Dangerous Undertaking

by Mark de Castrique

  “Okay, I’ll let you rest up one more night, but I’m afraid tomorrow your insurance company throws you out on the street.” She winked. “Maybe I’ll leave my condo door unlocked.”

  Chapter 3

  Standing in my kitchen, I watched the pure spring water turn the color of dark molasses as it flowed out the coffee filter and splattered against the glass bottom of the Pyrex pot. Steam swirled off the trickling stream and carried the invigorating aroma of freshly ground beans. I took a deep breath and stretched, one hand nearly touching the rough hewn rafters overhead, the other wriggling helplessly against my stomach because that arm was securely taped to my body.

  I filled a mug of coffee and took it out on the back deck of the cabin where I could watch the sunrise boil the mist out of the valley below. The morning light seemed touchable, a golden shroud resurrecting life with its soft glow. A pair of gray squirrels chased each other through the branches of a nearby hickory tree, their chatter blending in with the caws of unseen crows who sounded hell-bent on driving some intruder from their territory. I felt just as possessive of my mountain retreat. Growing up, I had taken these ancient hills for granted. It’s when you lose something that it becomes more precious. A part of me had always remained here. Even when I rejected my father’s funeral business and moved away, I couldn’t reject the Appalachian heritage fused to my soul.

  I had purchased the cabin and the five-acre tract of land from a psychiatrist in Charleston, S.C., whose own health kept him from making use of what he had planned to be his summer home. Logs had been culled from at least four original cabins scattered across western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. Their century-plus heritage created a rustic atmosphere that I found rejuvenating after a day of toil at the funeral home. To think that a hundred and fifty years ago a living, breathing man felled the trees and hewed the logs that now gave me shelter put my problems in perspective. These reassembled walls with modern mortar chinked between the timbers enclosed conveniences my woodsmen forefathers could never have imagined.

  As I sat in the cool, gentle breeze, I thought about Dallas Willard’s final words to me—“I’ll save the land.” So far, nothing had come to light. A week had passed since the slaughter in the cemetery. Dallas had not been captured, and the reasons for his murderous rampage were no clearer than when I lay bleeding under the shattered gravestone. Speculation grew that he might have committed suicide, except no one had seen his truck and a truck is harder to overlook than a dead body.

  It was nearly nine when I went back inside for the last cup in the pot. I had just finished refilling the filter with fresh grounds, no easy task with one hand coming out of your belly button, when I heard footsteps on the gravel outside. My first thought was of Dallas Willard and the sound he made walking across the gravel to his grandmother’s casket. With my heart in my throat, I turned to the open front door as the footsteps trod heavily across the porch. Sheriff Tommy Lee Wadkins’ familiar face peered through the screen, his one good eye scanning the room. He was in full uniform with the holstered .38 Smith & Wesson revolver prominent on his hip and a smile forced across his lips.

  “Good morning, Barry. Sorry to drop in unannounced. How you feeling?”

  “I’m okay,” I said, hoping I didn’t look petrified. “Though I itch like crazy under this tape.”

  “Anybody else here?” he asked in a whisper.

  “Just spit it out. You mean is Susan shacked up with me?”

  At least my question drew a laugh. “Hey,” said Tommy Lee with a shrug, “you know I turn a blind eye to you and Susan cavorting in sin.”

  “She had hospital rounds, and for your information, she does not cavort. I just have an occasional night-time medical appointment. I am injured you know.”

  “If you’ve found a doctor who still makes house calls, then more power to you. So, you’re doing okay?”

  “Yes and no. Yes, I’m doing okay because I’m healing like I’m supposed to and Uncle Wayne told me not to worry about the funeral home. No, because I’m going nuts cooped up here while Dallas is out there somewhere. What’s happening, Tommy Lee?”

  “Well, the department is too small to keep working the hours we’ve been putting in. Yesterday, I decided to return to normal schedules with Dallas being a top priority yet not consuming all our resources. At least, that was yesterday’s plan.”

  “Something changed?”

  “Of course. Always happens when you set your mind in one direction. You get it yanked in another. Dallas Willard’s truck showed up.”

