No matter what she said Buck couldn’t take a chance and trust the old scoundrel with her. Or Byron Turnipseed, for that matter. Handcuffed and with the barrel of the shotgun to his head, Ancil Scraggs looked quiet enough, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try to take advantage of someone to escape.

Below, they heard Farrie screeching about getting to the Living Christmas Tree in time for her solo. The kid was right; they couldn’t afford to delay one moment longer.

But what the hell was he going to do with Devil Anse?

“Leave the cars here,” Buck ordered as they reached the road. “We’ll go in the county vehicle.”

Byron Turnipseed, Farrie, and the Scraggs dog piled into the Blazer’s back seat among Kevin Black Badger’s camping gear. There wasn’t much room.

Scarlett watched them, biting her lip. Then she suddenly took Buck’s arm and pulled him aside.

“Not now, sweetheart,” Buck said, jabbing Devil Anse in the ribs to urge him into the front passenger’s side, “we’re in a hell of a hurry.”

But when he turned to look at her he saw the cold had made her cheeks the color of mountain apples, and the wind was playfully tangling her black hair. She was so lovely he couldn’t drag his eyes away.

“You gotta do something about my grandpa, don’t you?” she asked.

Devil Anse quickly leaned out of the Blazer. “Scarlett, honey,” he rasped, “you listen to your old granddaddy a minute. If it’s love and ro-mance you want, sugar, I can find you somebody better than this lop-eared, retard excuse for a sheriff, who only got his job because of his pa. Now -”

“You shut up,” Scarlett said. She kept her eyes on Buck’s battered face. “Buck, I – you want to listen,” she said, “because I have an idea.”

They couldn’t stand there all day. But Buck couldn’t stop watching her dimples, that lovely mouth. “Go right ahead, sweetheart,” he said huskily, “if you’ve got an idea, let’s have it.”

After all, he told himself, whatever she had in mind, it couldn’t make things much worse than they were.

Seventeen

Byron turnipseed wrapped one of Kevin Black Badger’s camp blankets around him and drew it over his head with some difficulty, as he was crowded on one side by Farrie and Demon, and on the other by Scarlett, who was holding the shotgun to the back of Devil Anse’s head as he rode in front with Buck.

“There now,” the state CID man said, his eyeglasses twinkling in the rapidly deepening dusk, “think I’ll pass as a shepherd?”

Farrie regarded him solemnly. “You need another piece of rope for your head. That’s the way shepherds look on TV.”

“Absolutely right,” he agreed. He reached into the back of the Blazer where Scarlett had cut several small lengths of Black Badger’s tent cord and selected a piece. He wrapped it around his head to hold the blanket in place, Middle Eastern-style.

“I have to tell you, Sheriff,” Turnipseed said, raising his voice as the Blazer turned off the highway and careened onto Main Street and headed for the courthouse, “I never expected to find such innovative law-enforcement procedures up here. But I’m really impressed. In my experience and, I might say, most of us in the state CID, the majority of your little mountain counties up here seem unable to approach law-enforcement work with any – uh, creativity.”

“Oh, we’re creative, all right,” Buck said grimly. He shot a glance at Devil Anse, also wrapped vaguely Arabian-style in a camp blanket. “I only hope this damned thing works.”

Farrie bounced up and down in her seat in suppressed excitement. She’d watched, big-eyed, as Scarlett had put a piece of paper towel in Devil Anse’s mouth, tied it in place with Kevin Black Badger’s bandana, then pulled the blanket around him. “Oh, it will work. Buck,” she squeaked, “I know it will! Tonight nothing’s going to go wrong!”

Buck knew all too well that plenty could still go wrong. It was a good thing Byron Turnipseed had agreed to do what he was doing and give them enough time to go first to the courthouse with their prisoner. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been any plan at all.

“Demon looks nice, too.” Farrie looked fondly at the big dog beside her, who promptly snaked out a gigantic red tongue to lick her face. “It’s not just any dog,” she said proudly, “that’d let you wrap it up in somebody’s sheepskin. Now you got to be careful,” she told the animal, “and not let it fall off, y’hear? You’re supposed to be a shepherd’s sheep.”

The courthouse was in sight. Buck stepped on the gas in spite of the fact that the area was filled with large crowds and a number of illegally parked vehicles, including not one but several TV news vans. Buck swore when he saw a television van from a station in Chattanooga.

