Peder pursed his lips and looked at the peeling finish and the wood floors. “I don’t rightly know. But I used to have a dozen cows and thirty chickens. Every few days another one disappears. A couple of times I stayed up all night watching, but none ever disappeared when I was awake. One time I dozed off and when I woke up, another chicken was gone and I caught a glimpse of a huge form in the distance.”
Rook looked for signs that the old man was pulling his leg, but didn’t see any. He took a deep breath. “Well hell, probably just a bear or something. You ever try shooting at it?”
Peder shook his head. “I only saw it that one time. That was two days ago. When I found you this morning, I was hoping you were the culprit.”
Rook grinned. “First time I’ve ever been accused of stealing chickens. So what exactly do you want me to do?”
Peder said, “Simple. Find whatever is doing the killing.”
“And when I find it?”
Peder gestured toward the Desert Eagle in Rook’s waistband. “Kill it, Stanislav. Whatever it is, kill it.”
“That I can do. On a different subject, any restaurants in town where I could round up some food? I don’t want to eat you out of house and barn.”
“Restaurants? Not really, none that will serve outsiders.”
“What kind of restaurant doesn’t serve outsiders?”
“Stanislav, I told you, we like to keep to ourselves. That’s why we have no outside communication. The road you came in on ends in town. The only other way to get here is a forty mile hike through rough hills covered in ice ten months a year.”
“So how many outsiders do you get?”
“Not many.”
“How many so far this year?”
“Including you?”
“Yeah.”
“One.”
Rook stood up at this and glanced out the window at the few trees in the yard blowing in the gusting wind. Then he turned back to Peder. “That’s just strange—you know that, right?”
“No stranger than drinking too much vodka as a national sport like they do in your country.”
Rook was confused for a second before remembering he was supposed to be Russian. “All right, all right, I see your point. My point is still that I need food, and I want to get a look at this town of yours. Do you at least have any kind of store with food? One that an outsider like me won’t have to shoot my way into?”
Peder sighed. “The moment I saw you in my barn, I knew you would wind up disrupting everything. Maybe we need a little of that about now. Word will spread anyway, so I might as well introduce you to a few folks. Don’t expect a big welcome hug.”
“As long as I get some food, I don’t give a damn what they do. You got a car or is that something else you guys can do without?”
“Of course we have cars. Mine’s parked behind the barn.”
“Then let’s go.”
Peder Bjork drove like a maniac.
The first thirty seconds, Rook enjoyed the rush, but soon it became clear that for Peder, the goal of staying on the road was entirely secondary to going as fast as possible. Rook would never have admitted it, but he felt a small bit of fear. He was at home with dangerous parachute jumps and dangerous firefights against long odds, but in this case, he had no control over the situation.
The three-mile trip descended over a thousand feet, twisting and turning the whole time, and Peder never let their speed drop below fifty miles an hour. Rook tried to focus on the clear blue water that stretched past the town to the head of the fjord, a sight that ranked among the most gorgeous he’d ever witnessed.
Peder’s car was a two series Volvo, at least thirty years old, but the designers back in Sweden had never envisioned equipping it with an engine like this one. The roar coming out of the turns indicated something far different from the original four-cylinder, or even the turbo-charged fives of recent years. Rook had asked if the engine had eight cylinders, and Peder pointed his right finger in the air twice to indicate a higher number. Rook didn’t want the old man to take the hand off the wheel again, so he just nodded. He could almost hear the level in the gas tank dropping.
On the surface, the town seemed a bit like a small seaside New England village, maybe one far up the coast of Maine where fewer tourists have the motivation to venture. Unlike in a New England village, not a single sign or mailbox graced the buildings. To Rook, it seemed off somehow, like waiting for Stephen King to expose a horror that lay beneath the surface. He shook off the feeling. “So where are we headed?”
As an answer, Peder mashed on the brakes, forcing Rook’s seatbelt to engage as his body jerked forward. “We are here.”
“I can see that now. Thanks.”
They headed to a building with weathered shingles on the outside, and Peder knocked on the door. When it opened, a woman in her forties with blonde hair scowled at Peder. “What is this?”
“Anni, this is Stanislav. He has agreed to help me with the problem with my animals.”