Outcast In Gray

by M. Glenn Graves

  “Why would I want to read fiction?” she said.

  “Escape from reality?” I said.

  “I don’t want to escape from reality. Sounds suicidal.”

  “Nice to read something that’s not actually happening around me,” I said.

  “I have my forensics to pour over. Much of it is not actually happening around me,” she said with almost an attitude.

  “Yeah, but it’s not a story.”

  “You like stories, huh?”

  “I do,” I said.

  “I don’t care much for stories. I’m a scientist. I’m looking for facts, data, evidence, clues.”

  “Stories have clues, too, you know.”

  “They’re fictional. How on earth could they contain clues for what you and I are up against?”

  “Insights. You never know where a clue might come from.”

  “Well, it’s not going to come to me from some work of fiction, I can tell you that. Here,” she threw a book at me which I luckily caught in my left hand. “Read that. I think there’s some stories in it that’ll make your hair stand on end.”

  It was on the criminal mind. Oh, goody.

  The phone rang before I could offer some pointed comeback. I studied the front and back covers of the book she had provided. It didn’t seem palatable, but I opened it reluctantly and began reading the preface. Yikes.

  Starnes was in the other room on the phone. I could hear her side of the conversation. Small house with less than the ideal insulated walls.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  I waited while I skimmed the first two sentences. People actually read this stuff. Go figure.

  “That’s what I thought. Anything else?”

  I skimmed a few more sentences. It wasn’t getting any better for me.

  “Damn. No, I was hoping.”

  I stopped my lackadaisical reading and listened intently to Starnes’ voice. The book in my hands had no appeal for me.

  “Thanks for calling. I appreciate your good work.”

  I wondered if animals had a criminal mind.

  “No, send that to me. (pause) That, too.”

  I heard the receiver land in its cradle. Starnes appeared in the living room a few seconds later. I threw the volume back at her. She caught it in her left hand with ease.

  “You can re-shelve that one. Not really a page-turner.”

  “How far did you get?” she said.

  “I finished the preface.”

  “Wow. Voracious reader that you are. I figured you would at least look at the first chapter.”

  “Didn’t understand much of what I read in the preface. Didn’t figure the chapters would enhance my ignorance. I’ll pick up something in Asheville. You know what I prefer,” I said.

  “Yeah, that pulp fiction junk.”

  “Hey, it keeps me lucid.”

  “To each his own,” she said and put the book back in its exact slot on the shelf. Then she sat down.

  “We going back to visit Ida Carter?” I asked. I already knew the answer.

  “Yes.”

  19

  The rain stopped sometime before the next morning. The sun was out in full force and provided a nice relief from the wet deluge we had enjoyed for three days. It was still warm, although a cooler front had come in and pushed our temperature about ten degrees downward from what we had enjoyed during the warm rains. It seems that mountain weather is as unpredictable as my Norfolk variety. It now felt more like winter time.

  We stopped by the Carter home to deliver the bad news to Ida. Considering where the Carters lived, it was funny to say that we stopped by. Their place was not a place one stopped by going anywhere. You either went there intentionally or you didn’t. I knew of no place in the world that one could be headed towards whereby one could simply stop by the Carter place. I suspected that many folks living in McAdams County could say the same thing about their places. Think remote.

  We sat in her living room with the sunlight coming into the room with some hesitance. Shades were drawn on two of the windows all the way to the sills. The drapes to the left side of her double front windows were pulled over toward the middle blocking the sunlight that wanted inside. The drapes on the right were secured by a small decorative rope. It was at this window that sunshine made it in. It was as if we had interrupted Ida’s attempts to darken the room to fit her mood. The only trouble is she wouldn’t have known that Randall Lee was dead, at least not through official notification.

  Ida’s eyes were wet, but she was not crying, at least not so one could detect.

  “It was that body ya found up the trail between here and yur place, right?” Ida said to Starnes.

  “Yeah,” Starnes answered.

  “And ya think some animal did ’im in?”

  “It’s a working hypothesis,” Starnes said.

  “That a fancy name for a hunch?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What kind’a animal?” she asked.

  Starnes hesitated and then looked at me. I didn’t think she was expecting me to answer, so I didn’t say anything. I shrugged ever so slightly.

  “I heard some coyotes singing a couple of weeks back,” Ida said.

  “Coyotes singing?” Starnes repeated the words.

  “Yeah, they were singing, you know, yelping and … well, I guess some folks call it barking. Just that, well, it don’t sound like any barking I’m familiar with. I call it singing. They just start up all of a sudden, and then stop just as quickly. I’ve heard them around of late. You think a coyote did this, or maybe a pack of ’em?”

  “We don’t know yet. Still looking for answers,” Starnes said and stood up. “We need to go. You know how I hate this, Ida.”

  “I do, child, I really do. I’m sorry that it wuz you that had to be the one to tell me.”

  “Me, too,” she said and walked to the door, opened it, went outside and never looked back or said another word to Ida Carter.

  I stood and headed towards the door, following Starnes.

