Page 51 of South of Nowhere

“I was talking to my cousin Edna, you remember, Momma’s sister’s eldest. She’s an EMT in Fort Pleasant. She was saying it’s likethe county fair opening day. They’ve got forty, fifty people flinging sandbags this way and that. Even where she doesn’t think they need to. And the rivers’renothingthere.”

Colter recalled Tomas Martinez, the town council head and fire chief, who’d also been looking for the Garvey family, telling him about the two rivers and that while the flooding risk was significant, it presented little mortal danger, just property damage.

“She had her boss call Prescott Moore—the supervisor you talked to, Ms. Shaw? And he was just like he was before. ‘Oh, I’ll look into it.’ And she said he wasn’t going to look into diddly but his own navel.”

Dorion had told her brother about the conversation. Moore had to balance when allocating resources, the man had said. Hinowah didn’t rate any. Which didn’t sound like much of a balance to Colter.

His sister now added that the man probablydidwant to help, as he had a house and a mortgage brokerage company in town, both in the direct path of a flood. She pointed to a gothic, dark, deserted house in the middle of the village. “So maybe some higher-ups are putting the kibosh on any aid.”

Half the battles Colter fought in the reward business were with local government bureaucracy—far more than with escaped convicts and kidnappers.

Tolifson sighed, then said, “Debi, be a dear, and get me some coffee.”

“Yessir.”

Colter decided to get another cup. “You?” he asked Dorion but she waved her hand, passing.

He followed Starr to the Keurig. They were standing shoulder to shoulder and Colter made a cup.

“I can do that.”

“No, let me,” he said. And handed it to her.

“Hm. Well. Thanks.”

He figured she was mostly the coffee maker, and rarely the coffee makee.

Starr doctored with sugar and cream. “Used your head there, sir, Colter. Rearview mirror, that SUV going right, not left.”

The art of rewards-seeking required expansive thinking. He didn’t offer this somewhat pretentious thought but rather said, “We were lucky.”

“Well, there’re people who use luck and people who let it slip away. How’s that for small-town philosophizing.”

“Just the thought for sharing around a potbelly stove at the general store.”

“We have one, you know.” She shook her head. “No stove, though. Just a store.”

When his own cup was ready and the machine sputtered to silence, he asked for the cream. Starr passed him the bowl of tiny half-and-half capsules.

Colter took one and froze.

“Your sleeve. I need to smell your sleeve.”

“What?”

He didn’t wait but bent down and smelled a patch of cloth.

Oh, hell…

He gestured to Dorion, who joined him and the officer.

“Smell her arm.”

She did as he said, as a very perplexed Officer Starr lifted her limb. “My deodorant’s not to y’all’s liking?”

Dorion whispered, “Can’t be.”

He asked Starr, “You been near construction blasting?”

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