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to gain distance tonight.
    The muleteer cast a look Rand’s way, and before Rand could react, a pistol had been drawn from Ira’s boot and laid across the man’s lap, aimed in Rand’s general direction. “You sit right there, boy, and thank ol’ Ira fer savin’ yer life this day. Don’t be gettin’ no wild ideas. Ain’t havin’ you bring them men down on me. Don’t want no part of it.”
    Rand’s mind bolted ahead. “The law. How far to an authority of some kind who could . . . ?”
    “Ain’t none a that sort up here. You oughta figured that out b’now. And if’n they was, wouldn’t be nothin’ done ’bout one like her.”
    “She’s a human being , for heaven’s sake. Decency aside, she has rights under the law.”
    Ira shook his head, kept the pistol aimed, but relaxed his finger and laid it over the trigger guard. “You got a hankerin’ t’know ’bout the mountains, young’un, they’s things you gotta learn. That girl ain’t got no rights. She’s a Melung.”
    “A what?”
    “A Melungeon . She ain’t white, she ain’t colored, she ain’t Injun. Ain’t any one a them three kinds would claim her. Ain’t just any fool’dtake a chance on her, neither. Them Melungeons been hidin’ up in these mountains long’s anyone can remember. Got a certain look to ’em, like her   —dark skin, but not red like a Injun. Black hair, and them cold blue eyes. Them eyes bewitch a man, send ’im to his grave. ‘Cut yer throat and breathe the ghost wind into ya while yer sleepin’,’ my mama used’a say. Got six fingers on each hand. Take out a man’s heart while it’s still beatin’, and do the bad magic with it. A Melungeon’s meaner than a timber rattler and wickeder by twicet. Got the devil in ’em. Call up the wind and the weather and the walkin’ trees and the haints from they restin’ places. Send ’em agin ya.”
    A chill teased Rand’s skin, and he slid a hand over his throat, felt the fine growth of a day’s beard that needed shaving. His gaze drifted again over his shoulder. In his mind now, the girl took life, even though he had not laid eyes upon her. Never before, in fact, had he seen a Melungeon in the flesh. He’d doubted their very existence, categorized them in the make-believe realm of fairies, moon men, and Rougarou   —the beast rumored to haunt the sloughs and bayous of Louisiana.
    To his mind, Melungeons were a figment used to frighten children from going into the forest alone. Don’t wander off afield. The Melungeons’ll git ya. Old Hast, the downstairs maid of his growing-up years, had threatened this fate quite often. She had little patience with the folly and pranks of children. His own grandfather had teased him thusly of the Melungeons during hunting trips when he was young. He’d fallen asleep many a night with the bedroll pulled over his head, just in case it should be so, but in all reality, he’d never believed there were such people.
    Until this very moment.
    “Don’t do nothin’ foolish,” Ira warned again.
    Rand felt the weight of the pistol, its muzzle eyeing him. Who or what was the creature back there? The one he’d passed by without noticing as he’d observed the nature of the land and the interplay of the men? Surely not ghost or haint or wood fairy, for he knew there were no such things. No creature existed in this world but by the grace and hand of the Almighty.
    The girl was flesh and bone. Real enough.
    And now, with a pistol trained his way, all he could do was pray that the Almighty would watch over the poor wretch, as he watched over each of his children.

Chapter 4
    T he knock at my office door seemed distant at first, as if it were slipping through the trees, echoing along the hollow, following ragged rock curves and edges as mountain sounds did, the origins hidden in the mist.
    The door handle jiggled, and I jerked to attention, slapped the folder shut, and looked up as Roger poked his nose in. “E-mail system’s down.