Saving Cecil

by Lee Mims

  Arthur reached out and patted her knee, then looked at me and said, “I guess we are anxious because … well, we’ve had a tough go of it since the accident … ” He paused as he collected his thoughts. “In truth, we were falling on hard times for several years before that. Just the economy, I suppose, but now, with school tuitions and the added pressure of unexpected doctor and hospital bills, we had to find some way to get financial relief. These wells are it. We’ve thrown everything we have left into them in the hope of pulling ourselves back into the black.”

  “You see, my dear,” Annette said. “We have so many people depending on us. All our employees, some of whom have worked here all their lives like Ruby and Luther and lots of others. If we go bust, we take a lot of families down with us.”

  “Our major problem is the equipment,” Arthur explained. “In order to meet new regulations and standards required by the FDA and state and local agencies, we need to upgrade. Plus some of our barns are about to fall down. We house over 500 cows here that have to be milked and fed twice a day. Plus there are new waste treatment requirements that are very stringent. If we don’t do upkeep and maintenance and modernize the equipment, they’ll close us down. It’s just as simple as that.”

  They looked so tense I wished I could offer some assurances, but there were none. Exploration is a gamble any way you look at it, even in a production field. The odds are three to one against you. Still, it was better now than it used to be.

  “Big rewards require big risks,” I offered. “If it makes you feel any better, you’re not alone. I’ve been on several jobs in the Pennsylvania gas fields in the last few years. All were on large farms, hoping for the same outcome as you and for the same reason. Just keep in mind that while we wouldn’t necessarily call the Triassic Basin a production field yet, several good wells have been brought in and put on line, so that kicks your odds up a little.”

  “And,” Arthur said, reaching for his wife’s hand and giving it an encouraging squeeze, “we have you. As we hear it from Greenlite, you’ve got a top-notch reputation for bringing in stubborn wells.”

  “Thanks for that, Arthur,” I said. “Call me anytime you want a report on how things are going. We’ve got a few more days of grinding through the Sanford Formation. Then, right before we break into the Cumnock, because it’s only about 580 feet thick at the most, we’ll begin our turn to run horizontal. The idea being to tap into the gas-bearing shale above the last coal seam. That should take about a week, give or take a few days.” I stood to leave. “Oh, one last thing. I’d like to thank Ruby again for patching me up.”

  “No need,” Annette said. “She loves helping people and she knows you appreciated it. Anyway, she’s not here. Thursday’s her grocery day. Getting ready for the weekend. But if it makes you feel better, I’ll tell her again for you.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” I said. “I thanked Luther personally on Tuesday, but I feel I should stop by the barn and offer a little financial token. After all, he was in his truck, using his gas. I’d feel better if he let me repay him.”

  “I’m sure he’d welcome it,” Arthur said. “He and Ruby have several children in college too.”

  Walking to the minivan, I remembered a bag of apples I’d left on the passenger side of the backseat and stepped around to get it. I took a bite of one and slid the door closed. Just then, a slight movement to my right caught my attention. Through the lacy limbs of a Hollywood cypress, I spotted another unique outbuilding, this one had not been visible from the sunroom.

  The movement I’d detected was the door slowly swinging open. Just as I started to leave, thinking it was only a matter of the door being unlatched, a familiar face peered around it. You know how you can tell in an instant when someone is doing something they don’t want anyone to know about?

  The moment I saw Ruby step down out of an old stick-built chicken house—the kind raised several feet off the ground on stacks of rocks—I could tell she didn’t want to be seen. I also knew that the chances of her noticing me from that distance and through tree limbs were slim and none, especially if I remained motionless. I watched as she warily checked her surroundings before latching the door and scurrying from sight.

  That’s weird. I’d thought Annette said she was grocery shopping. And why, if mice and bats infested those old buildings, would she be storing anything out there? I got back in the van, took the first left past the drive on the main farm road, and motored toward the two massive silos visible over the trees. They sat beside twin barns, both gigantic white two-story affairs with red roofs. I pulled up to the first barn and went in.