  “Where?”

  “Dirt road about five miles from here. Hikers found it and must have remembered it from the description on the news. My deputy Reece Hutchins got their cell call this morning.”

  “Any sign of Dallas?”

  “That’s what I’m going to see. Reece is at the scene. Thought maybe you’d like to ride along, if you don’t mind missing Oprah.”

  “Don’t worry,” I joked. “I set the VCR first thing every morning. So, how come y’all missed the truck?”

  “That’s the interesting part. We’d already checked and re-checked that road. As recently as yesterday afternoon. Seems like our boy Dallas went for a little drive last night.”

  I wedged my knee against the dashboard as the patrol car took another sharp jolt from an exposed boulder. The dull ache in my shoulder was beginning to sharpen.

  “Dirt road?” I grumbled. “This ain’t much more than a two-rut footpath.”

  “Shouldn’t be much farther. Dead ends at the railroad bed. That’s how the hikers found the truck. They were walking the tracks.”

  Another rough and tumble quarter mile passed, then the road curved and we emerged from the forest shadows into the brighter light of a clearing. In the sunshine stood Dallas’ rusted red pickup. Beside it was parked another patrol car. Deputy Hutchins stood beside a young man and woman who wore small backpacks and looked rather bewildered. Their fall foliage hike had turned into quite a different outing.

  We got out and Reece introduced us to Shane and Liz Colbert. They had started walking the rails from a more accessible crossing a couple miles to the south.

  “Glad you folks recognized the truck and phoned us,” said Tommy Lee.

  “We heard the description on the TV, and we didn’t see anybody around,” said Shane Colbert. He looked at his wife sheepishly. “We kinda hid in the bushes in case that crazy man came back.”

  His young wife nodded in agreement and reached out to take his hand.

  “You were good to stay. And you were smart to be cautious,” said Tommy Lee. He turned to Reece. “What have we got?”

  His deputy shook his head. “I walked the tracks a hundred yards in each direction, Sheriff. There ain’t no sign of him. It’s like he vanished into thin air again.”

  “I work for a god-damned power company and have no electricity. Otherwise I could offer you some coffee.”

  The man who introduced himself as Fred Pryor stood outside the door of the construction trailer and made the apology.

  “Who backed into it?” asked Tommy Lee.

  “I don’t know. Happened overnight. I discovered it this morning when I arrived. Just one more thing to deal with.” He glared at the nearby utility pole lying askew with its black snaking cable dangling in the dust. Then he looked at my hand dangling from the front of my shirt.

  “You were shot up at the Willard funeral, weren’t you? Saw it on the news. Damndest thing I’ve ever heard of.”

  I studied him more closely. Fred Pryor didn’t look like a power company senior executive. He wore a green wind-breaker with an “R P & E” insignia, jeans, and black cowboy boots.

  “What the hell got into that boy?” he asked.

  “We don’t know,” said Tommy Lee. “Still looking for him. Something about their land. Borders this project, doesn’t it? You had any dealings with the family?”

  Pryor’s face flushed. I didn’t know whether he was insulted or embarrassed that Tommy Lee th
ought he might associate with the Willards. “Not me. Our real estate division might have talked to them. Their property is part of the watershed, and it could be affected should we decide to raise the lake level.”

  I looked at Tommy Lee and saw his eye squint. Fred Pryor had gotten his attention.

  Tommy Lee and I had driven to the construction project when a search around Dallas’ truck proved fruitless. The site was within a few miles of the main rail line and would be a logical destination if Dallas were on the run. I looked beyond our powerless host and down the bulldozed valley to the mammoth wall of gravel and stone rising up at the narrow point between the steep ridges.

  Just yesterday, I had read an article in the newspaper about the Broad Creek excavation. The first phase of the hydro-electric project had progressed on schedule and under budget. Soon Broad Creek would be dammed, and as the new lake began to form, Ridgemont Power and Electric would focus on the construction of the facilities, turbines, generators, and network of transmission lines necessary to convert nature’s aquatic energy into electricity for the power-hungry consumer.

