Strawman's Hammock by Darryl Wimberley Page A

day’s work, explaining to Barrett the labyrinthine roads that spidered all over the flatwoods, giving him details of the region’s camps and the easiest ways to reach them.
    They were in the middle of one of these explications when the game warden shivered his Jeep to a sudden stop.
    â€œThe hell?” Barrett stiff-armed the dash.
    â€œSorry.” Jarold was out of the still-running Willys and squatting on the road before Bear could get out of his seat belt.
    â€œGot something?” Barrett caught up to the warden.
    Jarold nodded. “See for yourself.”
    They were tire tracks. Some vehicle, very wide, had left the sand road for offroad pursuits, apparently. Grass and vines, pressed at some point into ruts, already rebounded.
    â€œSome four-wheeler?” Barrett offered.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œSee this all the time, don’t you? Somebody wanting to go offroad?”
    â€œNot this particular somebody.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œYou spent some time in the military, didn’t you, Bear? Army was it?”
    â€œIt was.”
    â€œTake another look at those tracks. Take a good look.”
    Barrett kneeled to the soft earth to see a stretch of sand crumpled indistinctly into two widely spaced ruts.
    â€œBig tire print,” Bear grunted.
    Something familiar there. In that print.
    â€œHeavy, but not a truck,” Jarold pointed out. “You see that? Got the wheelbase of a damn tractor, but it ain’t no tractor. Damn sure ain’t no Jeep.”
    â€œBe damned,” Barrett exclaimed. “I know what is. Sure I do.”
    It was a Humvee. The all-purpose vehicle introduced to Americans in CNN footage of the Gulf War was now available to civilians. You could get plush seats, digital sound, and A/C in your customized Macho Machine. For a price, of course. Humvees were astronomically expensive. In fact, there were only two Humvees to Barrett’s knowledge in his six-county district. One belonged to a car collector in Madison. And the other—
    Belonged to Linton Loyd’s only and sullen son.
    Barrett stood.
    â€œThink this goes anywhere?”
    Jarold turned back to his own offroad accommodation.
    â€œLet’s just see.”
    *   *   *
    The limbs of trees slapped their needles onto the windshield of Pearson’s Jeep as the warden and the FDLE investigator left the safe, sandy boulevard to follow the fading, wide-tracked trail offroad.
    There was a change in topography, Barrett noted. The trees, for one thing, no longer stood in rows. The pines were taller, thicker, their limbs stretched out in elegant panoplies showered with starbursts of needles and pods of cones.
    â€œYellowheart pine.” Jarold anticipated Bear’s question. “Last natural stand I know of, around here. God knows how they got missed.”
    There was straw everywhere underfoot, fallen in ages of accumulated carpet. Made Barrett want to leave the Jeep and walk barefoot. But then the trail dipped abruptly and with the slap of limbs on the windshield the Jeep foundered axle-deep in something not quite like mud.
    â€œOh, shit.” Bear reached for his seat belt.
    â€œI got it.” Jarold swapped cogs and the four-cylinder Jeep reversed field.
    Four wheels spun for traction. A rooster tail of mud.
    â€œGive her a chance.” Jarold remained calm.
    The Jeep lurched free of the bog.
    Barrett allowed a pony keg of air to exhale from his lungs.
    â€œBe a good idea to keep an eye out for quicksand,” Jarold commented drily as he detoured around the bed.
    Barrett could no longer make out even the trace of a trail, but Jarold pushed on, pausing briefly at intervals to inspect the torn bark on a water oak, or point to a broken vine of wild grapes.
    Suddenly, abruptly, the canopy of pine gave way to an open, ruddy sky. Jarold slammed on the brakes and skidded to a sliding halt before a smooth, freshwater pond.
    Barrett released his seat