by Blair Aaron
He cleaned himself up, put on his clothes, and high-tailed it away from Lee Ann's place as fast as possible. There was no way he'd ever see Carter again. He couldn't let the situation progress any further than it already had. So he drove west, down Highway 82, toward the ranch house his father had left him in the will. He got halfway down to the place and pulled over to the side of the road, his stomach's knots growing tighter the farther he got from Carter. He couldn't do it. He had to turn around.
It was over two hours back to the place Carter was staying in the mountains. And for Stetson, every mile marked a graduated increase in regret and remorse. He was ashamed he'd hurt the kid, and he worried whether he would be okay. Jaylon's reaction was something he'd forgotten about, and it was certain to be something he would have to deal with.
As he pulled into the driveway, Jaylon's truck was nowhere to be found. Stetson figured that much after the peep show his friend had stumbled upon the day before, but the front door was open. That was the first clue something was not right. Stetson's hunting instincts kicked into gear, and he quietly parked his truck behind the cabin. He reached behind the seat for his gun to make sure it was loaded.
On the porch, he could see all the lights were off, and a window was broken. Stetson's gripped his gun, keeping his index finger near the trigger. Stepping inside the house, his boot crushed window glass, and he looked around the empty house, listening for any suspicious sounds.
“Ya'll here?” he shouted.
But there was no answer. He walked to the right, in the direction of Jaylon's room, the master suite. He put his finger on the bedroom door and pushed the door open. It creaked slowly in the stillness of the house. Stetson could find nothing amiss there, except Jaylon's window was open.
A door slammed.
Stetson whirled around, ready for the fight of his life. He stepped over the kitchen and den area, undisturbed on first glance.
A door slammed again.
He walked over to Carter's room, the door shut completely this time. Stetson's heart plummeted at the thought of what was on the other side of the door, but he couldn't ignore it. Wrapping his giant fingers around the doorknob, he turned it slowly and let the door swing open. The door revealed the thing Stetson feared the most, no matter how much he tried to deny it. The room was destroyed—the lamp crushed on the floor, the dresser drawers pulled from the places, clothes strewn everywhere, the mirror shattered into a million tiny little pieces. He looked around in panic and heard himself say out loud, “Carter, kid where you?” Adrenaline flooded his face as he turned the bathroom and found similar carnage throughout that side of the room. He could tell the guy struggled as best he could. The shower curtain was violently torn down, and the rod had blood smeared across the end of it. But unfortunately there was no Carter to be found. In the mirror, Stetson could see a broken window in the bedroom with blood on it as well. He realized Carter must have tried to escape. The very worst had happened, Stetson understood now and he was overcome with anger. He took his giant fist and punched a hole in the sheetrock, fighting back tears and vomit at the same time.
“Dear God,” a voice said. Stetson looked up at Jaylon, standing in the door way again. “What the hell happened?” he asked.
“Call the police. Tell them there has been a kidnapping,” Stetson said, looking away from Jaylon so he would not see the tear rolling down the cowboy's face.
V
In the hours after the police looked over the cabin for forensic evidence, after Stetson forced several cops through fear of physical punishment to take fingerprints when they initially refuse, the lead investigator Presley Watkins told Jamie and Stetson that they had virtually no clue who could have taken Carter, given that he was virtually unknown in the town and no one therefore could have had a grudge against him. They continued to ask the two men to tell anything they knew about Carter, which might help the investigation. At the moment, Stetson and Jaylon looked at each other, in their own minds remembering the incident the day before, when Jaylon found Carter fucking his brother. The look of tiger-like rage directed by Stetson in that moment communicated everything it needed to, and Jaylon refrained from saying anything about Carter's homosexuality or the semblance of a relationship between Carter and Stetson.
But behind closed doors, Jaylon was not nearly as cooperative.
“Okay,” he said. “If you're not going to help the cops do the best job they could do, then we're going to do it ourselves. Do you understand that I did not really know who my brother is? I'm 10 years older than he is. I moved away when I was 18, when he was eight. I know virtually nothing about him—not who his friends were, not the kind of music he liked, nothing. If we're going to find him, we need to let my mom know.”
Stetson silently agreed, on the outside doing it all to appease Jaylon, but on the inside because he had decided he would die before he gave up on finding that boy. He should have been there, he thought. He should have been there when it happened, and maybe he could have prevented it.
“I dreamed about this,” Sheree Simmons said. Stetson leaned against the kitchen counter of the Simmons family trailer, his legs crossed long ways, one boot over the other. He sat listening quietly, as Jamie did all the talking.
“Mom, you don't use dreams to figure out missing persons cases. They say the first 48 hours are critical. Do you know anything we don't know about my brother? I need to know everything so we can find him fast.”
“I dreamed someone took him, chopped him up into little pieces, and put him in the trunk. They buried him way out in the desert, by some kind of crater, or dig. All because of who he was. He was so careful.”
“Careful about what?” Jamie said.
“I don't know if he would want me telling you.”
“What is it, god dammit!”