  The article announced Senior Executive Vice President Fred Pryor was personally overseeing the project. It was a challenge that skipped all the political headaches of a nuclear facility, but there were still the environmentalists and EPA inspectors to deal with. “Keeping the project on time and on budget is the company’s top priority because Broad Creek is good for the public and good for the shareholders.” So said Fred Pryor in the newspaper.

  “Ridgemont Power and Electric was buying the land?” Tommy Lee asked.

  “Not that I know of. Not my area. I think I saw a memo at the home office that the family didn’t want to discuss it while the grandmother was alive. That’s understandable. Ol’ timers get so attached to their memories.”

  Except Martha Willard didn’t have any memories. Not at the end. But Dallas had so strong an attachment that he murdered his brother and sister. Was that the reason Ridgemont Power and Electric had only gotten as far as inquiries? Had Dallas refused to sell?

  “Any leads on where Willard might be?” Pryor asked, changing the subject. “You think he came on our property?”

  “We don’t know that,” said Tommy Lee. “It’s just that we found his truck on an old logging road a few miles away. It dead-ends next to the main rail line. You’ve got a spur running in here. We thought he might have taken it.”

  The engine whistle broke through the sheriff’s comments. We looked up the valley to the track running along the water. The power company’s own yard engine rolled along hauling out several carloads of debris to the truck loading zone at the main highway. From there it would bring back more gravel or other construction supplies directly to the dam site.

  “That’s the old Pisgah Paper Mill’s abandoned spur,” said Pryor. “Activating it was my idea. It’s proven to be a real asset for transporting materials in and out of the valley. We never go all the way out to the main line, and we chain a gate across the track each night. I’ll alert the crew to keep their eyes open. Good luck, Sheriff. Nice to have met you, Mr. Clayton. Hope you’re on the mend.” Tommy Lee and I had been dismissed.

  As we walked back to the patrol car, Tommy Lee said, “I don’t like him.”

  “Pryor? Why not?”

  “See that blue Mercury parked by the trailer?”

  I turned around and stared at the car, one of several parked by the edge of the mobile office. When I noticed the “Cain for Sheriff” bumper stickers plastered all over the rear, I thought I understood why Tommy Lee disliked the man. Cain was challenging him in next month’s election. “Maybe it’s one of his employees,” I said.

  “No, it’s not,” said Tommy Lee. “And it’s not Pryor’s either. That’s my esteemed opponent’s car. Bob Cain himself. He does security consulting. Explains why Fred Pryor hustled outside to meet us.” Tommy Lee smiled. “The son of a bitch is aiding and abetting the enemy.”

  “What now?” I asked. “We don’t even know which direction Dallas may have headed.”

  The sheriff leaned in the open car door and yanked the mike from its cradle. “I’ll have the deputies organize search teams. We should walk the tracks.”

  I looked up at the hills surrounding the excavated valley. Dallas Willard was out there somewhere, mentally unstable, exposed to the elements and dangerous. He had reached out to me for help by phone, and then tried to kill me with his gun. I couldn’t stand the idea of being out of the action. A part of me still was and always would be a law officer.

  “Count me in,” I told Tommy Lee.

  He looked at my useless arm.

  “Hey. There is nothing wrong with my legs.”

  He smiled. “No, I guess not. Too bad I can’t say the same thing about your head.”

  Chapter 4

  The next day was a cool and breezy Saturday. Reverend Lester Pace and I were hiking along a five-mile rail spur that ran to an abandoned quarry. Friday afternoon’s search had netted no sign of Dallas in the immediate area. The truck yielded no clues, and there were no missing person or stolen vehicle reports to indicate Dallas had hijacked someone on departing the scene. Tommy Lee had checked with the Norfolk-Southern and the CSX rail lines. Neither reported trouble with any of their freights running along that stretch. It was as if, as Deputy Hutchins had said, Dallas had vanished into thin air. The search was being conducted regardless, and Tommy Lee had coordinated groups of officers from other counties with his own team, pairing the searchers so no one worked alone or without someone familiar with the area. A few civilian volunteers were included who knew the coves and hollows, but each was instructed to adhere to any orders or commands issued by the accompanying law officer. Tommy Lee’s goal was to comb the rail lines within a thirty-mile radius of Dallas’ truck.