  “Tell her this time next week those stitches can come out,” she said as I passed by her. Something made me turn around and look back. She was beginning to cry now. Damn, I hate to see people cry. I went back to her, hugged her, and then turned and left. Some days I simply hate my job.

  We drove away from the Carter place in silence. The noisiest thing happening was the sunshine coming through the car windows as we headed back towards Starnes’ place. At least that’s where I thought she was going. With my limited knowledge of McAdams County, she could have been heading towards California for all I knew.

  As it turned out, I was right. She pulled into the driveway in front of her house, got out of the truck and slammed her driver’s side door. Hard. Dog and Sam came running around the corner of the house as she approached the porch.

  “Not now, Dog,” she said and entered the house without so much a greeting for the canines.

  It was left for me to do the TLC stuff with the dogs. I sat down on the porch steps in the sunlight and allowed the dogs to lick me and gather in close. Buddies. Friends forever. BFF’s. I thought it best to give Starnes some space.

  The sunlight shifted after a while and the evening shadows took the warmth from the day and left quickly with it. I decided it was time to go inside and take my chances. The dogs followed. Besides their need for companionship, they probably thought it time for feeding.

  “I was coming to check on you,” Starnes said.

  She was sitting in an old, comfortable looking chair in the small living room.

  “Ran out of things to say to the dogs.”

  “Yeah. You hungry?”

  “Not so much. Why don’t we put on some heavier coats and hike a bit?” I said.

  “Now?” Starnes said. “There’s only a couple of hours of sunlight left in the day.”

  “How long will it take us to get to the spot where we found … Randall Lee?” I said with great hesitancy. I didn’t feel secure mentioning his name in light of our
earlier experience with his mother.

  “Less than an hour, but close. Wouldn’t give us much time for a look-see,” she said.

  “You’d rather wait until tomorrow?”

  “I think we have another day of sunshine before the snow is predicted,” Starnes said.

  “Snow. Right. You mountain folk do love variety.”

  “We got variety in spades here,” she said.

  “Let’s hit it early in the morning,” I said and dropped down on the floor to play with Dog and Sam.

  20

  It was dark outside as we dined early on eggs, bacon, grits, and some wheat toast the next morning. Starnes was a decent cook. At least she was ahead of me in that department. My skills lay in other venues.

  Starnes was deep in her silent mode. I listened to the dogs crunching their food as I tried to sip my coffee silently. It was my fourth cup.

  “It’s foggy,” Starnes said, breaking our deep quiet.

  I looked outside and saw nothing but darkness.

  “How can you tell?” I said.

  “I live here. I know stuff.”

  “Oh,” I said and gulped my coffee not worrying about any noise I might make now that the silence had been broken officially.

  The dogs walked over to the back door and sat down facing the door with their backs to us. Sam looked back at me as if to say, “Come on, let’s go.”

  “I think our faithful companions are ready to travel,” I said.

  “Get your heavy coat. It’ll be cold despite the fog. We’re climbing, so prepare yourself.”

  “It was warm the last time we walked your trail,” I said.

  “Not this time.”

  Starnes was correct. I had no reason to doubt her, so I was indeed wearing my heavier coat as we set out in the dense fog. The woman knew her mountains.

  The fog was as thick as gray smoke. The dogs were leading our little party with Starnes following immediately in their wake. I was the caboose on this walking train. I stopped now and then to measure the thickness of the fog by searching for my hand in front of me. I could see a distance of about two feet, maybe less.

  There was no wind to speak of, and it was cold enough for me to enjoy the heavy coat Starnes had suggested. Since we were climbing, our bodies produced enough heat to keep us comfortable. However, it did seem to me that the temperatures were falling as we moved at a good pace up the mountain.

  We had hiked maybe forty minutes when I noticed that the fog was thinning a little. Despite the optimism that the dissipating fog provided me, I was still cold and wet. Apparently the fog was dense enough to dampen not only my spirits, but also my clothing.

  “We’re going to the site where we found the bones, right?” I said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said over her shoulder at me. She was about ten feet in front of me. I could barely see her. The dogs were still in front of her and quite invisible. My hope that the fog would evaporate soon was nothing less than my misplaced anticipation. The fog became a seemingly impenetrable barrier to our vision once again.

  “You see the dogs?” I said.

  “No.”

  “Sam? You up there?”

  A bark broke through the thickness to answer me. At least sound could get through this mess.

  “How does he know to answer you like that?” Starnes said. “You two have ESP or something?”

  “Something, I guess would be the answer. Maybe we’re soul mates,” I said and laughed in order to hide the fact that I really believed that in some sense we were kindred spirits despite our species’ differences.

  “We’re close to where we leave the trail for the site, right?” I said.

  “Hard to see in the fog, but, yes, we have to be close.”

  “You’re not going to get us lost up here, are you?”

  “Not intentionally,” she said.

  “Well, that’s gratifying.”

  The sound of something large running through the foggy thicket to our right froze both of us. The dogs must have stopped as well because I heard nothing moving in the moments after the sound had emerged. Starnes walked back to me quickly and put her index finger to her mouth to signal me not to talk. Obedient person that I am, I obliged. Besides, the noise had been loud enough to frighten me. I already had my gun out with the barrel pointing to the ground.

