“Dammit!’’

A heavy-set man muttered curses as he hopped on one foot. He flailed at a vine encircling his ankle. He beat at a low-growing sabal palm that threatened to knock an already battered straw hat off his head.

“I hate the woods!’’ He swore again under his breath.

He seemed unaware of our presence, probably because of the racket he was raising in the brush. Either that, or Dr. Frank Abel had lost what was left of his hearing at the same time he’d gained about three pant sizes around the waist. He was already old, and on the heavy side, when I last saw him, some ten years before. Doc Abel treated a wrist I’d sprained when a horse threw me in a riding accident a couple of hours north of Himmarshee, near Holopaw, Florida. I’d have guessed he would have retired by now.

Wynonna rushed toward him, surprisingly nimble for a woman in high-heel boots in thick undergrowth. “I’m so glad you’re here, Doc. Something awful has happened.’’ Reaching him, she offered an arm for him to hang onto. “Lawton’s had a heart attack. He’s at his cook site.’’

“Oh God, no! I need to see to him, Wynonna. Help me out of this mess.’’ He struggled some more as Wynonna leaned to untangle him from the grip of the vines.

“He’s dead, Doc. I told them how you and his other doctors tried to make him control his cholesterol. Now, Lawton’s beyond your help,’’ she said.

Doc Abel’s hand went to his own chest. Given his advanced age and the purple tint to his face, I hoped we weren’t going to have another casualty along the Cracker Trail.

“Are you sure he’s dead?’’ he asked. “I need to make sure.’’ Finally extricating himself from the clutch of the woods, Doc Abel was all business now.

I glanced at Wynonna. Her face was pale and drawn. The evening’s events were finally sinking in. She reached for my hand again.

“Mama, why don’t you take Doc over to see Lawton?’’

As she looked at Doc, I could almost see the gears spinning. Mama was actually weighing him as a match for me. But whether it was our age difference of at least forty-five years, or the fact that Lawton was lying in the woods unprotected from who-knows-what animal, she thought better of her timing.

“I’ll do it, Mace. But you know you’re better with details and I’m better with people. I should be with Wynonna once she gets to the house.’’

I shot Mama a look. Her eyes followed mine down to the vise grip Lawton’s widow had on my hand. For some reason, Wynonna had attached herself, even though I’m not generally the comforting type.

“Make sure you tell Doc everything we talked about,’’ I said.

Mama nodded. “Everything,’’ she repeated.

“The rest of the riders will be gathering for dinner soon,’’ I said. “We need to let Lawton’s kin know what happened before word starts to spread.’’

After they left, Wynonna and I waited a few moments to make sure they found their way. The sound of the physician stomping through the woods had just begun to fade, when we heard a loud snap of brush.

“Watch that log, Doc!’’ Mama yelled from the distance.

I pictured him toppling over, pulling down an acre of skunk vine. “I guess the doctor doesn’t do nature,’’ I said.

“Oh, my Lord, no.’’ Dropping my hand, Wynonna stepped in front to lead the way. “That man’s idea of physical activity is strolling the buffet line at the Kountry Kitchen. He’s never met a smothered pork chop or a chicken-fried steak he doesn’t like.’’

She pulled back a branch from a hickory sapling so I could pass.

“Sounds like the old saying: Do as I say, not as I do. Did Doc Abel really think Lawton would listen to him about diet and exercise, considering Doc’s own bad habits?’’ I asked.

“Oh, he wasn’t really Lawton’s main doctor anymore. Lawton started seeing a fancy cardiologist a few years back. Doc’s been slipping a bit, but he still gives out flu shots and the occasional prescription. He and Lawton go way back, and Lawton’s loyal. Doc took care of him ever since he was a little boy, you know?’’

I shook my head, and felt the web of a banana spider clinging to my eyelashes.

“Yep, Lawton and his folks were among Doc’s first patients when he was just starting out. And he kept going to him until he was a grown man, with grown kids of his own.’’ Wynonna looked over her shoulder in the direction we’d come. I wondered if she was thinking about how Doc Abel might be examining her husband’s body right now.

To distract her, I told Wynonna how Doc had iced and wrapped my wrist a decade before. As I spoke, I had a flash of him leaning over me in his exam room, reading glasses slid low on his nose. He asked me where it hurt, then gently lifted my hand this way and that. And as he did, I now remembered, he whistled that same tuneless song we’d heard in the woods tonight. That’s why his awful version of “Whistle While You Work” had sounded familiar.

___

Wynonna led the way up three cypress wood steps to the Bramble ranch house. A wide porch encircled the house. A line of wooden rocking chairs sat under outdoor ceiling fans. Two big front windows were open, bringing in cool air to a structure that sat in the center of flat pastureland. Since the last hurricane, only two oak trees remained for shade. For most of the year, the house baked under a scorching sun, making it intolerable without air-conditioning.

But this was February. The crisp weather was welcome. In Florida, steam baths aren’t a luxury to indulge at a spa. They’re a hardship to endure every time we walk out the front door from June straight through to October.

Wynonna’s hand was on the doorknob when we heard shouting from inside.

“And I told you I wouldn’t sch-tand for it,’’ a man yelled, his voice slurred. He waited, apparently listening, though we heard no one else speak. “Goddammit, I said no. Ab-showlutely not!’’

Something hit the wall on the other side of the door, and then clattered to the floor. Unsteady footsteps lurched inside. A few seconds later came a heavy thump, followed by the sound of shattering glass.

“Ouc-sh! That hurt!’’ The same man yelled.

Wynonna’s hand froze on the knob. “I don’t want to deal with this,’’ she whispered.

I cocked an eyebrow.

“It’s Lawton’s son, Trey. I wasn’t looking forward to breaking the news under the best circumstances. And now this. He’s drunk.’’

We both looked at the door. She straightened, seeming to gather her strength as she had at the cook site.

“Now or never.’’ She breathed deeply. I patted awkwardly at her shoulder, trying to do as I’d seen Mama do.

She opened the door. I followed her in, stepping carefully around the cell phone that lay in pieces near the door jamb.

Trey sat cross-legged on the floor of a large living room, next to an overturned lamp. There was a rip in the wagon-wheel shaped shade. Light bulb shards were scattered across the legs of his jeans. His head hung in his hands. Scratches crisscrossed his muscled forearms, exposed by the rolled up sleeves of a Western-cut shirt.

“Trey?’’ Wynonna’s voice was soft, tentative.

He looked up, lifting blood-shot eyes. A nasty gash left a reddish-brown streak across one cheek. His shirt, minus its top three buttons, gaped open to show a broad chest. Trey looked like he’d been on the losing side of a bar brawl.

His eyes were the same startling shade of blue as his father’s. I remembered how they’d sparkled with fun and mischief when we were in high school. I’d never seen the cruelty in Trey’s eyes that I saw the moment he focused on Wynonna.

“Well, if it ish-n’t the wicked stepmother,’’ he slurred. “Come to shake her moneymaker and bust my balls.’’

The haughty expression from the cook site returned to Wynonna’s face. She looked at Trey like he was something she’d dragged in from the paddock on the bottom of her pointy-toed boot. When she spoke, her voice was as chilly as the air rustling the curtains at the window.