by P. T. Hylton
Ms. Raymond turned to the warden. “He’s carrying a weapon. Tell the guards to overlook it.”
Warden Cade nodded. “Ms. Raymond, I’m not sure how to do the paperwork on this thing.”
“Jesus, Cade. Figure it out. Do it fast. If he’s not a free man in the next sixty minutes, I will not be happy.”
As Rodgers led Frank out of the room, Frank heard the warden say, “Shouldn’t we tell him?”
Ms. Raymond said, “No. Let’s see how he does. He’ll either figure it out or he won’t.”
4.
The walk down to the boulder took much longer than it should have. The boys were quieter, and they walked behind the men. There was an energy in the air, part nervousness, part anticipation. The things the boys had been taught in school, the things they had been trained to do in the Scouts, the stories they heard the men telling, usually after a few drinks, they were about to see them up close. They were about to carry out their duty. They would soon take down a Regulation breaker.
Will leaned close to Henry. “You bring a gun up here?”
Henry nodded and patted the pocket of his thick jacket.
“I got mine too,” Will said.
“I’ve got plenty of rope. Enough to tie him up and also tie a lead around his waist for bringing him to town.”
The men had spent almost an hour talking to the boys on the summit of Rook Mountain. They had talked about the boys' responsibilities in capturing the Regulation breaker. They had told them to stay out of the hiker’s reach and to stay alert. It was all review, stuff they had heard a thousand times before in the classroom, but the boys had listened with focus. There hadn’t been any laughter or side conversations. Not this time.
Will held up a hand to stop the group before a curve in the road. He waived the boys in close. “The boulder is about a hundred yards ahead. From here on out, we are silent. Stay as quiet as you can and follow me and Mr. Strauss. Stay behind us and don’t do anything different than what we discussed. Nod if you understand.”
Will looked around the group, making eye contact with each boy. They all nodded when he looked at them, a silent vow that they understood, that they would perform their duties.
Will reached into the front pocket of his backpack and pulled out the pistol. It was a 9mm Glock. It had been a couple years since he had fired the thing at the range, but that was okay. He didn’t intend to use it today. He just wanted to have it ready in case things turned bad. There were six boys here to think about after all.
Will slung the pack onto his back and began creeping down the road, the gun held loosely in his right hand. He stepped lightly, but he knew any effort to be silent would have been futile. A group of eight was sure to be noticeable. They walked down the center of the road to minimize the noise, but bits of gravel still crunched under their feet.
It didn’t matter. Will could see the boulder. Most likely, there would be no one there. The backpack could have been abandoned, or its owner might have left it for the day while he went foraging for food. They would probably find nothing, the Scouts would file a report when they got back to town, and that would be that.
The lump of ice in Will’s stomach told him there was another possibility. There was a possibility that someone would be there, and it would fall to Will to take the lead. Scout leader or not, Henry had already shown that he didn’t have it in him. Try as he might, Will couldn’t help but hate Henry a little for that. The way things were, there was a burden that had to be borne. For every person like Henry, too squeamish or indecisive to do their part, there had to be someone like Will to pick up the slack. It wasn’t meanness on Will’s part; it was just the way it was.
Will was fifty feet from the boulder. Henry was a few steps behind him, and the rest of the group hovered back a bit farther. Will reached down and shifted the pistol to a two hand grip. He looked at Henry one more time to make sure the man was ready. Henry nodded.
“Step out from behind the rock,” Will said. He spoke in the calmest, most authoritative voice he could manage.
He was met with silence.
He tried again. “Come on out. We don’t mean you any harm.”
Another long moment of silence.
Henry spoke softly. “I don’t think—”
Will held up his hand to quiet him.
Will said, “I take your non-response as hostility. We are moving in.”
“Wait!” The voice came from behind the rock. It was a hoarse, throaty voice, but it was also higher pitched than Will had expected.
“Step out onto the road,” Will said.
A shadow moved at the edge of the boulder, then it grew until it revealed feet, legs, a body. The figure moved into the sunlight. Will heard a boy behind him gasp.
“Don’t shoot!” the woman said. Her eyes were glued to Will’s pistol. Her hair was a tangle of blonde and black. Her t-shirt featured the faded logo of the band Phish.
Will kept his gun trained on her. He concentrated on keeping it steady.
“Ma’am, you have broken Regulation 11. We need to escort you back to town.”
The woman’s voice trembled when she spoke. “Please. I haven’t hurt anyone. I just want to be left alone.”
“Jesus,” Henry said. “That’s Jessie Cooper.”
Will felt a surge of anger rising up. The last thing he needed was Henry complicating matters.
“Jessie Cooper,” Henry repeated. “She works at the Food City. And before...she was my accountant.”
“Henry Strauss?” the woman asked, squinting into the sun.
“I don’t care what she was in the Before,” Will said. “Get out your rope and tie her hands. Boys, go collect her things.”
Henry paused only a moment before reaching into his pack and pulling out a coil of nylon rope. He moved toward the woman.
Will kept his gun trained on her while Henry bound her hands.
“Mr. Osmond! Come here!” The voice came from one of the boys behind the boulder.
