In the Woods

by Merry Jones

‘You ought to know by now, Jim. These people don’t like outsiders messing around their land. Doesn’t matter who it is or why they’re here – the pipeline or the gas company or the government – anybody bringing in more outsiders is only going to rile up more Hunt Club trouble. I’ll deal with that and make sure nobody gets hurt—’

  ‘You mean, nobody else.’

  Slader raised an eyebrow. ‘What I want, Jim, is for you to lie low. Stay the hell out of it. If – and I said if – local people or anyone in their organization are involved in Al’s death, we’ll figure it out and deal with them. But, meantime, there’s no sense making assumptions and stirring up trouble. All that’ll do is start a confrontation.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Angela interrupted. ‘What people?’

  ‘The Hunt Club,’ Jim said. ‘It’s a militia group.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Slader said.

  ‘Well, whatever they say they are, they’re armed and preparing for a war with the government, the gas company, the pipeline, frackers, tourists, hikers, hunters – anyone and everyone.’

  ‘Come on, Jim.’ Daniels spoke up. ‘They’re not that bad. They just want to live their lives in peace. If you don’t bother them, they won’t—’

  ‘Bull fucking shit, Daniels. Somebody bothered Al, didn’t they? And I promise you, he wasn’t bothering them.’

  ‘Wait – you think this group – that Hunt Club – hurt my Phil?’ Angela’s hand went to her throat. ‘You do, don’t you? You think they killed him the same way they killed that other man? Oh, dear God.’ She swooned.

  Harper dashed to her, helped her into a chair. Hank got her a bottle of water. The men continued arguing about the locals.

  ‘Besides, it’s not a militia,’ Daniels insisted. ‘They’re just regular citizens, prepared for any disaster. I prefer to think of them as survivalists.’

  Jim sputtered. ‘Survivalists don’t shoot people.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter what you call them.’ Slader eyed Jim. ‘It’s best not to mess with them. You hear me, Jim? Let the authorities investigate and work this out. For what it’s worth, I personally doubt that Hunt Club members had anything to do with Al’s death.’

  ‘Because?’

  Slader blinked slowly, bit his lip. ‘Because I know these people. And that’s what I think.’

  Jim pursed his lips, nostrils flaring. ‘I’ll tell you what, Captain. I’m not about to let this go and neither’s my employer. If I were you, I’d do my job and catch Al’s killer quick, before the big guns bring the wrath of God down on you.’ He paused, met Slader’s eyes. ‘Anyone needs me, I’ll be back at our – at my campsite.’ He turned and marched out of the office, banging the door behind him.

  Slader’s eyes narrowed and he folded his arms. Before he could speak, Angela started up again.

  ‘Can I just point out that nobody can help this dead guy, but my Phil might still be alive and saved? Can we please get back to looking for Phil?’

  Daniels reminded her that he had two teams and a number of volunteers out looking for him. ‘We’ve got a few more hours of daylight. I’m heading back out myself now. Want to join me?’ He looked at Hank and Harper, who looked at each other.

  ‘You up for it?’ Harper asked.

  ‘If you are.’

  ‘I’m coming, too,’ Angela insisted. She stood and joined them.

  Daniels gave them each bottles of water, excused himself to exchange a few words privately with the captain, and led the little search party back out into the woods.

  Damn damn damn damn! This shooting was bad news. Those idiots. What were they thinking?

  The sector chief paced, lit a cigarette. Finally, he used his landline to contact his number-two man who was probably out picking pumpkins for his kids and didn’t pick up. He left a message, still steaming.

  ‘Do you know what the hell is going on? Campers found one of those pipeline walkers shot this morning. Nobody said anything about shooting anybody. Now they’re going to send in state cops and industry people, maybe Feds. The woods will be crawling with who knows what kinds of badges—’

  In the middle of his sentence, Hiram picked up. ‘What was that, Chief?

  ‘Oh, you’re there. Did you hear what I said?’

  ‘I heard you say a pipeline walker got shot. Which one?’

  ‘The dark-haired one. Named Al Rogers.’

  ‘Shit. He wasn’t so bad. It’s the other one who’s the pain. You ever run into him?’

