "Anything?" he asked as Raymond hovered around, trying to urge them out the door.
"Not much," Anna admitted. "You?"
"A phone message left last night at six-forty-nine. 'Hey Doyce, Herm, you up for it? Come on down,'" the sheriff recited, dropping into a heavy southern drawl that made Anna smile. "A place to start," he said. "There's just not that many Hermans in this part of the country."
Raymond saw them to the front door, then closed it behind them.
Anna trotted down the front steps and suppressed an urge to spread her arms like wings, turn her face to the sky and spin in the childhood dance celebrating life, air and the sun. The misery embedded in the house wasn't static. It lived and grew. Anna could feel it like a fungus on her skin. The touch of the sun burned it away.
Clintus didn't dance but he tilted his face to the light then rubbed it with both palms as if he washed in light. "I'd never been inside before," he said. "Man. If this had been a suicide I doubt I'd even of questioned it."
"There's not enough Prozac in the world to induce me to live like that," Anna said. She'd seen dumps before. Clintus would have, too. Places eaten away by poverty or neglect. Rooms and buildings ravaged by the violence of those who lived there, reflecting it back on the residents. Homes of people too mentally ill to care for themselves or their property. It wasn't the disarray downstairs or the absence of light and fresh air that had struck at Anna. The Barnette house was closed up, shut off in some way. Keeping in old pain and old pride. Shutting out a flow of life that, in normal circumstances, would bring new emotions, new interests, to replace those time had used up.
The place was a mausoleum. Anna was reminded of Great Expectations, of the old woman in her decaying wedding dress presiding over a feast long go eaten by mice and worms. The analogy wasn't quite right, but as Anna did not choose to think any more about it, it would have to stand until she came up with something better.
"Ish," she said as they fled for the second time to the sheriff's patrol car. Clintus was in, and as Anna reached for the door handle, she was stopped by a faint insistent beeping.
Because of the bleak mental landscape the house had engendered, a sudden picture of bombs, the kind favored by filmmakers, with the last seconds ticking away before the explosion, filled her mind.
Standing
The rifles were equipped with night scopes. The men had traces of blacking on their faces, aping commandos on night maneuvers. Anna shook her head. The stealth and technology men put behind stalking a timid herbivore with the cognitive capacity of an eighteen-month-old child mystified her.
She turned the photos over but luck was not with her; no names had been scrawled on the backs. Still, she slipped one in her pocket for future use. Chances were good at least one if not all of his hunting buddies would also he a poker-playing buddy.
The room offered up little else. Doyce's personal life was evidently centered on eating and sleeping. There were no books, only magazines, two on hunting. A third, imperfectly hidden behind a shoebox half full of loose change, matchbooks and spent shotgun cartridges, was a Penthouse from August 1998. The little things that tell of life and interests, checkbooks, letters, lists, pictures, gifts from friends and family, were missing.
The door pushed open and Raymond "Digger" Barnette shoved his long face into the room. "Are you about finished up?" he asked. "I need to get back up and see how Mama's doing."
"Finished," Anna said. She fished the snapshot of the hunters from her pocket. "Mind if I take this?"
Raymond looked at it for a long time as if seeking to see if there was anything objectionable in it. "Go ahead," he said grudgingly.
"I'll get it back to you," Anna promised.
"Keep it."
Anna buttoned the photo back in her pocket.
Clintus met her in the foyer. "Anything?" he asked as Raymond hovered around, trying to urge them out the door.
"Not much," Anna admitted. "You?"
"A phone message left last night at six-forty-nine. 'Hey Doyce, Herm, you up for it? Come on down,'" the sheriff recited, dropping into a heavy southern drawl that made Anna smile. "A place to start," he said. "There's just not that many Hermans in this part of the country."
Raymond saw them to the front door, then closed it behind them.
Anna trotted down the front steps and suppressed an urge to spread her arms like wings, turn her face to the sky and spin in the childhood dance celebrating life, air and the sun. The misery embedded in the house wasn't static. It lived and grew. Anna could feel it like a fungus on her skin. The touch of the sun burned it away.
Clintus didn't dance but he tilted his face to the light then rubbed it with both palms as if he washed in light. "I'd never been inside before," he said. "Man. If this had been a suicide I doubt I'd even of questioned it."
"There's not enough Prozac in the world to induce me to live like that," Anna said. She'd seen dumps before. Clintus would have, too. Places eaten away by poverty or neglect. Rooms and buildings ravaged by the violence of those who lived there, reflecting it back on the residents. Homes of people too mentally ill to care for themselves or their property. It wasn't the disarray downstairs or the absence of light and fresh air that had struck at Anna. The Barnette house was closed up, shut off in some way. Keeping in old pain and old pride. Shutting out a flow of life that, in normal circumstances, would bring new emotions, new interests, to replace those time had used up.
The place was a mausoleum. Anna was reminded of Great Expectations, of the old woman in her decaying wedding dress presiding over a feast long go eaten by mice and worms. The analogy wasn't quite right, but as Anna did not choose to think any more about it, it would have to stand until she came up with something better.
"Ish," she said as they fled for the second time to the sheriff's patrol car. Clintus was in, and as Anna reached for the door handle, she was stopped by a faint insistent beeping.
Because of the bleak mental landscape the house had engendered, a sudden picture of bombs, the kind favored by filmmakers, with the last seconds ticking away before the explosion, filled her mind.
Standing
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