Chasing a Blond Moon(38)

“Can we cuddle?” Nantz asked. “I need to be close, skin to skin.”

“I’ll need to get up at three,” he said, “to meet Sheena.”

“I’ll make sure,” she said, settling into the pillow.

He fell asleep basking in the fragrance of her skin and the shared warmth of their bodies.

The alarm startled him awake. When he moved his legs to get out of bed, Nantz hooked his waist with her arm and pulled him back. “You’re leaving and I won’t be here when you get back tonight.” Her hand was on his thigh and then higher. “There,” she said, fondling him. “Up at three, just like you said.”

She rolled on top and guided him inside and he didn’t care if he was going to be late. “You just lay still and let your nurse do the work,” she said, but it was over for both of them too quickly to savor their lovemaking. “That’ll take the edge off,” she said. “Get dressed and I’ll get the coffee.”

He found her in the kitchen, as usual, clad only in panties. Newf was following her around, hoping for people food. His double thermos was full and she had two pieces of rye toast in the toaster. A glass of OJ was on the counter, along with his vitamins. He threw all the pills down at once and she grimaced. She hated to swallow pills, especially anything larger than a BB. When the toast popped she put them in his hand, gave him the thermos, kissed him long, and squeezed his butt. “Don’t forget me.”

“Not likely,” he said.

Cat was outside, anxiously waiting for somebody to let her in. He opened the door for the cat and called back to Nantz, “Miss Walkabout has returned.”

The cat was already growling for food. Newf gave the temperamental animal her space and watched her make her demands.





9

He crossed into the central time zone during the two-hour trip to meet Grinda, driving with his window open, the predawn air cool, but comfortable. Grinda was standing beside her truck staring down at the black Tamarack River. His upper arm ached from his wound, but he worked the old trick of telling his mind to ignore the pain. Each year the trick got harder and harder to pull off.

“Got some risers?” he asked as he got out.

“You fishermen,” she said. “I was just staring.”

“You don’t fish?”

“Can’t stand their smell or their slime. My mother tried to raise a lady with alabaster skin, untouched by the sun. Except for hating to fish, she failed on all counts.”

In the time he had known Elza Grinda, this was the most she had ever disclosed about herself. He poured coffee for both of them and they drank and ate donuts in silence.

“Might as well get moving,” she said after a while.

“Still pretty dark.”

“I thought we’d get down to where I lost the trail and be ready to track at daylight.”

He didn’t ask her if the trail was marked. Some COs used various physical markers while others relied on their instincts, and if either method worked, it was fine by him. So far, few woods cops had taken to using Global Positioning System units. He knew a few officers who had terrible senses of direction, a deficiency that sometimes interfered with their ability to do their jobs. Grinda wasn’t one of them.

“You know the guides who work this area?” he asked as they put on their packs.

“A couple of dog-chasers from Kentucky, but they’re not up yet. I’ve never had any serious problems with them, and they at least pay lip service to the rules.”

Grinda moved like a snake, weaving through the slash without sound, finding her way through the dark without a light. Service followed a few yards back, trying not to snap branches or trip. As with his ability to deal with pain, his night vision at nearly fifty-one was not what it once was, and the idea of losing his night vision petrified him and made him cranky.

One morning in bed Nantz had been pawing at his head.

“You’ve got a bald spot,” she said.

He’d leaped out of bed and got one of her hand mirrors.

“It’s not a bald spot,” he insisted.

“Don’t let it bug you,” she said.

“Doesn’t bug me,” he told her, and she had laughed. He had added, “We’ll see how funny it is when you start graying.”

She had poked him in the ribs and thrown a leg over him, which had ended the conversation.

It took nearly an hour to find the place where Grinda had last seen sign, and when they reached it, they found windfalls to sit on and got out the thermos again. He calculated they had walked a bit more than two miles.

“National Weather Service is calling for El Niño,” she said. “Another light winter, at least to start with. But a lot colder than normal.”