Fourteen

In the night, Cal wakes to a savage howl and sees a limping figure crossing fields toward the road. Armed, he searches and meets Mart, who boasts he drove off a predator attacking P.J.’s sheep with a hurling stick. The sheep is dead; Mart avoided using his shotgun. Cal is unsettled that Mart seemed to expect a human, not an animal, and worries fleetingly about Trey’s potential involvement.

The next day Cal meets Trey on the mountain. Trey leads him off-path to a secluded, relatively modern cottage Brendan had used. After cautious entry, they find a cleaned front room with a new camping stove, cooler, water, and, in a sideboard, rubber gloves, cleaners, filters, hose, safety masks, and lab goggles. Cal documents everything and notes unboarded back windows that would ventilate a meth cook. Brendan had prepared methodically but never started.

Outside, they search for stashes and find nothing. Trey admits he once waited there, wrongly thinking Brendan had moved in. He floats an alternative theory about angry owners abducting Brendan. Cal withholds his conclusions, but internally links the supplies to a serious meth operation and recognizes Brendan’s planning. Cal’s concern for Trey intensifies as the stakes sharpen.

On the descent, Cal says he will question Donie McGrath and orders Trey to stay away from him; after bristling, Trey agrees. Cal reasons Brendan likely siphoned P.J.’s anhydrous ammonia in March and talked P.J. out of calling Garda then. He contemplates going to Dublin detectives but fears the fallout for Ardnakelty and senses, with grim certainty, this won’t end happily.