  The chief blew out a cloud of smoke. ‘What’s wrong with you, Hiram? Don’t you see what’s going to come down now? Cops. Investigators. The pipeline company’ll send an army—’

  ‘Don’t get your panties in a knot. People get shot out in the woods every now and then. What’s the big deal?’

  The chief took a drag on his cigarette. Hiram sounded way too complacent. ‘Hiram. What do you know about this?’

  ‘Nothing. This is the first I’ve heard about it.’

  ‘Seriously? A man gets shot in these woods and you know nothing about it? You expect me to believe it? You have eyes and ears every-damn-where. And when I’m not around, you’re supposed to keep a handle on these people.’

  Hiram was quiet for a breath. ‘I’m not in charge of anybody.’

  ‘Bullshit. We have a shared interest. We’ve agreed to agree on any action – any action – before implementing it. If you know something about this, Hiram—’

  ‘I don’t. I’d tell you. All I know about is the thing Josh has been doing.’

  ‘You’re shitting me.’ The sector chief sat, leaned on the desk. ‘He’s up to that again? You didn’t stop him?’

  ‘I tried to reason with him—’

  ‘But I told him – we all told him – that will backfire. He’s more likely to bring more tourists than to drive them away. Damn fool.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘When did he start up again?’

  ‘As far as I know, last weekend. He got some newfangled hi-tech legs.’

  The chief snuffed out his cigarette, turned to look out a window. The leaves glowed golden, red and orange in the afternoon sun. This land was God’s bounty, and it was his duty to protect it.

  ‘We need a meeting. Everybody. Tonight.’

  ‘Tonight? I don’t know if I can get all—’

  ‘Hiram, we got a dead guy and Josh is going rogue. We better get ourselves together. We’re about to be swarmed by cops and investigators and who knows who all, and we’ve got no plan.’

  ‘Right.’ Hiram sounded less than enthusiastic. ‘I’m on it.’

  The chief hung up and rubbed his eyes. His chest was tight, blood pressure rising, and his stomach felt like soup. Not that he was scared, though. No, he’d been preparing for decades for a confrontation with the government. He’d trained with his neighbors in everything – weaponry, marksmanship, strategy, survival techniques. They had their arsenal, and they were ready, all of them. Even so.

  He stood up, walked to the window, and watched a couple of wrens flutter by. The weather was crisp, clear. His sons were out there, hunting pheasant today. Life wasn’t bad, over all. He and the ex-wife mostly got along, and Mavis wasn’t giving him grief. His pants were a tad snug at the belt from some pounds he’d gained this last year, which was good because he tended to be skinny. Thing was, though, he wasn’t young any more. He needed reading glasses, and his sideburns were almost silver. Now that the showdown he’d been preparing for was finally coming, he’d lost a lot of his fire.

  He stared out at the colors, the bright light, the shadows, and he considered the jokes of life. One in particular was that by the time life finally let you have what you wished for, you just might not want it any more.

  But it was no use philosophizing. Thinking too much never got anybody anywhere.

  Bob climbed the rocky slope, pushing through vines and branches. Up ahead, where the ground leveled off, he saw what appeared to be an abandoned skeleton of a building. He let out a whoop. They’d b
een hiking for three hours, trying to follow the map, getting lost, reorienting themselves. And now, finally, they’d found it: the old campground.

  ‘What?’ Pete called. ‘You see something?’ He was tired, trailing behind Bob.

  ‘I think this is it.’

  Pete joined him, peered through the trees at what was left of a burned-out structure. The roof had caved in, but the frame was still recognizable.

  Bob pulled out his frayed old map. ‘This has got to be the main building. Yeah, look …’ He walked closer to the ruins, pointing to the left. ‘Those stones? See how they’re laid out in squares? Those must be what’s left of the cabins.’

  Pete looked at the stones. The sides of the squares were at most five feet wide. ‘Wouldn’t cabins be bigger?’ He scratched his hands.

  ‘Maybe not.’ Bob scanned the area. ‘Besides, when they laid the pipeline, the workers probably moved things around. They must have cleared a road for their equipment. Everything would be dug into and moved around.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Pete peered at the map. ‘Are you sure this is the right spot? Because the map shows that the old campground had a trailer lot. I don’t see a trailer lot. And the main building didn’t look as big as this place. It looks smaller, same size as the cottages.’

