“Mmm. Listen, Jack, I just put some coffee on. Would ya join me?”
I didn’t have anything to rush home to and Con was, after all, easy company. “Sure.”
While Con held the screen door open for me Winston scooted by him. “Hey, boy, come back here,” I said.
“No, no. Let him be,” Con said.
The interior of Con’s home was, to be charitable, ramshackle. It looked like he had gathered together every item he had ever owned and then went through the place blindfolded while deciding where to place it all. He pointed to a threadbare recliner that appeared to be his favorite spot and said, “Have a seat, Jack.”
I sat and looked around the room, trying not to cringe.
“Sorry about the mess,” he said. “I ain’t much at housework.”
I nodded in a way that strove to indicate I wasn’t terribly concerned about it.
“So, coffee or something stronger?”
I knew if I said I’d have whatever he was having I’d end up with another glass of that nitro combo he had brewed. “Coffee would be fine,” I said.
While he headed off to the kitchen I noticed an ashtray full of tiny butts on the end-table next to his chair that gave off the unmistakable odor of marijuana.
A minute or so later he was back with two extra large mugs of steaming java. He made another trip and returned with a chipped cup of sugar and a half pint container of half and half. He slathered cream and sugar into his mug and took a taste. Seemingly satisfied it passed his test for drinkability he sat back in the rocking chair he had chosen to occupy and turned his gaze on me. “I was just thinking,” he said.
I had finished adding cream and sugar to my own coffee and took a tentative sip; it tasted only a tad less toxic than his sour mash whiskey. I raised my eyebrows and mumbled, “Uh huh.”
“I got nothing special coming up. Why don’t I drive ya up to Lumberton in the pickup. It’d give me something to do and save you a car rental fee.”
I figured he wouldn’t have offered if he didn’t really want to do it. “If you’ll at least let me pay for your gas.”
“Deal,” he said.
15
Con’s pickup not surprisingly matched his home. Candy bar wrappers, empty pop cans, and enough sand and grit to fill a good sized pail littered the floor. But he always managed to surprise me with his thoughtfulness. When he picked me up for our trip I saw he had made up a comfortable bed for Winston in the truck bed and had a thermos of coffee for us.
We had settled into a comfortable friendship that seemed to require little from either of us. I liked that he was content with long stretches of time without conversation and I appreciated his habit of giving forthright, honest, and brief responses when called upon for an opinion.
We had been on the road for an hour when he casually asked, “Ya ready to talk about things yet?”
“Listen, Con, I appreciate that you want to help – I mean that – but the truth is I don’t know what I could possibly say that would change anything.”
“I think you’re missing the point,” Con replied. “It’s not that talking about it will change what happened. But verbalizing has a way of allowing us to find a way of living with the truth of our circumstances, no matter how bad they may be.”
“What about you? You’ve never talked about Nam.”
“I know. But I’m going to. When I’m ready.”
“And when do you know you’re ready?”
“That I don’t know,” he said. “But I think I do know why talking about it is so hard.”
“And?”
“It’s like … nobody is ever going to really understand what I went through during the war. I’m not good enough with words that I can explain it in a way that people will truly comprehend. I guess I’m afraid people will say ‘Shit, man, what’s the big deal? So you killed some gooks that needed killing. Get over it.’ But there was a lot more to it than that. A fuck of a lot more. Ya know?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think maybe I can understand that.”
“It’s different with you,” he continued. “In your case you lost people you love. I’ll grant you it’s probably the hardest thing in the world to accept but, eventually, the pain will ease. Even though you think it’s impossible now, someday you’ll wake up and the pain you’re feeling won’t be as bad. With me it’s different. It’s more like I lost myself in that fucking war. I don’t know exactly who I am anymore. All I know is, whoever I am, I’m not the same person I was.”
Whatever point Con was trying to make was lost on me. I wasn’t even sure there was a point. I knew that whatever it was he was going through I would gladly trade him for what life had served up to me. “It’s not just that I lost people I love, Con. It’s that my stupidity allowed it to happen. If I had …”
That was as far as I could go. The volcano of tears that sat near the surface of my consciousness was once again ready to erupt.
Con knew better than to push it.
We were silent for a long time after that.
It was late afternoon when we arrived in Lumberton. It took a while to get the RV released and by then it was close to suppertime. I suggested we grab some dinner.
I drove the motor home to an Italian specialty restaurant in town and Con followed in the pickup. Once we had ordered and been provided with a couple of beers Con held his glass up for a toast. I obliged and he touched the rim of his glass to mine. “Here’s to a better future,” he said.
I nodded. It would be damn hard to imagine a worse one, I thought to myself.
“You still feel the same way about things as you did the other night,” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“What you said about Henderson. What you’d do if you ever got a hold of him.”
I took a sip of my beer. Why would he think anything had changed? I ignored the question.