Will looked at Henry. “You got her?”
Henry nodded. “Go.”
Will pocketed his gun and trotted around the boulder. On the other side, he saw the boys huddled around something on the ground. They parted as he approached, and he saw the oversized piece of paper that held their attention.
It was a map. And not just a map of Rook Mountain. It was a map of the county. A red line had been drawn straight north from the town of Rook Mountain to Elizabethton.
Russ said, “Mr. Osmond, was she planning a route to leave town?”
Will didn’t respond. He stood up with a grunt and then took a deep breath. This was not good. He tried to steel himself for what was next. What had to be next.
Will walked back around the boulder. Henry stood a few feet away from the woman. Her head was down, and her shoulders were slumped.
“Ms. Cooper,” Will said. “Are you familiar with Regulation 1?”
She raised her head. Her face was a bitter mask of contempt. “Yes, I think I’ve heard of it.”
“Were you planning to leave Rook Mountain?”
She kept her eyes on him, but she did not speak.
“Ms. Cooper, were you trying to leave town?”
“It’s not fair what they’ve done to us,” she said. “It isn’t right and I'm done with it. Done with all of them!”
“Jessie, are you leaving Rook Mountain?” Will asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m leaving. Now let me go.”
Will fired, and the sound echoed off the side of the mountain. The bullet hit Jessie Cooper in the chest, and she staggered backwards. She made it three wobbly steps before collapsing. She landed with a thud.
Will walked toward her, not rushing, but careful not to hesitate either. He couldn’t lose his nerve. He stood over her, staring into her vacant eyes. A sick wheeze came from her chest as the breath leaked out of her.
Will fired again, this time hitting her near the center of the forehead. There was no mistake now—the woman was dead.
He turned and saw the group staring at him. He looked from one to another, making eye contact with each of them just as he had done before they approached the boulder. He saw looks of shock, horror, revulsion, and terror. There was even a look of awe from Carl Strauss. But they were all present behind their eyes. Whatever feelings they had about what had just happened, none of them were going to lose it. At least not now.
Will spoke softly and calmly, as if his tone could counteract the violence. “We did what we had to do. This woman was a Regulation breaker. Not only that, she was a Regulation 1 breaker. She was going to leave Rook Mountain and go elsewhere. At best, she would have been killed by the Unfeathered. At worst, she would have led them back to Rook Mountain.”
The boys remained still.
“There was no shame in what we did here,” Will continued. “We protected ourselves. We protected our families. We did our duty, no more and no less. Everyone understand?”
The boys all nodded, some more enthusiastically than others. Things would be different now, for Trevor and for all of them.
“Don’t touch anything,” Will said. “Leave her things where they lay. When we get to town, we will report what happened. The police will come up here to investigate. They’ll want to ask you all some questions. As long as you answer honestly and tell them exactly what happened, everything will be fine.”
Will looked at Henry and waited for the man to say something. If Henry took charge, it would go a long way toward getting things back to normal. But Henry said nothing.
“We want to get to the ranger station before sundown,” Will said. “Let’s get moving.”
As Will turned, he heard Carl say, “Hinkle, your dad is a badass.”
“Don’t call him that,” Trevor said.
“Sorry,” Carl said. “Step-dad. Whatever. He’s still a badass.”
“Yeah,” Trevor said. “I guess he kind of is.”
Will angled his way through the group until he stood next to Trevor. He put his arm around his stepson’s shoulders and started down the mountain.
IN THE BEFORE (PART 1)
The first time Will met the Hinkles, Jake was sitting on the porch drinking beer and Christine was wielding a chainsaw. Over the years, Will often thought back to that day and considered it the perfect introduction to both their personalities.
Will was fresh out of college and in the state of Tennessee for the first time. He had grown up in the plains of central Illinois and driving a car, let alone a U-Haul, through the mountains was an adventure to him. He had been skiing a few times out west where the mountains were tall, jagged things that jutted proudly into the sky and dared you to summit them. They were mountains for extreme sports, ski lifts, and feeling on top of the world.
The Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Tennessee were different. They were much smaller, yes, but they were also sneakier creatures. They were round and tree covered. There would be no skiing down them. They clung too close to the Earth, and they wore a coat of dense forest. They were mountains where you could imagine Daniel Boone blazing a trail, and you could understand why it would have been such a big deal.
They looked like mountains that held secrets.
Will made it through the Cumberland Gap and the twisty ups and downs of Kentucky and Virginia, clutching the steering wheel of his U-Haul in a death grip for hours on end. He made it past the giant, illuminated roadside crosses of Bristol and into the beautiful valley that cradled Elizabethton. After surviving a winding state highway and passing countless roadside stands selling boiled peanuts and South Carolina peaches, he made it to Rook Mountain.
He pulled off the highway and onto the first side road. A man in an old Subaru passed him going the other direction and waved. Will hesitated, then waved back. You didn’t get much waving at other drivers in Illinois. Unless the wave featured only one finger.
After ten minutes on the country road, he saw the sign, ‘Hinkle Resort.’
