Fireshaper's Doom by Tom Deitz Page A

hoofprint almost as large as a man’s outstreched hand. A few inches away a solitary splatter of dark blood gleamed atop a chunk of schist.
    Benj’s eyes widened. “Look at the size of that thing! Maybe it was an elk. Ralph, you check down the bank a ways and see if you can see anything, then I guess you’d better go on down to that curve and try to warn anybody you see coming this way. I’ll see about getting these boys out. Can’t leave that car there.” He headed back to the Cherokee as David and Alec returned to the Mustang.
    “I live just over the ridge,” David called. “’Bout three miles. You couldn’t give me a tow home, could you?”
    Benj shook his head. “’Fraid not, son. Insurance won’t allow it. But let’s get you outta there and then decide. Looks to me like you might be able to drive her.”
    While the younger ranger kept an eye out for approaching traffic, Benj wheeled the Jeep directly in front of the Mustang.
    David looked dubiously first at the Jeep, then at the disabled car, but gamely helped the ranger set a hook on the front cross-member before sliding back into the driver’s seat. The winch whined, the cable tightened, and the Jeep began to inch slowly backward. There was a jolt and an agonizing grinding sound, and then the Mustang rested again on level pavement. Alec climbed in while the older man disconnected the hook.
    David tried the engine—and it caught. He put the car into first and eased down on the gas, slowly releasing the clutch. The car began to creep forward, but there was a hideous squeaking from the right front, and the wheel shuddered in David’s hands. He frowned and gritted his teeth, but continued grimly on. The squeaking became louder, much worse as he tugged the wheel to negotiate a slight kink in the highway.
    Ahead lay Franks Gap, guarded now by the Valley View Restaurant. Only completed the previous spring, the Valley View was a low-slung series of stonework shelves and glass planes artfully merged with the surrounding landscape by virtue of the rock and heavy timber from which it was constructed. It also had a very large parking lot—mostly empty now.
    A hundred feet before he got there, David heard a loud, muffled pop, and more thumping. The right front corner of the car sagged and the steering wheel jerked hard, bruising the inside of his fingers. The last fifty feet were the worst, as the tortured tire shredded itself from the wheel and he had to continue on the rim, a shower of sparks marking his passage.
    “Just hope it doesn’t get down to the brake disc,” David muttered. He eased the car into the Valley View parking lot, and was relieved to see the rangers turn in behind him.
    “Didn’t make it, huh?” Benj said. “Well, there ought to be a phone in the restaurant. Anything else we can do?”
    David shook his head. “I guess not. Thanks for the help, though.”
    “Our pleasure—but keep quiet about the Crazy Deer, okay?”
    “Right…uh, what do you guys think about it, anyway?”
    The rangers exchanged glances again. “To be honest, son, we don’t know what to think. Sure didn’t look like your regular old Georgia whitetail, though. Nor like any deer I ever saw, to tell the truth—not moose, not elk, not even caribou.”
    “Well, if we see it again, we’ll give you a holler,” David called as the men headed back to their vehicle.
    Benj paused with his hand on the door handle. “You do that, son. You keep a close eye out.”

Chapter VII: Lugh’s Stables
    (Tir-Nan-Og—high summer)
    In the cold, dim light of early morning, Tir-Nan-Og seemed an island shrouded by a veil of mist. The sun had not yet risen, and fog hung among the trees like ghostly tapestries. The empty plains were silent, the forest tracks yet sleeping. The wind was still. Even the great dome-shelled Watchers relaxed their vigilance, their tiny brains awash with dreams of darkness.
    In all Lugh’s realm, in fact, three minds alone were fully conscious, and only