“You know,” Con said, “in my experience somebody on the run like that almost always returns to familiar ground. I been doing some reading up on this Henderson. If I had to make a guess I’d say there’s a pretty good chance he’s holed up in the same mountains where that cabin of his was.”
“There’s a million square miles of nothing but wilderness up there, Con. Even if you’re right, that’s a hell of a lot of country to hide in.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said, then sat thinking about it. “Don’t know whether I ever mentioned it or not but I had a pretty good rep as a tracker in Nam.”
I stared at him over the rim of my beer glass. “What are you saying, Con?”
He ran his hand through his nest of a beard while he arched his eyebrows and pursed his lips. “What the fuck you think I’m saying, amigo?”
16
It was with some trepidation that I gave serious consideration to Con’s proposal of assistance. After all, I didn’t know him very well and, if I was actually able to meet with success in my endeavors, how was I to know I could count on his silence after the fact. His reluctance to talk about his own past, however, seemed like a reasonably good indication that he was quite capable of keeping whatever might happen locked away in that inscrutable mind of his.
Eventually I decided I had very little to lose by taking Con up on his offer.
Before committing to what might be a lengthy absence from home I spent several days after our return from Lumberton at Callie’s bedside. I studied her face and hands for hours at a time, looking for the tiniest twitch that might signal a speck of deep-seated consciousness. I even tried playing a few of her favorite tunes on my acoustic guitar in the hope that something with personal meaning might break through the barrier of oblivion she was locked behind.
My efforts, although unquestionably well-meaning, earned me little more than glances of pity from the hospital staff who came and went on a regular basis.
* * *
Con, it turned out, was exceptionally well outfitted for forays into the wilderness. When we sat down to make a list of what we’d need for our expeditio
n there was very little beyond hiking boots and some waterproof gear for me, that he wasn’t able to provide. That and food, of course.
The plan was a simple one. It was not one, however, I felt had any great potential for advancing my cause. Con wanted to visit the site of Henderson’s original cabin in the off chance that he might have visited there. If he had it was Con’s hope, and mine, too, of course, that we’d be able to track him to wherever he might now be hiding. I felt the likelihood was slim to none that Henderson would have actually undertaken such a mission but Con was quietly insistent there was at least a possibility he may have. In any event, it made me feel like I was doing something and that was infinitely better than spending day after day moping around the house, becoming increasingly depressed.
I was also harboring the hope that by being somewhere else, and in the company of another human being, the nightmares that continued to plague me might begin to subside.
17
It had been a few years since I had made this trek. The last time I had done so I’d been in the company of Brad Crandall who had contacted me after I retired to help him run down some leads in his daughter’s disappearance. She had been one of Henderson’s victims although, at the time, we didn’t know it. It was the last case I had worked on while with the FBI and, partly because I had been so dissatisfied with the lack of success, had resulted in my early retirement. We had made the excursion up here after learning of Reuben Henderson’s past and what had transpired here when he was a boy. Henderson’s life of sadistic murder and torture had started in that cabin. Brutal beatings by his father that were orchestrated by his sister had turned him into the monster he had become. Profilers contended all the murders he committed over the decades were re-enactments of the one murder he truly yearned to repeat. Brad’s daughter had been missing for a long time but he was still hopeful we might find her. I knew the chances were non-existent that she remained alive but he wanted closure, one way or the other. As fate would have it, Brad was Henderson’s final victim – shot point blank in the chest with a shotgun as we had approached his cabin. And I had been headed for a similar fate, saved only by the timely arrival of the woman who would become my wife.
The hike this time was easier. I knew the way. And we were blessed with much better weather than during my previous trek which had been undertaken during almost constant rain. There was also the fact that, on this occasion, I was with an experienced wilderness camper. We had a light weight two man tent (that we shared with Winston), thermal sleeping blankets, a tiny cook stove, and enough provisions for a couple of weeks.
Late in the morning on the third day of our hike we arrived at the spot where Henderson’s cabin had once stood. All that remained of the site now were a few charred timbers.
I stood for a while, looking at the burnt remnants, then took a path that led to a clearing behind where the cabin used to be. When I had been here the first time it had been the sight of dozens of gravesites. The graves had been emptied, of course, and the forensic people had done what they could to identify the bodies. Nature had since turned the clearing into a placid little meadow, leaving no sign of the grotesque events that had once occurred here.
“Bringing back some bad memories I’m guessing,” Con said from behind me.
I didn’t feel inclined to comment on that one. “Have you had a look around?”
“Just a superficial one – haven’t seen anything interesting.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“I don’t know about you but I could use some grub for a start.”
As he spoke I watched Con surveying the clearing we were standing in. Then he began to casually walk around the area, stopping occasionally to study the ground. He stopped at the tree line. The more I watched him the more it seemed he was captivated by something.
“What’s up?” I called.
Without looking up he motioned with his hand, signaling that I should join him. When I stood beside him he pointed at the ground in front of us. “See those indentations?” he said. “Those were made by tent poles. And they were recent.”
