BooksBarbecue
Back Wings of Fire Save as PDF
Chapters (31)
  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Copy Right
  4. Dedication
  5. Chapter 1
  6. Chapter 2
  7. Chapter 3
  8. Chapter 4
  9. Chapter 5
  10. Chapter 6
  11. Chapter 7
  12. Chapter 8
  13. Chapter 9
  14. Chapter 10
  15. Chapter 11
  16. Chapter 12
  17. Chapter 13
  18. Chapter 14
  19. Chapter 15
  20. Chapter 16
  21. Chapter 17
  22. Chapter 18
  23. Chapter 19
  24. Chapter 20
  25. Chapter 21
  26. Chapter 22
  27. Chapter 23
  28. Chapter 24
  29. Chapter 25
  30. Chapter 26
  31. Chapter 27

By the time the innkeeper had finished and gone away again, she had a pat reply ready for Rutledge. And he had a question of his own ready for her.

There was a pounding on his door in the dark of night, and Rutledge came awake with a start. “Who is it?” he called sharply, after sitting up and clearing his throat. One hand fumbled for his watch.

“Constable Dawlish, sir.” There was a certain pitch to his voice, as if he relished dragging the Inspector out of a warm bed at three o’clock. “I think we’ve found something. Out on the moors.”

Rutledge threw back the blankets and reached for his trousers.

Chapter 14

14

In a city there’s never true darkness in the night. But in a place like Borcombe, where people still used oil lamps and clouds obscured what little starlight there was, the blackness was nearly absolute. Rutledge bumped into the bicycle that one of Dawlish’s men had leaned against the wall by the inn door, and swore feelingly.

“You’ll make better time with that,” Dawlish was saying, “than going in your motorcar. We can take some of the paths. Shortcuts.”

Still rubbing his shin, Rutledge nodded, then swung the other leg over the saddle. Side by side the two men pedaled down the wet road, coming to a halt at Dawlish’s signal by Doctor Hawkins’ surgery. The doctor, rumbling with bad temper, came out leading his own bicycle, then without a word, joined them.

It was a long, wet ride, and Rutledge, who didn’t know where he was going, had to follow the shadowy figure of the Constable while Hawkins, still grumbling, brought up the rear. Hamish, of them all, seemed to be most comfortable with the night. The Highlander, keeper of sheep and cattle before turning soldier, had been bred to it.

The moors were several miles away, even by the shortcuts that Dawlish took over fields, across hummocky meadows— once startling a herd of sleeping cows—and through one stand of trees.

The moors were not what Rutledge had expected. Bare, yes. Barren, yes. Rolling, yes. But there were rocks and marshes, rills that tumbled into pools, and scrub growth here and there that rose up like humbled spirits out of the ground. The silence he noticed most. There was a whispering wind that seemed to be saying something just under the range of human hearing, but it didn’t displace the quiet. A ghostly white flock of sheep went scurrying off over a hill like disturbed spirits, jostling each other in their haste, and leaving behind a strong aroma of wet wool that mixed with the wind from the sea and the smell of rotting earth like a miasma.