Vineyard Stalker Read Online Free PDF Page B

birdsong gradually lessened and was replaced by the sounds of night creatures. When it was dark enough, I experimented with the glasses and camera and thought I could handle them.
    I wondered who the prowler was and what his motives were. Was he just a vandal bent on terrorizing a lonely man in the woods, or was he, as Carole Cohen suspected, the agent of unscrupulous people after the Monk’s land? Or was he someone else with an agenda as yet unknown to Carole or me? I wondered how much it would take to persuade him to take his business elsewhere.
    I remembered an impeccable response to a threat. A large, young, and powerful lawyer, had, in the security of his own office, threatened a visitor with both lawsuits and physical mayhem. The visitor was a tiny, frail old man, without apparent resources, but in response to the lawyer’s threats, he produced a small pistol and pointed it at the lawyer, saying that if any suit was filed or if he experienced any damage of any sort, he would immediately kill the lawyer. He pointed out that he was an old man without much longer to live anyway, so he wasn’t afraid of the police or of a trial or of jail. The lawyer, rightly, believed him and never took action of any sort against him.
    Too bad I didn’t know who the prowler was and that that fearless old man wasn’t with me.
    I directed my glasses to the mill pond and thought of Grendel, descendant of Cain, cursed by God, who haunted the moors and wild marshes and came to Herot seeking blood. But I saw no one in the infrared night, and swept my eyes over all of the empty meadow before settling down for a long wait.
    Above me the sky was filled with diamonds, but it was the dark of the moon and not even the light of many stars could brighten the landscape in front of me. In the darker darkness of the oak’s shadow, I sat back against the tree, and listened to the music of the night: the hoot of an owl, the scurry of little creatures hurrying through the grass and leaves, the distant laughter of the stream.
    Then a circle of light came dancing down the pathway leading to the house from the west. I lifted my glasses and saw that it was a woman with a flashlight making no effort to avoid being seen. She went to the cabin and knocked. A moment later Nunes opened the door and stepped out. She spoke and he replied. She gestured toward the open door and they went in. Some time later, they reappeared. They spoke and after a bit she touched his arm and walked up the path, following the circle of light back toward the highway. He looked after her, then glanced my way, then went back into the house.
    So that explained the fragrance of lavender.
    The woman definitely was not the prowler, but it was still a good night for a prowler to prowl and it was therefore important for me not to get too comfortable; somehow, however, I managed to doze off anyway, because when I jerked awake and hurriedly put my night glasses to my eyes I saw Grendel coming, moving through the night, full of hate, up from the swampland, sliding silently toward the great hall where Beowulf’s men slept.
    But of course it was not Grendel creeping toward Herot, it was a smaller creature, a human being, dressed in dark clothing as I was, moving confidently across the meadow behind the Monk’s house. Was it a man or a woman? I couldn’t tell, because the person’s face was smeared with black, and the individual wore a dark, hair-hiding, stocking cap.
    In one hand the prowler was carrying an infrared flashlight that accounted for his or her assured movement over the dark meadow. In the other was a small canvas case. As the prowler came closer, I set my glasses aside and took up the camera. I began snapping pictures as the person knelt near the spirit house and took a flat, round tin from the canvas bag. The figure removed a tight-fitting plastic cover, and then swiftly rose and hurried the last few yards to the corner of the house and placed the