The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon

by M. Glenn Graves

  Chapter 5

  The AT was a much easier trail than the one we had traversed thus far. That’s not to say that the AT is an easy trail. I know better than that. I have done some reading about it. I also have had some friends hike the entirety of it. I trust their reports that in some places the AT can be rigorous. I had no desire to discover such rigors for myself.

  A few minutes along our northern route, Starnes tripped over a tree root and barely caught herself from falling.

  “You should get style points for staying upright,” I said.

  “I need to pay closer attention to the ground.”

  “Hey, look at these tracks here. It appears that someone fell hard and skidded,” I said.

  I stood back from the spot and studied it. Starnes appeared to be doing the same except she was doing it with a more scientific mind. Sam paused and sniffed around the area with some subdued excitement. Dog sniffed where Sam sniffed.

  “Whattaya think?” I said.

  “I think you’re onto something. Definitely was a fall here; at least, somebody did.”

  Sam continued to sniff around the area after I suggested he do so. He barked once for me.

  “You sayin’ that Laurel is the one who fell here?”

  He barked once again.

  “Nothing more than a circus trick,” Starnes said, “but at least I will agree that someone fell here.”

  I watched Starnes crouch low to the ground and then get down on one knee.

  “Blood,” she said. “Does the dog do blood analysis or do I need to take a sample and actually have a lab do a workup?”

  “You brought something to retrieve a specimen of blood?”

  “I’m always prepared for a crime scene analysis, at least a superficial one. I wasn’t about to lug my case up the mountain, so I brought a couple of specimen tubes.”

  I watched her remove a plastic bag from her pocket and a sealed cotton swab. She removed the blood from the ground and rock where the fall likely occurred and then sealed the cotton swab in the plastic bag.

  “I see more than one set of tracks here,” I said to her.

  “Maybe she fell and someone came along and helped her up,” Starnes said.

  “And maybe she fell and someone came along and took her.”

  “You’re a pessimist,” she said to me.

  “No doubt. And a realist, too. Something happened here and we need to follow these tracks.”

  “Reckon you can get Sam to follow the new scents?”

  “I don’t think that Laurel was carried from here,” I said as I walked along, studying the trail going north by northeast. The position of the low-lying sun helped me discern the direction.

  I noticed that there were some marks along the way which might indicate that someone was dragged now and then.

  “You see these drag marks?” I said to her as I walked along pointing to the ground ever so often.

  “Yeah. Could be what you’re thinking.”

  “How do you know what I’m thinking?”

  “You called them drag marks.”

  “Yeah, I did. Okay, so I believe that she went along unwillingly, but whoever had her was stronger and overpowered her.”

  “It’s a working theory,” she said.

  We stayed on the trail, following Sam’s nose and the occasional drag marks that someone had left. It was my belief that Sam was convinced Laurel had traveled this way. I was willing to follow his lead. Starnes reluctantly stayed with us since she had no other way to get back than to retrace the long way back the way we had come.

  It was after six o’clock when we came to the portion of I-26 that split the trail in two directly in front of us. Sam followed the scent down to a spot off the highway and stopped. He circled two or three times and finally sat down.

  “It stops here, right?” I said to him.

  He barked once.

  “Wait a minute,” Starnes said. “Let me ask him something.”

  “Ask away,” I said.

  “Is her name Spot?” she said and pointed to Dog.

  Sam barked twice at Starnes.

  “That means no,” I said.

  “I got that,” she said.

  “Was a vehicle parked here?” she said to Sam.

  He barked once.

  “Was there more than one person with Laurel?” she said to him.

  He barked once again.

  “Okay. One last question for you, Mr. Smart-aleck dog. Bark once for a car and twice for a truck that was parked here and left with Laurel Shelton.”

  Sam stared at her for several seconds.

  “See, I have finally stumped him.”

  He barked twice and growled at her under his breath. I smiled. Sam had a wicked sense of humor.