“His nature. He was different. He liked his own kind,” she said, composing herself. Sheree Simmons was without a doubt a very strong woman; her upbringing required her to be, and motherhood had only intensified this pattern. Despite her warmness, her own nature was solid stone.
“He was queer?” Jaylon feigned ignorance and shock. “Dear God. Do you think maybe someone knew, maybe Uncle Ed said something and it got out.”
“No of course not. Ed has not told anyone.”
“You know he's got a big mouth. Maybe he did and they told someone else and maybe that he was living with me.”
“It's impossible Jamie.”
“Let's talk to him then,” Jamie said. So Sheree got up from the table called in Uncle Ed from the other part of the trailer. The family was in the progressive of loading up their attractions, and no one besides Carter’s parents knew about his disappearance. After they informed Uncle Ed of what had happened, he stood there in disbelief, but then started laughing uncontrollably.
“What about this situation could be funny to you Ed,” Sheree said.
“Kid's probably staged his own break-in. He's just looking to run away.”
“That's not what happened. There was blood everywhere. I assume it was because he staged that part too, right Uncle Ed,” Jamie said.
“Yeah of course. I bet it wasn't even real blood.”
“You're an idiot.”
“Well this idiot knows who could have grabbed him, or who he might have run off with. I guarantee you it was his little buddy's family. The friend of his who died.”
“What friend?” Stetson asked, showing only a hint of jealousy no one caught onto.
“He had this friend since he was about 10 years old. They did everything together. He's dead now.”
The television in the small den in the trailer began flashing breaking news. The image caught Stetson's peripheral vision, and he walked away from the kitchen to get a better look, as the rest of the family continued talking.
“Tonight, we have breaking news, of a routine traffic stop gone wrong. A cop was killed tonight after he approached a white sedan for mild speeding. On the dash cam footage, we're about to show you, you can see
the cop never had a chance, as the perpetrator point blank shot him in the face, after a short conversation between them. No one knows what the cop said at this time, as the body cam footage is currently classified and under review by the police department. Viewer discretion is strongly advised.”
In the footage, the cop approached the white sedan; the driver was wearing a hoodie. Stetson could see the cop talking with the driver for a few seconds, and then the driver handed the cop his license. When the cop turned around, the man pulled a gun and shot him from behind. Stetson was a fantastic hunter, and even in videos, he had a great instinct for zeroing in on his prey. In the footage, the driver briefly looks in the direction of the dash cam of the police car, and Stetson caught a glimpse of the driver's unforgettable green eyes.
“I'll be god damned,” he said.
“What is it?” Jamie asked. The news station replayed the video several times. “God dammit! God dammit!” Jamie screamed at the top of his lungs. Sheree, Ed, and Stetson looked at Jamie for a few second; unable to comprehend what produced such incense anger.
“I've seen that guy before,” Stetson said. “I damn near broke his hand. I think I may know who took our boy.”
“Who? Tell me! Who?” Sheree called after them, as Stetson opened the door to the trailer, Jamie, Ed, and Sheree following after. Stetson opened the door to his truck and Jamie stepped in, fearful of being left behind. He looked over at Stetson as he started the ignition.
“Where are we going?”
“The police station.”
VI
“We know the license plate and the profile. But the body cam footage will be much clearer,” Presley Watkins said from behind his desk. He was the lead investigator of the police department for missing persons cases, and he had access to all forensic data in the building. Stetson hoped he could convince Watkins to give him access to the body cam footage.
“Let's see that footage,” Stetson said. “I know it's him.”
“So what if it is? This is a guy we've run into before, and when we catch him, this time he's going down. But the question is: what does this have to do with Carter Simmons?” Watkins asked.
“I damn near broke the kid's hand for being an ass,” Stetson said. “He wasn't exactly the softest fella you'd meet. I know he's probably mad at the both of us, Carter and me.”
“How do you know about the guy? I've never heard of him,” Jamie said, refraining from looking at Stetson.
“He's part of the Nash Gibson gang here in Wyoming. They have a history of terrorizing the local blacks and homeless people, but back in the day, they had a lot more power over the county seat. But the times, as they say, are a changing,” Watkins said. He opened the drawer and pulled out a file full of crime scene photos. He handed them to Stetson and Jamie.
“Our men busted into his place last year after a local hobo who hung out at the square went missing. Turns out, the hobo did after all have a family. Even the people at that hardware shop had grown to likin' him. We found the body in a ditch not 20 miles from town, beaten with a tire iron across the face. Marsh's apartment had nothing we could directly tie him to the crime with, so we had to drop the case. There wasn't anything we could do,” Watkins said.
The photos showed pictures of a darkened, incommodious apartment, gray walls, and a single bed in a bare place. There were two air mattresses stacked on top of each other, with a small cheap desk with a metal chair nearby. On the walls were KKK and insignia celebrating the Confederate States of America. Other photos showed a curiously random place in the desert, an archaeological dig site it looked like.
“What's this?” Stetson said.
“Oh that's where we think he hangs out on Fridays, getting drunk with the rest of his gang. We have never found any hard evidence of missing persons at that place so there's no point in hounding them.”