  Pace and I were the exceptions. Tommy Lee had reluctantly given in to my request to be a part of the search because he respected the training I had received on the Charlotte force. He teamed me with Reverend Pace because Pace knew the area as well as anyone, and he too wouldn’t take no for an answer. We were given a dead-end stretch of track and told to stay on it. Tommy Lee insisted we be armed for our own protection. I carried my five-shot .38 Smith & Wesson Special high on my hip. Tommy Lee also insisted that if we saw any sign that Dallas might be or had been in the vicinity, we were to summon up the proper authorities to take further action.

  Of all the preachers I dealt with in the funeral business, Pace was my favorite. He had been a Methodist circuit-rider for over forty years. Time might have lessened his step but not his stamina. He carried a twisted rhododendron trunk as a walking stick, which he brandished like a drum major marshaling the band. Although the temperature couldn’t have been above forty-five, I worked up a sweat matching stride with him. As we walked along the rusted steel rails, the preacher searched the right side of the gravel bed and I took the left.

  “Haven’t seen your dad in about a month, Barry. How’s he doing?” Pace asked the question after we’d covered a couple miles and thoroughly talked out the shooting at Crab Apple Valley Baptist Church and the possible reasons for Dallas Willard’s actions. It was not lost on Pace that the missing man was mentally disturbed and needed compassion along with capture. Pace’s compassion was genuine; so was the .32 Colt tucked in his belt.

  “Dad is more frightened,” I said. “Stays upstairs most of the time. A few steps out in the hall and he forgets where he is going. Forgets where he is. And there are times he looks at me and can’t quite place my face.”

  The old preacher shook his head. “Alzheimer’s is a hell of a thing. Hardest on the ones closest. God give you strength.”

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want God’s strength. I wanted Him to take this curse off my father, the gentlest man who ever lived. Pace read my thoughts.

  “Your father is quite courageous. You know that?”

  “Yes,” I replied tersely.

  “A few years ago, he told me he had only one fear. That fe
ar wasn’t for himself. He knows his death will come through a painless oblivion. His fear is for you.”

  “Me?” I stammered before I could stop myself.

  “He’s afraid you will become bitter. Bitter that your love for him and your mother disrupted your own life. Brought you back to the small town and the job you had no interest in having. He has accepted you wanted more than Gainesboro could give and that he would not pass the funeral business on to you like your grandfather had handed it to him. But then, it happened.” Pace took a deep breath and seemed to stare back five years to that dreadful day when the whole town realized something was wrong with my father.

  Mother had called in tears. Dad had been driving the limousine behind the hearse en route to Good Shepherd Cemetery when, to the shock of the grieving family, he pulled out of the procession and passed both the hearse and Tommy Lee’s escorting deputy. Dad had forgotten where he was and what he was doing. A host of doctors and tests yielded a diagnosis that was more of a slow death sentence: Alzheimer’s at age fifty-five, an age struck by fewer than three percent of the cases and a statistic of brutal consequences. For three years, he and Mom struggled to keep the business going while seeking someone to take it over. Uncle Wayne, Mom’s brother and a man older than my father, had neither the ambition nor the finances to buy it. No other individual came forward with an offer, and none of the big chains were interested. The burden fell to me.

  Pace spoke again. “You have my respect, Barry, for what you did. But, if it turns you against yourself and against your God, then you should make every effort to sell and go back to the life that made you happy.”

  “What life,” I said. “My wife wouldn’t follow me here. So much for ‘for better or for worse.’ What do I have to look forward to? Going back to working nights on the Charlotte police force? Re-enrolling at the university in a foolish quest for a master’s? Chasing some half-baked notion of working for the FBI? No one should feel sorry for me or worry about me, Preacher. I’m not the one whose personality is being erased each day. I’m not the one whose body will be a living shell of the man who won’t remember being husband or father.” I felt the words choke me up, and I stopped walking and looked away.