Endangered Species by Nevada Barr Read Free Book Online Page B

broad back, Rick
    inherited the piss pump, a five-gallon rubber water bladder rigged to be
    worn as a backpack with a hand-operated pump.
    "No lightning," Rick said ." What do you figure started it?"
    "Kids?" Anna offered.
    "Dirtbags."
    Rick's dirtbag category covered so many suspects, Anna chose not to
    reply and they trudged back the way they'd come, both too engrossed to
    waste energy on words.  Being cut off from the sky demoralized Anna.
    Being closed in under the greenery like a flea on a Saint Bernard's back
    made her cranky ." A good burn would do this place a world of good," she
    grumbled ." Open it up some."
    Rick said nothing.  He'd stopped in the middle of the road, his head
    back, his eyes wide and unseeing as if he heard voices, the kind that
    tell people to walk into a McDonald's and open fire .
    "Smell it?" he asked.
    Anna joined him in concentrated catatonia.  After a moment she shook her
    head.
    "Out there.  It's gotta be." Rick turned abruptly and pushed eastward
    through the underbrush.  Ten inches shorter than he, Anna flinched as
    the fronds slashed back against her face.  She dropped back a pace and
    pulled the plastic goggles down from her hard hat to protect her eyes.
    Within twenty feet the thicket petered out.  Well-spaced trees formed
    the pillars of a cathedral-sized clearing.  Underfoot, leaves and
    needles smothered lesser growth, carpeting the ground in redgold.  Along
    the short side of the rough rectangle, where the organ might stand were
    this indeed a church, was an old hog pen from the days when all-out
    attempts to rid the island of pigs had been in force.  Around the pen
    the ground had been dug up in a belt ten feet wide and twice that long
    where modern-day pigs rooted their contempt of the old order.  Of the
    many exotic species let loose on park lands, one could argue that pigs
    were the most destructive.  Maybe because, like people, they were smart
    and adapted well.
    In the center of the clearing Rick and Anna reenacted their idiot/savant
    tableau ."smell it now," Anna said, breathing in the unmistakable scent
    of smoke ." But I can't tell from where."
    Rick snuffled in a professional manner; a connoisseur sipping the air.
    Evidently he hit on something, because he strode purposefully toward the
    pigsty.  On faith, Anna followed.
    Palmetto took them in its claustrophobic embrace, wrapping them in dust
    and webs.  One of Cumberland's celebrated residents was the Golden Orb
    spider, renowned for its enormous webs, some large enough and strong
    enough to ensnare small birds.  The lady herself was famous not only for
    her ability to mend this impressive net but for her size.  Tip to tail
    she could measure up to two inches, her long and many legs tufted with
    fur.
    Anna repressed a shudder.  All the really hellacious spiders would be
    scraped off by Rick's bulky frame.  At least that's what she told
    herself.
    Again the underbrush thinned, bushes growing far enough apart that she
    and Rick could walk between them.  Anna pulled her goggles down around
    her neck and squeegeed the sweat from her forehead with the flat of her
    hand.  A scrap of turquoise caught her eye .
    Cumberland's forest, unlike Michigan's and Walt Disney's, was not filled
    with flowers.  At least not in August.  Nature exploited a palette of
    grays, tans, and greens, saving blue for sky and sea.
    Mentally, Anna chalked the bit of color up to garbage.  Though
    beautiful, Cumberland was not pristine.  People had used her for their
    own ends since before the Spanish had landed in the 1500s.
    Rick was pushing on.  Anna ran to catch up.  A second scrap of blue
    wedged head-high in the trunk of a pine tree jarred her brain from its
    single-minded pursuit of the fire.  Above the blue material was a gash
    so fresh that sap oozed down, marking the tree with dark tracks on the
    bark.
    "Rick!" Anna hollered.
    He stopped and looked back, impatience clear on his face.
    "What color was that drug