Deep South by Nevada Barr

was relatively long. By the time she reached the door she was oriented as to where she was and who she was expected to be. Rocky Springs's ranger abode had two luxuries: a porch light and a small window in the front door. Anna flipped the switch and took a look at her callers before greeting them in her nightclothes.
    A stocky balding man in his fifties, his face naturally puffy and baggy, made less appealing by a look of self-righteous ill humor, stood with a flashlight pointed into the weeds by the step. At his elbow stood a tousled young man of fourteen or so who looked to be quite enjoying himself. Both wore burgundy T-shirts with the words "He Is Risen" emblazoned in an are from nipple to nipple.
    Anna opened the door. Her great security measures in turning on the porch light were made a mockery; she'd not bothered to set the locks before retiring. "Can I help you?" was forming in her throat when the balding man said: "Beats me how you people can sleep through it. But maybe you've got used to it." He spoke with such emphasis that the half dozen strands of hair balanced across his pate quivered like a web with a fly ensnared. "There's been a disturbance?" Anna asked politely. "You bet there has. It's a wonder somebody hasn't got bad hurt. People come down here for peace and quiet and you got this going on half the night."
    "Sounds like you have some serious concerns," Anna said. "Give me a minute to dress and I'll see what I can do." His jowls ceased to quiver, and he was settling down to simmer as Anna closed the door. The warm-wall-of-mud defense, her old district ranger, Hills Dutton, had called it. Meeting hostility with a soft, meaningless acquiescence often took the starch out of the aggressor. Anna was dressed in three minutes and took another half of that to put her duty belt in place and extra pounds of.38 hollow-point bullets in her pocket. Since the NPS had switched over from.357s to semi42 autos, all she had on her duty belt were pouches for spare magazines. No place for stray bullets. She was expecting no more trouble than loud drunks and crabby insomniacs. The gun, the bullets, the pepper spray, the collapsible baton were donned from habit and by regulation, Armored in the paraphernalia of her profession, she rejoined her nocturnal visitors on the porch.
    Cars, the man said, had been "hot-rodding" through the campground.
    "Kids," he growled. Not good Baptist kids, Anna surmised from his tone.
    "Driving too fast and shouting obscenities."
    "Not obscenities, Reverend," the boy interrupted. "Just hollering."
    "Obscenities," the reverend insisted, determined not to let the bellions off on a technicality. "They could easily have run somebody over.
    Drunk's my guess." His guess was probably right. Anna sighed inwardly.
    "It's spring prom, everybody's out partying," the boy -idded wistfully.
    With promises of immediate action and merciless retribution, Anna tried to extricate herself from the reverend. Not yet done being mad and wanting to tell her over again the misdeeds of the ungodly, he told his story a second time with even greater vehemence. After she got them headed back to camp, Anna climbed into her patrol car and called dispatch. No answer. Evidently the Natchez Trace didn't have twenty-four hour dispatch. She wasn't surprised. Few parks did.
    Rangers got used to working without backup. That or they made unofficial arrangements with local law enforcement or the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife-anybody they could call for help in a pincb. Anna added finding out who, if anybody, that was in Mississippi to her growing list of priority "To Dos." The campground was quiet but for the Baptist boys, stirred up by the reverend's are. The hot-rodders bad come and gone. An aspect of law enforcement Anna hated was the day-late and dollar-sbort realities. By the time a crime was reported, it was a done deed and, most likely, the perpetrators would never be caught. On the plus side, perpetrators were usually not