  ‘So? They dug up the lot when they laid the pipeline. And that map is just, like, a sketch. A plan. It shows the locations, not the exact actual structures.’ Bob pointed to a row of boxes on the map. ‘See? These things are those squares. We’re here.’

  Pete studied the map again. Saw only one other building in that area of the woods, a hunting lodge located a few miles from the old campground. And this sure didn’t look like a hunting lodge. This place was deserted, in ruins. It had to be the old campground, torn up to make way for the pipeline.

  ‘Okay.’ He referred to the map. ‘So if those are the cottages, then the pipeline must be buried over there, behind them.’ Pete took five giant steps and stopped, turned to face Bob, and raised his arms. ‘Right underneath me.’

  Bob broke into a grin. ‘YEE HA!’ He ran around, waving his arms, hooting. ‘We fuckin’ found it!’

  Pete scratched his palms, wincing.

  ‘Come on, Pete. Stop carrying on. What’s wrong with your hands?’

  ‘I think it’s poison ivy.’

  ‘No shit. Well, never mind. Show some jubilation.’ Grinning, Bob opened his backpack and pulled out a bag of weed. ‘We found the spot. This is celebration time. Where’s the paper?’

  ‘You have it.’ Pete folded the map, stuffed it into his pocket.

  ‘No, you do.’

  Pete looked in his pack, dug deep, taking out their explosives, wiring, beer, blasting caps, beef jerky, matches, walkie-talkies. He was pulling out rope and flashlights when Bob said, ‘Oops, you’re right. I got the paper.’

  They smoked for a while and feasted on beef jerky. Then, feeling mellow, they decided to set up their devices.

  ‘You should have brought more food.’ Bob wrapped explosives in wire.

  ‘Me? Why me? Were your legs broken?’ Pete messed with a walkie-talkie, took another hit on the joint. Maybe marijuana would stop his itching. He’d heard that it helped cancer patients – so why not poison ivy?

  ‘Dude. Seriously, I’m frickin’ starving.’

  ‘You just think you’re hungry because you’re fuckin’ stoned. You just smoked a pile of weed and ate about a ton of beef—’

  ‘I could eat a frickin’ antelope.’

  Pete closed up his tool kit, chuckling. ‘Who knows? When these little darlings go off, they might roast an antelope or two.’

  ‘I’m not kidding. I could go for some curly fries. Or no – wings. Christ, I could do with some wings.’

  Bob went on, listing various foods he could eat while he and Pete set up the explosives, connecting them to the blasting caps and the walkie-talkie that would act as a detonating device.

  When they were finished, Pete blew cool air on his hands. They were red and blotchy, and the itching was making him crazy.

  ‘We’re ready.’ Bob beamed.

  ‘Just a second.’ Pete went to the toolbox, took out a hammer, started pounding on one of his palms.

  Bob watched. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

  ‘Killing this itching motherfucker.’ He pounded it again, winced, cursed.

  Bob picked up his backpack, rooted around, took out a first-aid kit. Handed Pete a tube of something. ‘Use this.’

  ‘What is it? Shit. You had this all the time?’ He rubbed cream on his swollen, now bruised palms. Felt the itching fade, could almost see it wither and die.

  Bob rolled another joint, lit it, took a hit. Passed it to Pete before taking two beers out of a backpack. Opening them, he handed one to Pete, sat against the trunk of a tree, took a pull at his beer and another hit on the joint. ‘We’ve done it. We’ve really done it.’

  Pete took a seat beside him. ‘Now all we have to do is wait for the perfect moment, press a button, and cover our asses.’

  Bob chugged beer. Looked into the distance. ‘I could do with a nice thick steak.’

  Pete smirked. ‘Seriously, dude. This is our moment. No, no. I mean this is the moment right before our moment. Once we move onto the next moment, this one will be gone, completely in the past, and we’ll already have blown that thing to bits. So, right now, let me ask you this: in this last moment before our moment, if you could have anything in the world you wanted, what would it be?’

  Bob swallowed beer and turned to Pete. ‘What would I want?’

  Pete nodded.

  ‘That’s a heavy question.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You mean not just like a steak. You mean like eternal life? Or Halle Berry? A billion dollars? That sort of thing?’

  Pete closed his eyes. He felt smooth and light. As if he could lift off the ground and float.