  “You can’t shoot in this thick crap,” she whispered to me. “You might hit something you don’t want to hit. Like me.”

  “Stay close,” I whispered back. “As long as I can see you, I promise not to shoot you.”

  “Don’t want to shoot your kindred spirit or Dog either,” she said.

  “Wouldn’t be on my to-do list.”

  We stopped whispering, stood motionless, and listened intently for a few minutes.

  Silence. It lasted only a moment. A slight drizzle ensued which chilled me faster than I would have thought. My clothing must have been wetter than I had imagined. Nothing quite like winter in the mountains.

  The fog was continuing to thin, but the drizzling rain restricted our vision a little. We could now see some tree trunks forty feet away from the trail. I scanned the line of the visible trunks moving from the left to the right. An unusual forest color for this time of year caught my attention. Two small blue orbs were discernible in the thick trees off to my right. I tapped Starnes’ right leg with the back of my left hand. Minimal movement is the method of my madness when I suspect something odd at hand.

  My peripheral vision informed me that she looked at me. I nodded ever so slightly with my head in the direction of the two orbs. By this point I was sure that the eyes staring at me belonged to a large animal. The steel blue orbs were at least three to four feet from the ground by my estimation. Large animal.

  “Wow,” she whispered lower than had spoken minutes earlier. “Don’t move.”

  “What is it?” I said in a whisper that was barely audible.

  “I’d rather not say,” she answered.

  I turned my head to look at her. At that point the dogs must have finally seen what we had seen and bounded through the thicket towards the eyes. I could now make out the two dogs running away from us.

  “Sam! Stop!” I yelled instinctively.

  Sam froze. Dog continuing running.

  My eyes shifted quickly from Sam’s position to the eyes. They had not moved as yet despite Dog’s rapid approach.

  “Dog!” Starnes yelled and then shrugged. “She doesn’t mind me most of the time. Why should I suspect that she would obey me now?”

  Starnes and I left the trail and headed towards the blue dots in the woods. I expected to hear growling and some type of ruckus within a few seconds of Dog’s running in that direction, but there were no sounds forthcoming. I scanned the woods in front of us for some sign of the two blue eyes. They had disappeared.

  Starnes stopped as did I. We listened for some sound of Dog in the thick forest. The fog continued to thin, but the forest trees and thicket was inhibiting our view now so we were still traveling blind, as it were. The drizzling rain stopped. No sounds were evident.

  We passed through an open field. The terrain was almost level here. We could see across the field to the next tree line. There was more undergrowth as well. I caught sight of the blue dots once again. They were staring in our direction. I thought I heard whimpering.

  “You hear that?” Starnes said to me.

  “The whimpering?”

  “Yeah. That’s Dog.”

  “She might be hurt,” I said and began running the rest of the way across the field.

  Sam was running alongside of me with Starnes following. I looked back to check on Starnes and noticed that she was holding her gun in her right hand.

  The fog had moved above us and was quickly dissipating. The sky was brighter. I expected the sun to break through any moment now.

  I stopped at the new tree line and waiting for Starnes. In the midst of our breathing heavily, we listened for more whimpering sounds. Nothing. I searched in v
ain for the blue dots.

  As we started into the thick woods, Dog emerged, waging her tail and licking Starnes. I watched Starnes check her for some injuries as I continued to scan the horizon for those unusual eyes. There was nothing.

  “She seems okay,” Starnes said. “What do you make of it?”

  “Not until you tell me what you think it was we were following,” I said.

  “Probably a very large coyote,” she answered after hesitating long enough for me to become suspicious.

  “Well, that’s the PC answer. Now tell me what you really think.”

  “Judging by the distance from the ground to the orbs, I’m thinking wolf.”

  “There are no wolves in western North Carolina mountains,” I said.

  “Yeah, I know that,” she said.

  21

  “The experts say that there are no wolves in the mountains of western North Carolina,” I said to Starnes after I had changed my rain-drenched clothing for some warm, dry jeans and a pull-over sweatshirt. We were back in her warm house and coveting more warmth than we presently had. The change of clothing helped.

  “The experts, huh,” she snarled.

  “You don’t believe it.”

  “Mountains are too dense, too remote, too wild.”

  “That a ‘no?’” I said.

  “That’s a ‘too soon to tell,’” she said.

  “There was a program to remove all of the wolves from the mountains.”

  “There was.”

  “You don’t believe they got them all?”

  “Resident skeptic.”

  “You?” I said.

  “Moi.”

  “What makes you believe our killer is a wolf?” I said.

  “I said I was thinking wolf. Didn’t say I believed it yet,” Starnes said as she handed me my refilled cup of coffee. Number four this time around. I suspected that the color of my blood was darker than most folks, unless they consumed coffee as I did.

  I was warming up after our early morning walk in the cold and the fog.

  Starnes folded her legs under her small, supple body as she crawled into her father’s old easy chair in the corner of the living room. She sipped her coffee quietly.