Gray Ghost by William G. Tapply Page B

the deck under the table where Ralph liked to eat.
    According to Calhoun’s internal clock, it was about quarter past one in the morning. He was supposed to be at the shop before nine to open up. He didn’t figure he’d sleep much, but he knew he should give it a try. So he went to the closet in his bedroom, got down his sleeping bag, grabbed a pillow off his bed, picked up his .30-30, and took them out to his pickup. He slid the rifle behind the front seat, then opened the sleeping bag on the truck bed and crawled in, leaving the tailgate down.
    He stared up at the September night sky. He knew he should feel bad about Paul Vecchio. He had seemed like a nice guy, smart and mild-mannered and friendly, hardly the sort of man you’d expect to be murdered. Hell, he was a college professor and he liked fishing.
    Well, that was all Calhoun knew about the man. Maybe he’d been a drug dealer or a pedophile. You never knew about people.
    He would’ve felt worse about Vecchio, he understood, if it hadn’t been for Ralph. Ralph was a hard knot of worry in his stomach. The only thing he could figure was that whoever had shot Vecchio had snatched Ralph, although he couldn’t really figure out why they’d want to do that, or how they could manage it. The previous summer an enemy of Calhoun had kicked Ralph and hit him with the butt of a rifle, and ever since then, Ralph had been skittish around strangers.
    Maybe they shot him like they shot Mr. Vecchio. But if they did, why didn’t they just leave his body there where he fell, the way they’d left Paul Vecchio where he’d been sitting?
    Most likely Ralph had slinked away into the woods when Mr. Vecchio and whoever killed him showed up. Calhoun hoped that was it.
    He tried to sort through things, to analyze what he knew about Paul Vecchio and his murder, to deduce the connection between him and the burned body on Quarantine Island, but the evening’s adrenaline and caffeine had drained out of him, and his brain was too fuzzy to think straight. Scenarios drifted around, and there seemed to be one thought in particular that he wanted to pin down, but he couldn’t conjure up the energy to focus on it any more than he could focus his eyes on a single star up there in the sky.
    So he let his mind go wherever it wanted to go. There were images of making love with Kate, how she tasted and smelled and felt. It had only been the previous night, but when he remembered that it wasn’t going to happen again, at least not for a while, not for as long as Walter was in the nursing home, or maybe forever, it seemed like something that had happened a long time ago.
    Calhoun’s thoughts kept flipping back to Ralph. He was so full of regrets that he felt like screaming, or crying, or smashing a hammer down on his fingers. Why in hell hadn’t he brought Ralph to the shop with him? If he had, it wouldn’t change what happened to Paul Vecchio, but Ralph would be here with him, at least.
    Eventually his mind went all fluffy, and thoughts mingled with dreams, and after a while there were only dreams.
    When he woke up, the sky was still dark and the owls were calling to each other. His leg was cramped, and when he tried to move it, he felt a weight on it. He reached down and touched the fur on Ralph’s back. He rubbed it, and Ralph squirmed against him. Calhoun mumbled, “Hey, bud,” and he felt the dog’s wet tongue give his hand a couple of licks, and pretty soon he went back to sleep.
    Calhoun woke up from a dream about having a big tree fall on the back of his legs, pinning him to the ground. He was trapped, immobilized, and some big wolflike animal was breathing into his face and showing his snarly wet teeth. Calhoun tried to yell at the creature, but his words got stuck in his throat.
    He forced himself to wake up. He was lying on his stomach inside his sleeping bag hugging his pillow. The chilly September air around him was filled with morning birdsong, hundreds of birds, dozens of