  ‘You mean like a sailboat? Or maybe – how about I could be president of the world? Shit. That would be intense.’

  Bob went on, naming things he might want while Pete drifted, lulled by the light breeze, the chirping of insects, the rhythm of Bob’s wish list, and the smoke from the joint he occasionally lifted to his mouth. This was a moment to savor, full of anticipation. Wow, what a great word, anticipation. He’d never really appreciated it before. But it really did say it all, didn’t it? It captured the best of everything – that feeling right before the first bite of a burger. Right before sliding his dick inside a pussy. And now, right before making the phone call that would change the world, taking him to the apex of his life. At least, of his life so far. Anticipation. He was drenched in it. He almost wanted to stop time, to soak in this hot, wet moment forever.

  Ranger Daniels took a short cut, leading them along a narrow trail back to the clearing where Angela had last seen Phil.

  ‘What kind of footwear’s he got on, ma’am?’

  ‘Footwear?’ Angela frowned. ‘Hunting boots.’

  ‘What’s his size, ma’am?’

  She bit her lip, concentrating. ‘I never asked him. Ten? Ten and a half?’

  ‘Never mind. With all the leaves falling, there won’t be many clear prints around here anyhow.’

  As they walked, Harper and Hank lagged behind, occasionally calling Phil’s name. Angela didn’t call out. Occasionally, she repeated herself. ‘I don’t get it. Where could he be? I left him right at the edge of the field, hunting rabbits.’

  ‘If he’s hurt or wandering around lost, ma’am, we’ll find him. I’ve got two other teams looking.’ Daniels sounded confident.

  ‘How can you be sure? There are, what? Like four hundred thousand acres of woods around here?’

  ‘We don’t have to cover all of them—’

  ‘We should get dogs. Do you have any of those sniffing dogs?’ Angela picked at the dried mud under her fingernails. It was all over her. On her pants, in her cuticles. ‘Dogs could follow his scent.’

  ‘I don’t have dogs, ma’a
m. But I know the woods. We won’t have to search the whole state park. Just the areas where he could have gotten to.’

  ‘No, you’re right. He couldn’t have gone far. He wouldn’t. He’s not outdoorsy. Phil’s a city guy. Honestly, he’s not even a city guy. He’s more of a homebody guy, doesn’t have a lot of flair or natural instinct. Oh God, what was I thinking? I shouldn’t have brought him up here. He was a complete newbie. What if they shot him like they shot that pipeline worker?’ Angela didn’t stop talking. Kept picking at her fingernails.

  ‘We have no evidence of anything like that, ma’am.’ Daniels kept moving.

  Harper called out, ‘Phil? Phil Russo?’

  No answer. She and Hank walked side by side, peering into the forest. Harper watched the shadowy spaces between trees, listened for sounds beyond Angela’s grating voice. Heard the usual insects chattering, birds calling. Leaves rattling on branches overhead or crunching under their boots. But more than anything, even louder than Angela’s voice, she heard the bellowing silence of a lost man.

  ‘He should be right where I left him,’ Angela went on. ‘He shouldn’t have wandered off. I told him, I warned him to stay here until it was time to meet me. Why couldn’t he for once listen to me?’

  Harper’s jaw tightened. Angela didn’t seem able to take a breath without talking. She made herself tune out Angela’s voice, redirected her focus by calling out for Phil. Watching for him. Taking notice of the pigments of the autumn leaves, the light beaming through the trees. Hank’s wide shoulders. The pulsing ache in her leg. Anything that wasn’t Angela’s cloying continuous chatter.

  Finally, they reached the clearing and separated, searching the area independently. Just steps from the path, Harper stopped and backed up, took a closer look at a vine. At first glance, she’d thought it was speckled. But no. It wasn’t speckled. Splattered on its leaves were reddish-brown spots. Teardrop shaped, kind of horizontal. The color and texture of dried blood.

  ‘Hank,’ she called.

  Hank stepped over. As soon as Angela saw them talking, she rushed over, followed Hank’s gaze. ‘Oh God. Is it blood?’ She held her stomach. ‘It is, isn’t it?’ She turned in a circle. ‘Phil?’ She yelled into the trees. ‘Phil? Can you hear me? Phi-il?’