  “If you tell anybody that I did this, I will swear you were drunk and I shall disavow any knowledge of this ever occurring.”

  “Cross my heart,” I said and laughed at her.

  Starnes called Ida Carter to come pick us up. She was the closest one to where we were. She was also someone who would willingly help us. Ida arrived nearly thirty minutes later in her old green Ford pickup. I was guessing that it had been new once upon a time back in the fifties. I wasn’t that good with models, but the green Ford had some age on it, along with a few dents, scratches, scrapes, and rust.

  “I would’ve been here sooner, but I had some vittles on the stove that needed tending,” she said as we climbed in next to her after putting the dogs in the back.

  “We weren’t going anywhere,” Starnes told her.

  “What are you two doin’ out here anyway?” she asked.

  Starnes explained the reason for our location.

  “That poor child,” Ida said. “You have any idea who might have taken her?”

  “Not a clue,” Starnes said before I could offer an opinion.

  I didn’t have much of a clue either, but I was still willing to bet that Macho Curly had something to do with it.

  “Hope you don’t mind driving us over to Clancy’s Jeep at the trailhead,” Starnes said to Ida.

  “I’ll do no such thing … at least not before you two have something to eat. I’ve got a ton of food prepared, and I hate eating alone.”

  Since she was driving and we were both hungry, we offered little argument to her invitation. When we arrived at her place, I stayed outside to call Rogers. I needed her to research Hamish “Curly” McClure to see what she might turn up. Starnes and the dogs went inside. I knew that Ida would take care of the animals in the same way she would feed us handsomely.

  “See what you can find on this guy,” I said to Rogers.

  “I can tell by the tone in your voice that you do not think highly of him.”

  “I probably think less of him than my voice would suggest.”

  “Nasty. Not even willing to give a man a break.”

  “You haven’t met him.”

  “And you observed no goodness in him at all?” she said.

  “Where is this coming from?”

  “What are you talking about?” she said.

  “This hesitancy you have towards this sleazy individual,” I said.

  “I’ve been studying some ancient philosophers who seem to observe some favorable qualities even in the worst of people.”

  “Let me tell you this, sister,” I said to her, “A good man is hard to find.”

  “But not impossible,” she insisted.

  “Just tell me what you dig up on Macho Curly,” I insisted.

  “Give me a little while and I shall inform you of everything that is out there.”

  The meal was delicious. Corn bread, pinto beans, and some home-cured country ham – it was quite a spread for two tired, hungry hikers. Ida gathered up enough leftover scraps from her refrigerator to take care of the dogs. There wasn’t much left from our table feast, but we scraped our plates after we had finished and managed to stir up some fat trimmings and juice from the beans to offer our canine companions some additional rewards. />
  “I have an apple pie that should be cool enough to cut,” Ida said.

  “How about a small piece?” I said.

  “I’ll take a large one,” Starnes said. “With ice cream.”

  I gave Starnes a hard look.

  “What?” she said to me. “She’s my surrogate mother. I always eat ice cream with her.”

  “What if she doesn’t have any ice cream?”

  “What are you two fussin’ about?” Ida entered carrying two large pieces of pie covered with vanilla ice cream.

  “See,” Starnes said and smiled broadly.

  “This little girl knows me well enough,” Ida said.

  Her comment made me think about Laurel.

  Ida took up our dinner plates and returned to the kitchen with them. Starnes was gulping down her apple pie and ice cream as if she had not just finished that five-course meal prior to this delicious dessert.

  “Let’s not over-think this runaway,” I said to Starnes.

  “I’m listening.”

  “What Ida said to you – this little girl knows me well enough – got me thinking.”

  “About Laurel,’ she said.

  “Yeah. She’s sort of on my mind.”

  “Think out loud,” she said just before shoveling another large helping of pie and ice cream into her mouth.

  “I figure she will do what she knows to do.”

  Starnes held up her right hand holding the fork as if to tell me to wait a minute, she had a response to make when she finished chewing and swallowing.