He turned the Blazer down a side street, looking for a parking space. The Living Christmas Tree was already singing. They could hear the faint refrain of “Deck the Halls” wafting toward them on the cold night air.

Farrie heard it, too. “Scarlett,” she shrieked. “You gotta let me out!”

“Well,” Buck said, raising his voice, “we’re not making a direct reference to religion with two shepherds and a dog playing a sheep. That could be anything. But on the other hand somebody might pick up on it.”

There was a chorus of protests behind him.

“Nonsense, shepherds and sheep are as innocuous as Christmas angels, reindeer, and – uh, elves,” Byron Turnipseed said.

“We can’t stop now,” Scarlett cried. “Not after all this.”

“Well,” Buck responded doggedly, “I still think it would be better if I let Byron hang around the back of the crowd discreetly keeping the drop on Scraggs with the shotgun.”

“Holding a gun on Scraggs out in the open?” the CID man said. “Now that would really attract attention!” Surprisingly, he chuckled. “Myself, I’ve always liked the wonderful spy-story twists where if you want to hide something, you put it right out where everybody can see it. This one’s a classic.”

“It won’t be but for a few minutes, anyway,” Scarlett put in. “Just as long as it takes for Buck to help me get Farrie up in the tree.”

“Now they’re singing again!” Farrie screamed. Demon, the sheepskin wobbling precariously, joined her with deep barks. Farrie clawed at the Blazer’s door. “Oh, Scarlett, I’m going to miss my solo!”

Buck bellowed, “Stay where you are!” Nevertheless, he shot the Blazer into the only space available between two television news vans.

At that moment, to the stunned amazement of everyone inside the van except Devil Anse, who was trying to dislodge his gag, the air was ripped by a series of explosions. This was followed by tremendous flashes of green, red, yellow, and white that lit up the sky. Farrie, her mouth open, couldn’t even scream.

“They went ahead and did it,” Buck sputtered, getting out and opening the door. “Fireworks! The city council and their damned fireworks! That’s all we need!”

All around them crowds massed in the square and over the courthouse lawn ooh’d and aah’d as the next brilliant concussion shook the skies. Buck looked around, but none of his deputies was in sight.

“Stay together,” he shouted as they hurried toward the Christmas tree.

“Sheriff?” A figure loomed in front of him, carrying a TV camera on its shoulder. “You are the Jackson County sheriff, aren’t you? Are you expecting a demonstration here tonight by the -”

“Out of my way,” Buck snarled, pushing past him.

Whoooouum, roared a rocket. Closely followed by the BLAM of a hundred tiny golden fish wriggling across the night sky. Several babies in the crowd started to cry.

“Not bad, not bad,” Byron Turnipseed shouted as he stumbled along in his blanket behind Buck, who held the shotgun firmly but unobtrusively pressed to the small of Devil Anse’s back. “You’ve got to admit the noise of the fireworks is great cover. Hitchcock himself couldn’t have done any better!”

As they approached the tree a figure dashed up to them and grabbed Farrie’s arm. “Where have you been? You’ve given me a nervous breakdown, kid,” the band teacher screamed over the mind-altering explosions of several percussive rockets overhead. “We’ve already started! How’re you going to get up in the tree now?” he demanded at the top of his lungs.

Farrie looked at Buck, her lip quivering. Her hand in his tightened. She said, so low he could hardly hear her, “I don’t climb so good.”

Scarlett said, “Farrie, you don’t -”

“Wait a minute!” Buck bent over and looked down into the pinched little face. For a moment the fireworks were so noisy he couldn’t speak. Then he said loudly to Farrie, “Don’t worry about a thing, babe. I’ll get you up in the Living Christmas Tree before I do anything else.”

He took her hand again. “I’ll take Farrie up,” he told the music teacher. Their faces turned green and red in a shower of rocket light. “Just make sure somebody’s waiting for her when she gets up there.”

Another television cameraman hurried up followed by a young woman with a script in her hand. The TV newswoman promptly stepped beside Buck and Farrie and said to the bank of portable lights the technician turned on, “This is Jennifer James live from Nancyville, Georgia, with some of the performers in the town’s controversial Living Christmas Tree.”

“He’s not a performer,” Mr. Ravenwood yelled, pushing her out of the way, “he’s the sheriff!”

“Are you really the Jackson County sheriff?” Jennifer James followed them, microphone extended. “Your face seems rather battered, Sheriff. Is this the result of some violence that has already taken place because of the controversy up here?”