If he hadn’t pointed them out to me I never would have noticed them, obscured as they were by long grass. But with the benefit of Con’s keen powers of observation I did, indeed, see them. “Could have been made by anybody,” I pointed out.
“Mm hmm,” he mumbled distractedly. “Wait here. I wanna walk the perimeter.” He then started at the far left of the clearing, a few yards into the trees, and proceeded to circumnavigate the area, always in view, but barely. When he had completed his walk he returned to a spot approximately half way from his starting position. Once again, he signaled me to join him. When I did he pointed down. “This area was used as a latrine,” he said.
“What do you make of it?”
“All I can say is whoever camped here was an experienced woodsman. Somebody very familiar with, and at home in, the woods.”
“Okay,” I said, not sure how this was meaningful.
“Let’s have another look at the burn site,” Con said.
When we were back among the charred timbers Con slowly groused around in the ashes, then knelt down, studying with intensity.
“Very interesting,” he finally commented.
“What do you see?”
“There was recent cooking went on here. This site was used to hide the fact.”
“Why do you suppose anyone would do that?” I asked.
“Exactly,” Con said as he stood up. “Let’s have something ta eat. Then I wanna have a good look around.”
Despite the more intense scrutiny Con later gave to the area, nothing of any consequence was revealed. But what we had already uncovered was worth some thought: someone had camped here within the previous couple of weeks but had pitched a tent in a hidden location, and then had gone to some effort to hide the fact. Whoever it was had used the charred remains of the original cabin as a cooking site, once again, it appeared, to hide the fact of his presence.
Why, we wondered, would anyone do that?
The only conclusion that made any sense to me was that it was Henderson. He wanted the fact that he had been here to remain unknown so that he could return whenever the mood struck him.
“Whoever it is,” Con reported, “he’s been damned methodical about covering his tracks. I don’t see anybody doing this unless they’re on the run.”
“No hope of tracking him from here?” I asked.
Con ruminated for awhile before responding. “Not very likely,” he finally said. “There’s been a fair bit a rain up here in the past few days. Makes it harder. And this guy definitely don’t wanna be tailed. Dogs might be able ta track him. That’d be the best hope.”
I looked at Winston. “Too bad he’s not a tracker.”
Con smiled wistfully. “He’s got the nose for it, just not the training to use it I’m afraid.”
“I guess we might as well head back tomorrow then,” I said.
Con nodded in agreement. “Don’t think there’s anything more we’re gonna learn here,” he said quietly. He seemed disappointed he had not been able to decipher more meaningful information from the site.
As we retraced our way back down the mountain Con asked: “You gonna tell the Feds what we found?”
“No,” I answered.
“You still thinking you wanna deal with this guy yourself?”
“Yeah,” I answered. In fact this trip had magnified my desire for vengeance. I could almost smell Henderson’s foul presence in the air. Although Con had steered clear of attaching an identity to the visitor we had discovered I harbored no doubts at all. I knew it was him.
“You mind telling me exactly what it is you’re gonna do if you get your hands on him.”
“I’m not sure I should be telling you this, Con. It makes you an accessory after the fact you know.”
“You don’t have to worry about that, Jack. I’m cool with it.”
I had no reason to doubt the veracity of his statement. “I’m go
ing to kill him,” I said. “And he’s going to die as hard as I can make it.”
Con looked a little sad at my intensity and determination. “I hope it ends up being what you really want,” he said.
“You think I’m too personally involved – I should just leave it to the law.”
“Not for me to say,” he responded.
We spent the next couple of hours dealing with some rugged terrain that required all of our attention. Jagged rocks with deep crevices below made the descent dangerous. When we stopped to rest I handed Con a tin of water from my canteen. “You know quite a bit about me and my plans. But you’ve still never talked about Nam.”
He looked at me like he was assessing my worthiness. “I will, man,” he said. “I’m just not quite ready yet.”
We fell into our usual quiet mode of companionship. Two days later we were home.
* * *
I called the hospital the moment I walked into the house. I asked the nurse who answered if there had been any change in Callie’s condition.
“I’ve just come on duty and I’ve been off for a few days,” she said. “Let me check.”
I was put on hold for a lot longer than I thought it should take to check on such a routine matter. I started to worry that something dire had happened. When the nurse finally got back to me she was a little winded. “Mr. Parmenter,” she said, “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting but I wanted to get confirmation before telling you. Your wife is awake. She’s awake!”
18
Before I could see her the hospital insisted on a little chat with the attending physician. I was directed to a Doctor Salouf, a handsome man with salt and pepper hair, immaculate taste in clothing, and very precise English. He reminded me a little of the actor, Omar Sharif. “She came out of the coma two days ago,” Salouf told me when we met in his office. “She has remained awake for very short periods of time since then. This is quite normal. Her motor functions appear in tact. But she has a long road to recovery ahead of her.”
A Shadow Fell Page 5
