Susan’s reply, which in his opinion wasn’t really any sort of reply, was that if he felt that way he could learn to cook himself. “Rigid,” was the word she’d flung at him. And “pompous.” And “father-dominated.”

That last really irritated him. How could “father-dominated” apply to somebody whose father was already dead?

Buck reached out for the cellular phone on the dashboard. When he tried home he got the same busy signal. Scarlett Scraggs sat hunched in the corner, watching him as he turned the Blazer into Magnolia Street and the extension that climbed Makim’s Mountain. She sniffled from time to time, wiping her eyes sullenly with the back of her hand. Finally the Blazer bumped into the driveway and the house came into sight. The girl beside him promptly lunged forward in the seat, eyes wide. “Is that your house? All that?”

Buck made an affirmative noise. The Grissom house sat on the side of the mountain overlooking Nancyville Valley. It had been a trapper’s log cabin when the first Blankenships migrated to Georgia from Virginia in the early eighteen hundreds and decided to build on the slope for the view.

In the next generation, when most of the valley’s Cherokee landowners had been driven out and their land confiscated, the Blankenships had prospered. By the end of a decade Blankenships owned the whole valley and founded the town of Nancyville, naming it after the second Thomas Blankenship’s bride.

By the time of the Civil War, wealthy Blankenships added an upper story and four white Greek Revival columns to their mansion. These were torn down a few years later to make way for a renovation in the grand Victorian Gothic style, with a turret tower, two ornamental balconies, jigsaw work all around, and a huge front porch. In the 1950’s the last remaining Blankenship sold the cotton mill to northern investors and moved to Los Angeles. When Buck’s father bought the place the farmland it once stood on was gone, the downstairs rooms were being used for hay storage, and the roof had fallen in. It had taken years to restore it.

Buck’s mother, slim as a girl in a red suit and matching coat, was standing in the middle of the driveway, several suitcases around her. Buck felt another ominous pang in the bottom of his stomach.

He cut the Blazer’s engine and got out. “Mother, what the devil?”

“Oh, thank goodness, there you are. I’ve been trying to get you on the telephone for over an hour, but nobody seemed to be able to find you. Never mind.” Alicia Blankenship Grissom tugged at her shoulder-strap handbag to pull it around to her front. “I think I’m all together. Have I got my credit cards? Yes, I have, here they are. The airline said I could pick up my tickets in Gainesville. Good heavens, I had no idea how expensive it was, buying a ticket at the last minute!”

She lifted her head to look past Buck to the Blazer. “Who’s that, darling? Have you got a prisoner?”

“Yes. No. Mother,” Buck said hurriedly, “you’re not going anywhere. You can’t.”

“When I couldn’t get you on the telephone,” his mother said, snapping shut her purse, “I called Camilla Farnsworth, and she’s going to drive me down to Gainesville. So it’s all right, dear. You won’t have to leave work to take me.”

Buck had been listening impatiently. “Mother, look at me, will you? Remember how Dad used to bring people home from the jail at Christmastime?”

“Willie, darling,” his mother interrupted, “don’t start on anything right now, I have a plane to catch.”

He couldn’t believe his mother thought she was taking a plane. “Mother, I’ve brought this -” Buck turned to look at the Blazer and Scarlett O’Hara Scraggs making contorted faces behind the windshield. “I’ve brought you a gi – a young woman – home for Christmas.” Buck couldn’t bring himself to say “one of Devil Anse’s granddaughters.” “Actually, Susan Huddleston, the social worker -”

“Yes, darling,” his mother said, lifting one of her suitcases, “I remember. You used to be engaged to her.”

“Well, she’s going out of town on a holiday, of all the imbecilic ideas, and I have this Christmas vagrant I have to place. Susan – uh, regulations say I can’t keep her in jail.” He ran his fingers through his hair. His mother didn’t appear to be listening. “Actually, there are two of them. Sisters.”

His mother had walked a few steps with her nylon suit bag and pressed it into his hand. “Sweetheart, I really haven’t got time to listen.” The wind ruffled her shoulder-length hair, making her look even younger and prettier. “Willie, your sister’s poor husband is in the hospital with a broken leg and possible skull fracture, and Sheila’s half out of her mind. Christmas is coming, the children are out of school, and goodness only knows how they’re going to manage with Sheila in the hospital looking after James. Camilla is coming – oh, there’s her car now.” His mother started down the driveway. “Get the other bag, too, will you, dear?”