  Apparently they were in cleaning mode. Five men of varying ages and ethnicities, all in coveralls and black rubber boots, hosed down the concrete floors and raised milking stations in the vast barn. It looked pretty modern to me, but what did I know? I asked the first person whose attention I could get where Luther Green might be. He pointed in a curving manner towards outside and shouted, “Over yonder.”

  Nodding thanks for the precise information, I changed my direction and headed “over yonder” to the other barn. It was a complete rerun of the goings on in the first barn. I waved down another man in coveralls and asked again for Mr. Green only to get a shrug. The guy did stop hosing long enough to holler to his co-workers but the consensus remained the same: for sure he wasn’t in the barn area and beyond that no one knew where he was.

  Lucky no one needs the barn manager. Deciding to come back later, I headed off to fulfill the next item on my agenda: flagging the site for Lauderbach #2. Again, I planned to kill two birds with one stone. Since my curiosity regarding the murder of Clinton Baker knew no bounds, and since, as far as I knew, I was still Sheriff Stuckey’s prime suspect, I decided to reach the new wellsite by a different route than the one I used on my ill-fated attempt Tuesday.

  Instead of trying to drive as close to it as possible and then hike the rest of the way, I’d go the entire distance on foot, cutting across pastures and woods. Besides, using the same shortcut I’d taken the day I found Clinton would take me back to the crime scene. Who knew, maybe I’d see something others hadn’t.

  Back at the doghouse, I pulled the relevant aerial of the farm from my file drawer. The state of North Carolina uses 160 acres as the standard drainage area for wells. Including low, wet areas and roads, the center of the drainage area for #2 was a little over three hundred acres from my present location. I made a copy of the photo, stuffed it and a bottled water in my canvas carryall, and buckled on my Beretta. Then Tulip and I left on foot.

  Following the ruts across the pasture created by law enforcement and emergency vehicles, I headed for the yellow strip of crime scene tape, marking the point where the trees were sparse enough to allow their entry. Just before reaching there, the call of a Carolina wren drew my attention to the right and I noticed a game trail.

  I wondered if it was the same one that passed by the crime scene and decided to follow it. At the head of the trail, I noticed something else: a marker in the form of a notch cut in a small pine. Though the cut was well healed, it was no more than a year old.

  Nose down, Tulip snuffled ahead of me on the faint trail. It meandered about and though, at times, seemed to disappear altogether, I could tell it had been used lately … and by a human. An OIT—old Indian trick? No. Expert tracking technique? No. The Chiclet I’d found in the leaf litter while stooping under low-hanging limbs was a dead giveaway. The fact that it still had its candy coating meant it hadn’t been rained on. Besides the gum, I had no luck with evidence upon reaching the crime scene.

  Though the area was still taped off, the ground had been so disturbed I doubted if one more person poking around could do any harm. So I studied the area all I wanted, but didn’t see anything beyond what I’d seen the last time I was here. My dream of finding … oh, I don’t know, say a hunting knife thrown in the bushes, went unfulfilled.

  Resuming my
hike to #2, I passed the tree where I’d spent a few miserable hours and was reminded to be on the lookout for feral hogs. Finally I reached the far side of the woods and stepped back into the bright autumn sunshine. I looked at the base of the trees at this end of the trail. Sure enough, a scooped notch, similar to the one at the other end of the trail, had been hacked in a small oak.

  It looked to be the same age as the first mark and it wasn’t done by a surveyor. They use a very distinctive system of hatch marks to blaze a trial. Basically, they use one notch on each side of a tree to indicate a straight boundary line, three in a row to mark a corner, and they use a machete to make the cuts. These were made by something much smaller, like a hunting knife

  Still retracing my steps of last Wednesday, I marched on until I reached my marker at the edge of a vast cornfield. The Lauderbachs grew their own feed. Corn, coastal Bermuda hay, and soybeans thrived in large, well-maintained fields. As soon as I entered this one, I was quickly swallowed up. The towering corn stalks, now dried and ready for harvest, reached over my head, giving me the childlike feeling of hiding in grass in a land of giants.