  “And the fear factor?” she asked finally.

  “She’s a calm and controlled teenager. She’ll do her best to stay cool under pressure. So, I figure two things. One, she will try to escape at the first good opportunity. Two, she will stay with what she knows.”

  “And what is it she knows?” Starnes said.

  “The trails in these mountains. She knows that she can survive in the great outdoors. She will do her best to stay in her element. She is likely thinking that she could out-fox even some male adversaries who were raised around here with what she knows and with what she can do.”

  “And this helps us how?” she said and then put the last bite of pie and ice cream in her mouth.

  “We humans are creatures of habit. We simply follow her habits.”

  “What if she escapes and is in an unknown area?” Starnes said.

  “Unless her captor or captors are trail-smart, she will elude them easily.”

  “Don’t forget the blood we found. She could be hurt.”

  “Could be her adversary’s blood as well. Won’t know until after the lab report.”

  “We have to factor in everything we know.”

  “Yeah, and that ain’t much right now,” I said. “But my hunch is a working hypothesis.”

  “A working hypothesis,” Starnes mused with much hesitation in her voice.

  “Yeah, I agree,” I said in response to her hesitation.

  “Not nearly enough,” Starnes said.

  Chapter 6

  The small truck pulled into the dirt drive in at the remote hunting cabin located about one hundred yards from the French Broad River. It was still dark when the two men climbed out of the cab.

  The rider grabbed one of the edges of the tarp and jerked it back hard to uncover their captured prize. The beam from the driver’s flashlight shown brightly on the bed of the empty truck.

  “Damn!” the rider said. “She’s not here!”

  “Brilliant observation, Sticky, just brilliant,” the driver spat his words out.

  “I tied her up good, Lisha. I know I did. There’s no way she could get away.”

  “She got away somehow. You’re an idiot.”

  “Maybe she fell out of the truck,” Sticky said.

  “Along with her backpack. Yeah, she fell out of the truck and left the tarp covering the bed like we found it. I swear you can be so stupid.”

  “Reckon Curly will be upset?” Sticky asked.

  “Damn straight he’ll be upset. And you get to tell him. Tell him that it was your fault.”

  “We gotta find her,” Sticky said.

  “She could be anywhere,” Lisha said. “But we’ll backtrack and have a look-see. We’ll wait till light and go back the way we come. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find her trail.”

  “Maybe we’ll see her walking along the river road there. ‘Spec she’ll stay close to the road,” Sticky said with more hope than certainty.

  “Only if you’re a lucky bastard. She’ll probably head back into the woods.”

  “Damn, more hiking. I don’t like hiking. I ain’t gonna climb anymore for no little girl,” Sticky said.

  “If Curly says to climb, we’ll climb. She’s worth a bunch ‘a money to us. I’ll climb for that cash. Curly promised us at least a thousand each. No jobs around here that’ll pay like that,” Lisha said.

  “’Spose you’re right. I need to rest some if’n we have to hike agin.”

  They both went inside the small hunting cabin and slept until mid-morning. It was after ten o’clock when they climbed back into the truck and headed back looking for the girl.

  Three miles from the cabin they met another vehicle coming towards them.

  “Where are you two going?” the driver of the other truck said.

  “We had a slight problem with the plan,” Lisha said to the driver.

  “A slight problem?” the driver of the other truck said.

  “I tied her up good, Curly. I swear I did.”

  “You let her escape?”

  “She got loose and must’ve jumped outta the truck,” Lisha said.

  “And you two idiots have no idea where, do you?” Curly said.

  “We’re backtracking and looking for signs.”

  “Go on. I’ll wait at the cabin. Call me if you find something. Better yet, call me when you do not find something. Either way, let me know what’s happening. Call me each hour, on the hour. Got that?” Curly said.

  “I got that,” Lisha said.

  “Use chains this time, if need be. But do not come back here empty-handed.”

