The Night Killer

half mile that way.”
    “There’s not a trail to the cave?” asked Mathews, looking at the underbrush.
    “No. The deer don’t go to the cave. They go to water or to meadows. They like to graze in a meadow near the woods.”
    “Are you saying the deer made the trail?” asked Gil.
    This brought a chuckle from several.
    “I can see you are a city boy,” said one of the GBI agents. “Who do you think makes trails through the woods?”
    “I hadn’t thought about it. I guess I thought people did,” said Gil. He laughed at himself. “You’re saying it’s animals?”
    “Deer, fox, coyotes, bears,” said Liam.
    “Bears?” said Gil. “Now I know you’re trying to get to me. We don’t have bears in these woods.”
    “Sometimes we do,” said Slick, “but they’s usually more up in the hills.”
    “You’ve heard about bear sightings in Atlanta, haven’t you?” said Frank. “Where did you think they came from?”
    “The zoo,” said Gil.
    They all laughed.
    “I don’t suppose after all this we can go by Rolly Hennessy’s and see my dogs?” said Slick. “Mary Sue just had her puppies and I’d like to see ’em.”
    “I don’t think so, Slick,” said Mathews. “Get him to send you a picture.”
    “What kind of dogs you got?” asked one of the guards.
    “Walker hounds,” said Slick. “The best in the world. They’s got the sweetest voices you ever heard.”
    “What do they hunt?” asked a GBI agent.
    “Raccoons,” said Slick. “They track ’em down at night and run ’em up a tree. You can tell when they’s running and when they’s treeing by the sound of their voices. You just set back and have a beer and listen to your dogs. The best kind of hunting.”
    “That sounds good to me,” said a guard.
    Liam smiled. “My uncle raises Walker hounds,” he said.
    “Does he?” said Slick, interested. “Do I know him?”
    “He doesn’t live around here,” Liam said. “He’s over in Louisiana.”
    “Hey,” said Slick, “you the one I heard about? That was in the woods that night that fooled me?”
    “What does that mean?” asked Gil.
    Diane thought Gil probably enjoyed the talk. It took his mind off the trek. He was clearly uncomfortable.
    It wasn’t so scary for her in the daytime as it had been that night in the rain. She had seen woods then only as dark, shadowy forms of trees, or in brief flashes from the lightning. It was far prettier in the daylight—with people around.
    “I took Diane’s jacket and laid a false trail,” said Liam to Gil. “Then put it up a tree.”
    “I heard my dogs on the trail and then their voices told me they had her treed—or that’s what I thought. But I also thought it was kind of funny; I mean, women don’t usually climb trees. Leastwise not up high like this one. When I caught up to ’em I could see the jacket way up yonder and I thought it was her. For a while, anyways. I tried to coax her down.” Slick laughed. “Bonnie Blue—Tammy named her for that little girl in Gone With the Wind —Bonnie Blue thought I’d gone crazy. She never seen me try to talk a raccoon out of a tree before.”
    Even Diane had to laugh.
    Slick led them through several turns during the trek and Diane was hoping, like Gil, that he was not trying to pull something. She tried to keep track of where they were going, watching for rock formations, characteristic trees, or creeks. Not that she would have to find her way out alone, but she wanted to develop a habit of knowing where she was. Mike, Neva, and Frank were far better than she at finding their way around—though Frank was better in a city environment. Still, he seemed to have a natural sense of direction.
    “We’re ’bout there,” said Slick, as he led them over a log across a creek and through a thicket.
    This was the densest underbrush they had been through so far. Diane heard Gil moan as he pulled his pant leg loose from briars that had entangled him. The thicket didn’t open up, but seemed to get even more dense.
    “I swear, Slick Massey,” said Gil, “if you’re pulling something—”
    “No, it’s right here,” said Slick.
    They were in the midst of a thick copse of trees at the foot of a hill.
    “You know, fella,” said one of the guards, “getting here with a body couldn’t possibly be any easier than digging a hole in your meadow.”
    “I don’t see anything,” said Gil.
    But Diane did. Then again, she knew what to look for. The cave was in the side of the hill—a