Buck trailed after his mother carrying her luggage. His mind wasn’t working. Apparently his sister had just had a terrible accident.

“Mother, how did it happen?” Camilla Farnsworth’s Buick pulled up behind the Blazer. “Is Sheila all right?”

“James has the skull fracture, dear,” his mother said gently. “At least it might be a skull fracture, they don’t know yet. Sheila’s the one who needs me. Just put my bags in the trunk, will you?”

Camilla Farnsworth handed her trunk key to Buck. “Hi, Sheriff.” Her smile faded as her eyes found the Blazer. “Good grief! Is that one of your prisoners?”

Buck stared at his mother’s friend. “Camilla, you can’t take my mother anywhere right now,” he said, desperate. “The county caseworker’s gone out of town and I have this possible vagrancy-and-assault I have to place, and her sister, too, if she shows up. I need Mother to take care of them.”

Camilla took the travel bag out of his hand and put it in the trunk. “Just like your dad used to do, Junior? It figures.”

He didn’t like the way that sounded. “Mother never minded doing it,” he said stiffly. “Besides, I can’t keep them in the jail, the younger sister is a juvenile.” He remembered Scarlett’s insinuations at the top of her lungs. “And it wouldn’t look right for me to be out here in the house all alone with them.”

His mother came up behind them. “Oh Willie, you’ll manage, you always do. Don’t worry so much. If they’re sisters they can chaperone each other. Camilla’s invited you for Christmas dinner and you can take your prisoners with you.”

Camilla grimaced. “Just promise me they haven’t done anything terrible. All the Farnsworths are coming, and serial killers would really shake them up.”

“Very funny, Camilla.” Buck followed them to the front of the car. “They’re not prisoners. You haven’t given me a chance to explain.”

His mother turned to kiss him good-bye. “Darling, don’t fuss. The freezer is full of microwave dinners and there’s plenty of beer in the refrigerator. I didn’t quite get the tree trimmed, I’m afraid there are boxes all over the living room, but I put your presents out where you can find them. Don’t forget to call me Christmas morning. Sheila’s number is -”

“Mother, I’m not three years old, I know her number.” The first unpleasant shock was waning. Buck was beginning to feel bad about the way he had reacted to what was, after all, a family emergency. His mother was doing the right thing, dropping everything to fly off to Chicago to be with his sister.

On the other hand, he didn’t know what the hell he was going to do for the next nine or ten days. His stomach clenched just thinking about it.

“Let me know how Sheila is,” he said, as he closed the Buick’s door.

“James,” his mother corrected mechanically. She suddenly looked past him and her eyes widened. Scarlett O’Hara had climbed over the driver’s seat and out of the Blazer. A gust of wind took her skimpy skirt, whipping it about incredible bare legs. She clutched the old purple sweater tight about her upper body. “Oh my,” Buck’s mother said.

Buck turned. “Yes, that’s what I wanted to tell -”

It was too late. Camilla had already put the Buick in gear. His mother blew a kiss from the open window as the car moved forward.

The big car rolled down the driveway and turned into the mountain road. Buck heard footsteps behind him.

“Was that your mother?” Scarlett Scraggs wanted to know. “You don’t look much like her.”

Buck turned. She stood with her arms wrapped around her body, curls whipping in the wind like a dark flag. Her eyes were rimmed with thick, sooty lashes, a pouty lip lifted over white teeth. Perfect teeth, he saw. When she’d probably never seen a dentist in her whole life.

“I look like my dad,” he heard himself say.

He had just realized he wasn’t going to wait for the other Scraggs sister to show up, he was going to have to do something. He could call neighboring county government services, if their offices were still open, and see if he could find a place for the Scraggs females to stay the night. Even down in Gainesville, if that was all he could get.

“Come on, I’ve got to get to the telephone,” he started to say, when something came through the snow-filled air and hit him hard on one shoulder.

Buck staggered. There was a snuffling, horrible noise that seemed to conjure up the soundtrack of all the teen slasher movies he’d ever seen. A snarling, slavering force bore him to earth.

He fell flat on his face in the driveway and hit his nose and mouth. He could feel the first trickle of blood. Buck had only breath enough for a strangled half-shout. Whatever it was, it was strong enough to hold him down so that he could hardly move. Hot breath roared in his ear.