  The trucks parted, each in the opposite direction. Curly drove his truck to the hunting cabin. Lisha and Sticky drove off to see if they could find something to help them find the girl.

  “Where we gonna find chains?” Sticky asked.

  “I don’t think he meant that literally, but I think my old man has some old snow chains around the place. If need be, we’ll get some.”

  There would be a reckoning if they came back empty. Lisha knew that Curly would take it out on both them, but more so on Sticky, the weak one. Sticky was the one who had bound her hands and feet. He was the one who had insisted that he tie her. Lisha had placed the gag in her mouth. Sticky hadn’t thought of that. Sticky was slow and tried too hard to please. Lisha silently cursed his kindness towards the man sitting on the seat beside him.

  “Damn,” Lisha said under his breath but loud enough for Sticky to hear.

  “Whattaya thinking?” Sticky said.

  “I’m thinkin’ there’s gonna be hell to pay for your stupidity,” he said.

  “We gotta find her,” Sticky said. “That’s all there is to it.”

  “Yeah, we gotta, but that don’t mean we will or that it’ll be easy.”

  “We’re smarter than her. She’s a girl, for god’s sake.”

  “I’m smarter than her, but jest ‘cause she’s a girl don’t mean she’s dumb.”

  “My daddy used to tell me females was dumb,” Sticky said.

  “Your daddy might’ve been wrong.”

  “My daddy weren’t wrong ‘cept ‘bout me,” Sticky said under his breath.

  The truck moved on in silence for several miles. Lisha slowed the vehicle when he drove close to the spot where the girl had jumped out. Lisha had no way of knowing that.

  “We had to slow down here last night,” Lisha said.

  “I think this is the spot,” Sticky said. “But I a
in’t for sure.”

  Lisha pulled the truck over to the side near the woods, opposite the river.

  “Get out of the truck, Sticky. Need to look around. And for cryin’ out loud, open your damn eyes. If’n this is the spot, ‘bound to be some sign here.”

  “If’n this is the place,” Sticky said to himself as he climbed out. “I’ll bet this is the spot.”

  “You say somethin’?” Lisha said.

  “Naw, I didn’t say nothin’.”

  The two of them walked up and down both sides of the road. They had no way of knowing that they were in the exact spot where the girl had entered the woods. The few hours of early morning rain had washed away her tracks, but not the mud hole she created when she jumped from the truck.

  “Somethin’ wuz here,” Sticky said as he pointed to the gullied-out place in the ditch where the girl had laid until the truck was out of sight.

  Lisha walked over to have a look. He smacked the side of Sticky’s head much too hard to be merely a sign of disapproval. Lisha despised Sticky. Occasionally he felt pity for him, but more often he just hated him. The fact that they were blood kin made it even harder for him to stomach.

  “Ouch! That hurt,” Sticky said to Lisha.

  “Won’t be nuthin’ to what Curly’ll do to you if’n we don’t return with that girl.”

  “She’s got to be sumplace,” he said.

  “You’re an idiot. ‘Course she has to be some place. But she ain’t right here.”

  “We just have to find her.”

  Lisha started to hit Sticky upside the head again, but this time Sticky saw it coming and moved. Sticky laughed and kicked his heels with delight. Lisha rolled his eyes and walked away.

  “Damn imbecile,’ he muttered.

  “You should be better to me. I helped you outta some bad things, you know.”

  The thought of leaving Sticky out in the woods crossed his mind. Killing him would rid him once and for all of the attachment they had. They were first cousins on their fathers’ side. The old men had made them stay together all through grade school and on into high school. Sticky dropped out after the ninth grade. Lisha was glad of that. It gave him some freedom for a change. But the slow one was right. Sticky had helped him out of a few scrapes by taking the rap for him. Since Sticky had some serious mental issues, folks naturally gave him the benefit of the doubt when they were younger. It was different now. They were old enough to be considered men. Folks were not as lenient now.