“I’d think Bonnie was mistaken, except she’s so dang bright,” Johnson muttered. “She said to the left of the path, which should be just about here.” The old man went to his knees with a grunt of stiffness. “Nothing. She must have got the place wrong in her excitement.”

Craig shook his head strongly. “That’s one lady knows her right from her left, as you say.”

Johnson gave his friend an approving smile. “There are still some folks are surprised that blacks think and talk as if they were human.” The old man knew Craig Soaras wasn’t one of them. Craig’s own people were bravas, from the Cape Verde Islands back many generations, a place where the Portuguese and Africans had intermarried freely.

The old man realized he had been yattering to himself to cloak the doubts piling up in a sinister way. Sharky was a brave dog but not a stupid one. If there had been an attacker in the woods, he would have stalked it carefully before exposing himself to danger. Yet, there was no indication of a struggle, and no track suggesting Sharky had followed some spoor and was now perhaps asleep himself in one of the island’s many caves.

A whoop from Craig Soaras startled Johnson out of his thoughts. His mate was pointing up a tree. The old man wondered why. Craig of all people knew dogs don’t climb trees. This whole damned business was full of mysteries. The captain made his way to the elm where Soaras was standing. The tree was considerably to the left of the trail the men had searched earlier, and it stood in a knee-­high stack of old leaves. Johnson still heard the crackling sound with pleasure. Way, way back when he himself was a kid he had tumbled and bounced in leaf heaps like this.

He stopped suddenly, brought up by a sound strange to his Yarkie-­tuned ears.

Craig called, “Over here, Elias!”

“Quiet!” Johnson commanded. His hand was cupped to his head. His friend understood at once. Old Elias had heard something he had missed. And there it was! A rustling in the leaves around a stand of white birches. Both men squinted in that direction.

“Mice,” Craig decided. Then impatiently, “Look here, Elias!”

The old man stood rigidly, listening hard. “No mice till night!”

“Might be the poison at the dump has got everything upside-­down.”

“Might be.” The rustling had stopped. Johnson gave his attention to his friend. “What’ve you got there?” He moved to the tree and looked up where the man was pointing.

Craig asked, “Think that’s bird feathers?”

Johnson said, “Looks more like, I dunno, rabbit fur, maybe.” On a branch above there was something like a piece of stained cloth.

“What the hell would a rabbit be doing up a tree?”