Watkins was coming off as resigned about Jaidon Marsh, and Stetson had a burning desire to smack the cop right across the jaw, given that Carter's life was at stake. Stetson thought the guy was acting mighty careless about following up on any leads, and when Watkins threw another stack of photos in his direction, he immediately knew the man just didn't give a shit about finding Carter. Carter might as well have been given up for dead.
The photos showed gruesome, detailed images of the hobo's body, whose face was lacerated beyond recognition, and in a hallucinatory moment, Stetson saw Carter's broken face and hands in those photos. The hobo's bloody clothes and burned scalp were now Carter's clothes and scalp. Stetson's stomach churned at what his instincts told him—that when he accosted Jaidon Marsh, he'd made a spiteful enemy, and now Carter was paying for it. Stetson felt a tremendous, Herculean responsibility to make things right at all costs, no matter what, no matter how. He realized Presley Watkins neither had the gall nor the smarts to realize the solution to the mystery lay right before him, on his desk, in photographic detail. Stetson knew he would be outside the law, on his own in the mission to save the kid whom he had betrayed, and it was a compromise he was more than willing to take, no matter what the cost. As Watkins continued chatting away with Jamie, Stetson picked up the photo of the dig site, his hunter instincts giving him even more information about Jaidon's possible whereabouts. There was a time when Stetson's father took him to various events around the state. In Wyoming, just about the most exciting thing to experience was a real-life dinosaur dig, as Stetson was a dinosaur fanatic as a child. The place in the photos looked incredibly similar, especially one showing Jaidon standing next to a U-shaped rock formation, the same rock formation Stetson himself had obsessed about in his toddler stages. It was unmistakably the same place.
He decided not to tell Presley Watkins where he was going, as he stood up, putting the picture of the dino dig in his pocket discreetly. He thanked Watkins as he left the room and Jamie followed after. They were walking through the hallway, on their own, when Jamie inquired about Stetson's motives.
“You're acting strange. Why did you leave so quick? Tell me if you've figured something out.”
“I know he took your brother,” Stetson said. “I had a gut feeling at first. But now I know where his hideout is.”
“Where is my brother?”
“There's a dig site not 50 miles south of this place. Went there when I was a kid. He's gotta be there.”
“Well, well why didn't you tell him? We've got to tell him, Stets. That's where my he's got my brother,” Jamie said, his voice calm, as he walked back in the direction of Watkins' office. Stetson grabbed his elbow and pulled him back.
“He ain't got time nor care, Jaylon. We gonna have to take this into our own hands,” he said. “I gotta save him.”
Jaylon became very cold all of a sudden. “Do you think I forgot I caught you fucking my brother? You're a fucking queer and I'm liable to tell Watkins the full story. Maybe you were the one—” Jaylon’s speech was cut off back Stetson's massive hand around his throat. In one instant, he pushed Jamie back into the men's bathroom where they couldn't be heard. Jaylon had never been more afraid in his life.
“I—can't breathe,” he said.
“Listen here fuck stick. I ain't no god damn queer. If I so much as hear one word from you about what you witnessed, you'll be the next missing person bud. Nod your head so you understand me boy.”
Jaylon was a tall guy, but there was not a single human being he'd ever met who was scarier than Stetson in that moment. No matter what animosity Jamie held for those different from him, homosexuals included, there was nothing he'd ever do to put himself at the mercy of the angry cowboy currently choking him. He agreed to keep his mouth shut, and before they could say anything else, both men heard sounds coming from next door. They stepped out of the restroom and took a peek at the cops watching the body cam footage of their murdered fellow officer.
The screen showed the officer approaching the white sedan from behind, where the driver was reluctant to roll down his window. The officer tapped on the window with his flashlight, cracking the
glass a little. The man rolled down the window finally, as the officer's flashlight shined into his near-translucent green eyes. The man was Jaidon Marsh.
“You cracked my window,” he said.
“Good afternoon sir. Do you know why I pulled you over today?”
“Speeding I guess. I apologize.” There was not a single mark of sincerity in Jaidon's voice.
“That'd be it. Can I see your license and registration?” Stetson could see Jaidon reach into his pocket and pull out his license to hand to the officer. The tension in the room was palpable, given that the men knew what the outcome of the video was going to be. They all sat, stomachs in knots, anticipating the dreadful moment when the officer would be shot.
“I'll be right back,” the officer said, as the camera turned back in the direction of the police car. When the officer walked near the trunk of the car, there was a strange sound coming from within it. The officer stopped and the men watching could hear him say, “What the shit.” A loud bang emanated from the trunk again and the officer reacted out loud. “There's someone in there!” Before he even had a chance to turn around there was a loud pop of a gun and the camera went down, pointed at the tire, as the officer fell to the ground.
VII
Stetson drove 75 miles per hour down the highway, only 5 miles per hour above the speed limit, but the urgency and dread that permeated the cabin gave Jamie goose bumps.
“Man, I'm sure he's all right. Let's just turn back and let the cops handle it. We're going to get killed, I say. Stets just stop.”
Stetson ignored him as he pulled over to the side of the road. “What the fuck are you doing Stetson? We're in the middle of fucking nowhere. Where are you going?”
