Free Burn- pigeon 16 by Nevada Barr Page A

was herself. Across her abdomen was the raised white weal of scar tissue left behind when she'd been cut with a fish gaff. The still-healing bullet wound from the through-and-through of the soft tissue under her arm was angry purple and puckered. Given the depredations of the life of a small creature at odds with bigger creatures, she figured she was in decent shape. Scars on the outside simply kept score; it was the scars on the inside one had to watch out for.
    Levering herself out of the tub, she toweled off. No electricity, no air-conditioning; the cottage wasn't hot, but the humidity was so high she didn't feel a great deal dryer out of the tub than she had in. Damp and drowsy, she padded naked to her bower and her squeaky bed.
    The last of the wind put her to sleep. She dreamed, as she often did, of those whose lives she had failed to save. That she seldom dreamed of those whose lives she'd taken was a blessing she never forgot to count.
    Geneva's set was from noon to one. Anna closed At Home in Mitford and looked out from her tree house. It had been a long time since she'd done nothing, and she was rusty at it. Awake at 6:00 A.M. , and suffering the need to do something productive since she'd finished her coffee, it had taken a heroic effort not to give in and tidy the bungalow, pull weeds from the garden, do something. One of the reasons she'd retired from Port Gibson to Geneva's backyard during Paul's marathon sheriffing and priesting duties was because, at someone else's house, there was nothing to do. At home, even a home as unfamiliar as Paul's neat two-story house in Mississippi, Anna could not resist the need to stay busy. When she'd caught herself, wounded side aching, bum ankle threatening to buckle, scraping paint from a screen door at 7:00 P.M. , she'd called Geneva.
    Anna loved to work, loved to push her body and her mind, loved to cover distance and to capture stillness, lift heavy objects and glide quiet as an otter through lakes. Working was a good thing. Compulsively keeping busy was a way to hide. What she was hiding from wasn't any mystery: She had a husband in Mississippi, a job in Colorado, and was not, at the moment, one hundred percent committed to either. Paul should have been a shoe-in if it came down to an either/or choice. Anna loved him like she hadn't thought possible after her first husband, Zach, had died. She had sworn to love and honor him till death them did part, and she had no objection to that.
    The only thing between her and Paul Davidson was hundreds of miles of American soil. Paul had two more years to serve out his stint as sheriff of Adams County. Though he would do it if their marriage--or her happiness--depended on it, she couldn't ask him to leave early, not when so many people counted on him.
    Their love--and their ages--being sufficient, she believed they could survive a long-distance relationship. The question she'd been avoiding with busyness and other neurosis was whether or not she could go on being a ranger. Not just being away from Paul--though that had become increasingly unpleasant as she grew to know him more deeply--but working for the National Park Service.
    There were a lot of NPS jobs that didn't require the wilderness, guns, backpacks, compasses, and campfires. Probably a majority of the jobs were city jobs, office jobs. Geneva worked in the French Quarter. Interpretive rangers had roamed the Quarter interpreting the history for tourists until local tour guides protested. Rangers often "homesteaded," stayed at one park for the bulk of their careers, lived in towns, had children, and bought houses just like real people. Anna could get a job like that.
    For her, though, national parks--despite the fact she was about to go to one where a row of chairs and musicians made up the biggest part of the draw--were about the wild places.
    Throwing aside these thoughts as another form of busyness not suited to a lady of leisure, Anna caught up her daypack and pattered down