Crimson Shore (Agent Pendergast, #15)(35)
This also happened to be the area from which the scent of smoke had come.
He moved fast, like a snake, parting the grass with his arms as he went along, moving as swiftly as was consistent with silence and safety. He came across another trail, a tunnel through the grass, narrower but also human-like in origin, and shortly thereafter found himself at the edge of another mudflat. But now the tide was rising swiftly. Black water flowed inland, the trickle in what had previously been a tiny channel now a surging river twenty feet wide and still growing, carrying along foam and leaves and flotsam swept up on its rise. Clouds scudded across the gibbous moon.
He paused, considering the situation. The tide was rising swiftly, and many channels and streams still lay between him and the approximate area of the crime. Even if he could reach the spot, it would take at least an hour, and by then he would be trapped, unable to return until the far ebb of the tide—six hours at least. He lacked critical information about the victim, the killer, the local geography, and the circumstances. He was at a fatal disadvantage; it would be imprudent, even reckless, to rush blindly toward the sound.
Pendergast turned back into the sheltering grass and checked his cell phone, on the off chance that he had come into a stray field of reception. No good. He examined his map. It was imperative that he get out and report the murder as quickly as possible. In his present location, he was more than halfway across the marsh. The quickest way out would not involve retracing his steps, but would instead take him in the opposite direction, inland to a wood called the King’s Mark State Forest. Through this forest, according to the map, ran a country lane that was the back road from Dill Town to Newburyport.
That would be the quickest way out—and to a phone.
Pendergast put away the map, took his bearing, and then set off, breaking from a swift walk into a steady, even jog. After a quarter mile he struck another mudflat, swiftly filling with incoming tide, and waded into it, struggling through frigid water that was now four feet deep—and would soon be double that—with steadily increasing currents. He continued in this manner, navigating by the light of the moon, until he could see—at the far end of the lighter-colored marshlands—a black line of trees. At last, he reached the final tidal channel, the water now churning through it. He ventured into it and quickly found it was too deep for wading; he would have to swim.
He retreated and unbuckled his chest-high waders; they would have proved a death trap when filled with swiftly moving water. Discarding the waders, he rolled the map and other items in a piece of oilcloth, held it over his head, and ventured into the current. This channel was thirty feet across and, as soon as his feet lifted from the muck, the current began to sweep him along, the opposite bank moving by fast as he kicked with his legs and one arm. After a minute of struggle he was able to regain a purchase with his feet and waded the last part of it, finally arriving at a cut bank, overhung with dark pine trees and exposed roots. He climbed up this and rested a moment at the edge of the woods, cleaning the muck from his legs. According to the map, the road skirted the marshes and went on into Dill Town, about four miles away, a distance Pendergast could cover in a brisk hour’s walk. From Dill Town it was another quarter mile into Exmouth proper.
He rose and started into the woods. The road would be a few hundred yards away and impossible to miss. But the woods themselves were dark and presented a massive tangle of undergrowth, with patches of briar that climbed halfway up the trees, choking and killing them, leaving skeletal branches stark against the night sky. The woods echoed with the peeping of frogs, the trilling of night insects, and the occasional bloodcurdling sound of a screech owl. He continued on, skirting a patch of briars, and then coming into a glade dappled with moonlight.
He froze. The sounds of the night wood had suddenly ceased. Perhaps it was due to his passage—or, perhaps, due to another presence in the wood. After a moment he continued on, crossing the glade as if nothing were amiss. At the far side he entered a dense stand of conifers, where, in the thickest part, he halted again. He picked up three small pebbles and tossed them, the first one ten feet ahead, and then the second, after a moment, twenty feet on, and last the third one some thirty feet, each pebble making a small noise to simulate his continued passage through the forest.
But instead of continuing, he waited in the pitch black of the trees, crouching, motionless. Soon he could hear the faint sounds of his pursuer. It was someone moving in almost virtual silence—a rare skill in a forest as dense as this. And now he could see, materializing in the shadowed glade, the figure of a man—almost a giant—sliding through the open area, shotgun in hand. As the man approached, Pendergast tensed, waiting; and then, just as the man entered the blackness of the grove, Pendergast rose up, striking the barrel of the shotgun upward while dealing him a body blow with his shoulder, low and to the side. Both barrels went off with a terrific blast as the man went down, Pendergast on top, pinning him, his Les Baer .45 pressed into the man’s ear. Flower petals and berries came showering down all around them.
“FBI,” said Pendergast quietly. “Do not struggle.”
The man relaxed. Pendergast eased up, grasped the barrel of the shotgun, laid it aside, and got off the man.
The man rolled over, then sat up, staring at Pendergast. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “FBI? Let me see your badge.”
Out came the wallet and badge. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m working,” the man said. “And you’ve just ruined my night’s work.” He gestured at the flowers and berries scattered around from a burst plastic bag. “I’ve every right to be here. My family’s been here two hundred years.”