  Midfield, at the site of #2, I retrieved my orange plastic marker flag, jammed it in my tote and took out my aerial. I did a quick recheck of where I’d highlighted the new #2, using the company man’s coordinates.

  Ahead of me, on the other side of a fifty-foot swath of open land that circled the field, was another patch of old-growth woods. Beyond those woods, another cornfield, then another pasture, midway across which was the new location for Lauderbach #2. I could have been annoyed at Overmire’s changing the location after I’d already flagged his first choice, but I wasn’t. Any reason to be outdoors was okay with me.

  I checked my watch. It was only three o’clock. I had plenty of time so I decided to take the long way around the woods instead of cutting through them. No sense risking another encounter with some UV—unfriendly varmint.

  I have a complete mental list of UVs, and at the top of it, I placed dumb hunters, vicious moonshiners, and the scourge of today’s ATF, the creeps that sneak onto the property of law-abiding citizens and plant patches—marijuana. They were way worse than any of the animals that call the woods and fields of North Carolina home.

  From time to time while skirting the edge of the deep, dark woods, Tulip would liven things up with a startling bay followed by an impressive scratch off. She was trotting about thirty feet ahead of me when she decided to take off on one of those jaunts. She darted into the woods, spewing leaves and dirt behind her as though she were after Bigfoot.

  When I reached the spot where she’d disappeared, I saw she’d taken another faint trail. Not only that, it was marked with the same type of scooped notch I’d seen earlier. In my mind, they looked like they were made by the same person or persons. I wanted to investigate, but had work to do, so I continued on to my destination where I planted my flag... again.

  On my way back to the site, I took the same route, only this time I let my curiosity get the better of me. Though it was now almost five, I still had plenty of light. Besides, I’m a scientist, if I didn’t let my curiosity overrule my practicality on occasion, I wouldn’t be a very good one. I pushed my way into the woods, following the trail and the sound of Tulip already off on her own fact-finding mission.

  From my earlier information gathering, I remembered this section of woods to be about sixty acres. And, according to my geologic map, a significant portion of it was underlain with red beds. One of the old county maps even indicated clay digs.

  Perhaps some of Arthur’s relatives from generations past used the clay for brick making. I practically tingled with anticipation of actually seeing the intersection of history and geology and hurried along. I was so excited, in fact, that I pushed aside the fact that a slight musky odor occasionally wafted my way.

  Tulip’s nose, however, remained on duty. About fifteen minutes into our transect, she trotted back to me, the hair on her back bristling, her eyes anxious. She heeled at my right side. When I stooped to comfort her, I saw her feet and legs were coated in red clay … the kind used for bricking. “What’s the matter, girl?” I said soothingly. “Did you smell hog?” I petted her sides, stood and sniffed the air but the smell had gone. My excitement at seeing her clay boots had not.

  “Let’s go just a little further,” I said. “Then we’ll turn back, I promise.” She gave me a dubious look and instead of her usual forward-scouting position, she trotted protectively by my side. I should have taken her standing hackles as a warning, but I didn’t. I was only going a short ways. Looking ahead to where the path turned right, I decided that if I didn’t see signs of a dig there, I’d turn back.

  At the turn, the scant path merged with an old logging road and the hog odor increased exponentially. “Phew wee,” I said, looking down the path. “We must be getting close to one of their wallows, and something tells me that’s probably right where I want to be.” Tulip whined. “Aw, come on now. I really want to see it. After all, I’ve got my Beretta.”

  I unsnapped the safety strap that keeps the gun snugly in its holster—just in case—and walked on, my hand resting on its butt. The further I went, the more pungent the odor got. But something else was mixed in with the pungent odor of hog musk and dung.

  I’d smelled it before.

  Now I was really intrigued. Tulip wasn’t. She was growling softly as the path turned sharply left and opened into a clearing. That’s when I saw that neither my nose nor my memory had failed me.