He heard the distinctive buzz of a chainsaw as he drove down the driveway. A chainsaw wasn’t the most comforting sound that could have greeted Will on his first visit to the Tennessee mountains, but he pressed on nonetheless.
A few hundred feet down the driveway he saw her. A woman in a sleeveless t-shirt cutting into a pine log. A pickup truck was parked behind her just off the driveway. Will figured there was room for the U-Haul to get by if he drove tight against the trees on the opposite side of the path, but just barely.
Will pulled up alongside her and rolled down the window. She didn’t seem to notice. Up ahead, the driveway forked into four smaller paths. Will had no idea which way to go.
The woman shut off the chainsaw. Her long chestnut hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail. The look suited her. “You Osmond?”
Will nodded. “Are you Christine?”
She returned his nod. “Welcome to Rook Mountain.” She set down the chainsaw and marched over. Christine looked to be in her late twenties. She moved gracefully and with purpose. Will’s heart skipped a beat as she gave him the slightest hint of a smile and held her hand up to his open window. He took the gloved hand and shook it.
She pointed to the fork in the driveway. “Your place is on the right. My husband Jake is up there now. I’m sure he’ll be glad to help you unload.” She turned and walked back to the waiting chainsaw.
Will felt like he should say something else. “Have fun.”
She looked at him, gave a half smile, and fired up the chainsaw.
Will eased the U-Haul to the left, taking it as far off the gravel as he dared. He didn’t want to knock off the side view mirror of his new landlord’s truck, but he didn’t want to get stuck, either. After a bit of finagling, Will got the U-Haul past the truck, turned onto the right-hand fork, and caught sight of his new home.
What he saw surprised him.
Christine had accurately described the cabin over the phone. She told him that it was nothing fancy, that it was old but roomy and solidly built. He liked the look of it. The large and numerous windows. The stubby chimney shyly poking out above the roof. The large porch which stretched the length of the house.
What surprised him was the man sitting on the steps leading up to the porch. He was leaning back on the stairs and looking up at the sky, surrounded by a half dozen empty beer bottles. An oversized portable cooler stood behind him. The man sat up as the moving truck approached, gave Will a casual wave, and wobbled to his feet.
“You’re from Indiana or something, right? That’s a long drive in this scrap,” Jake Hinkle said.
“Nice to meet you. Illinois, actually. But yeah, it was a long drive.”
Jake was maybe twenty-five years old, at least a few years younger than Christine. He was average height and bulky without being either fat or too muscular. He was solid, the kind of physique that comes from heavy labor rather than hours spent in the gym. His most distinctive feature was his shaggy blonde hair. If this had been a coastal town, Will would have taken him for a surfer type.
“Want a beer?” Jake asked.
Will paused for a moment, then looked at the U-Haul and considered the work that lay ahead of him.
“Truck ain’t going nowhere.” Jake smiled and nodded toward the cooler. “Help yourself.”
Will grabbed a beer and took a long satisfying drink. It tasted mighty fine.
“So, listen,” Jake said. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”
Will took another drink before answering. “About what?”
“You see a man sitting around drinking while his wife is hard at work, you might not think too highly of him. I want you to understand this is a special circumstance.” Jake gave Will a crooked smile. “I lost a bet.”
“Oh,” Will said. He took another drink and noticed the bottle was half empty.
Jake snorted and shook his head. “Dude, seriously? I tell you my wife is cutting down trees because I lost a bet and you’re not going to ask about it?”
Will shrugged. “Didn’t think
it was any of my business.”
Jake roared with laughter. “Man, you see that house over there?” He pointed to another cabin just past a thin line of trees. “Me and Christine live there. Your business and my business are bound to get tangled up from time to time. Might as well start now.”
Will smiled. “What was the bet?”
“Christine’s dad, Clark, used to own this place. He’d rent these cabins out a week at a time to vacation people. Demand was so high that he’d occasionally rent out his own place and sleep in the tool shed out back. We bought it from him when we got married. 'Course, he couldn’t help but share his thoughts on the way we run the place. He lives in the cabin on the end. He didn’t much like it when Christine and I moved in as it meant there were only two left to rent out. Then we let my brother Frank move into the third cabin. He really didn’t like that. When we decided to rent this cabin out monthly rather than weekly, he had some thoughts on that as well. Needless to say, Clark and I have some communication problems.”
“So what was the bet?”
“That brother I mentioned? Frank? Christine has a couple issues with him. We knew they’d both be gone today, so we had ourselves a little bet. We shot darts. And I lost.”
Will heard the gravel crunch and looked at the road just in time to see Christine’s truck roll by, dragging a large log behind it.
“So if you lost, why is she cutting wood while you drink?”
Jake smiled again. “That’s her fifth trip. See, we had the bright idea that it might be fun to build a little blockade across either Clark’s or Frank’s driveway. She won the bet. God, she was on fire last night.”
“So when Frank comes home tonight...”
“He’s going to find his driveway blocked with at least five logs. My guess is that it will be more like ten before the girl runs out of steam.”
Will couldn’t help but laugh. “Remind me to never piss off Christine.”
Jake held up his bottle. “Cheers to that.”