  A row of a hog pens stood before me.

  “What the hell,” I breathed, counting the massive split-rail pens. There were five of them, attached side by side. There was also a shed—probably where the commercial hog feed, which was giving off the sweet, fermented odor I’d detected, was kept.

  Upon seeing me, the hogs began to stamp and squeal. Tulip was now in fighting mode, her growl fierce, her lips curled. I tried to reassure her, but I was trembling too. “Something is out of whack here, girl,” I said, stating the obvious. It was one thing to keep hog pens away from your house to avoid the smell, it was another thing entirely to have them hidden deep in the woods, a mile or more away.

  The reason for the subterfuge became clear with a quick inspection from a safe distance—past experience being my teacher. The first pen held a ferocious feral boar. The next two held domestic yearlings of both sexes. Another held a large domestic sow and the last, a larger one, was packed with varying ages and sexes of a cross between the wild and domestic breeds. I suspected such interbreeding was frowned upon by the North Carolina Wildlife Commission.

  Just then, I heard the sound of a truck engine. It was approaching from the far side of the clearing where the path picked up again. I ducked back in the woods so I could see if I recognized the truck. My instincts told me to get out of there, but I wanted to know who the hogs belonged to. Tulip, still trying to get me to follow, poked me with her nose. “Just a sec!” I hissed, giving her collar a warning tug. “Sit and stay!” Reluctantly, she sat and I turned back to part the branches for a better view.

  The truck came into sight. It was one of the smaller variety of pickups, dark green with oversized tires and fancy rims, but it didn’t appear to be new. As though the driver was looking for something, the truck rolled slowly forward across the clearing until I could see the emblem on the grill. A Toyota.

  It was dirty and had scratches and dents reminiscent of my magic Jeep. One thing it had my Jeep didn’t: a rear-window-mounted gun rack complete with scoped hunting rifle. Closer and closer it rolled until it was about fifty feet from me. Then it stopped. Unfortunately the tags were on the opposite end of the truck! Dammit!

  A heavyset man of about fifty with mostly grey hair and a ruddy complexion got out and stood by the door without closing it. He rested his hand in the open window, an outdoorsman with the air of an executive. He was dressed for hunting with boots, flannel shirt, an
d heavy canvas hunting pants. “Hey?” the man called in a harsh, bullish voice. “You here?”

  When he received no reply, he stepped a few feet away from the truck. Then, as if honing in by radar, he drew a bead on my location. He squinted his eyes and moved a little closer to the heavy underbrush and deep gloom concealing me.

  Slowly I let go of the branches, withdrew my hands and stood stock-still, watching him. He hesitated, scanned left and right, then returned to his truck and started the engine. Figuring this might be a good time to leave, I stepped back a few feet to where I’d left Tulip. That smart hound was already at a smart trot, heading back the way we had come. I scratched off after her.

  TEN

  We’d run a little less than a quarter of mile when I caught my boot on a greenbrier and went sprawling. The fall knocked the wind out of me. I lay still and caught my breath. After a moment when I didn’t see Tulip, I pushed to my knees. There I saw another curious sight—as if I hadn’t seen enough for one day.

  Eye level with me on a pin oak tree was yet another trail notch. It was exactly like those I’d seen at other locations along the path. I stood and pushed the thick underbrush aside, revealing a fork in the path. I could hear Tulip’s tags but I still didn’t see her. I didn’t want to call aloud or whistle, so I went to find her and in doing so, discovered the clay pit.

  The trail followed a gentle slope to the bottom. Along the way, the soil changed from primarily sandy clay and gravel to pure red clay. It was about a hundred feet long, extending up the low rise on the other side for about thirty feet. A shallow dig, it was only about four feet deep at the most, but extended horizontally across ground for about sixty feet. I seriously wanted to explore it, but was still very nervous about being anywhere near what appeared to be a clandestine hog-breeding operation. Tulip’s tags tinkled again and I saw her next to a tall clump of mare’s tail weed. She was rooting under what appeared to be a large camouflage tarp.