Banner Elk Breeze

by Ed Robinson

  “Yet somehow you’re going to be the one to catch him?”

  “You won’t understand this,” I said. “But outside of Pop himself, I’m the best man for the job. I’ve been learning from him. I will find the bastard that shot him.”

  “And do what?”

  “Identify him,” I said. “Take his picture. Gather evidence, footprints and such. Feed it to the Sheriff. I live here. Who else is going to do it?”

  “I’m inclined to believe your story,” he said. “And I realize you have no sympathy for the FBI, with good cause, but this can’t come back to bite us in the ass.”

  “Covering your ass isn’t exactly a high priority for me,” I said. “I just want to catch whoever killed my friend.”

  “Brody,” he said. “If this goes south we need to know right away. Maybe you still have a sense of duty to the Bureau, enough to limit our exposure.”

  “We won’t embarrass you, David,” she said. “I think we’ve proven our capabilities.”

  He didn’t want to accept that a lowly boat bum like me had beaten his best people more than once, but he begrudgingly agreed to let me do my thing. What choice did he have? He couldn’t bring in a team to scour the mountain. Thanks to Brody, he couldn’t pin anything on me. His hands were tied due to the past foul-ups of the FBI. He was on defense. He could only hope that Brody would keep me in line and protect the reputation of his employer.

  He extended his hand and I took it. We didn’t try to break each other’s bones this time.

  “Good luck up there,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  Tension hung in the air after he left. I’d just learned that she and Bowdich were once lovers. She’d just learned that I’d had a fling with my lawyer. Both affairs were before Brody and I had ever met. They’d never been discussed, as per our earlier agreement. I figured that agreement was about to break down.

  “Do we talk about it or leave it buried?” I asked.

  “One shot deal,” she said. “You tell me about this lady lawyer and I’ll tell you about David.”

  I had a rich friend down in Florida. I first met Captain Fred in the Bahamas. I got busted with two pounds of dope and Fred arranged for my legal counsel.

  “Her name was Taylor,” I said. “She bribed a judge to get me probation. She used her connections with the Parole Board to get me the easiest community service in history.”

  “How serious was it?” she asked.

  “It got hot and heavy for a while,” I said. “Until she tried to live on the boat with me. We planned to run away to the islands together. She didn’t last a week. It went downhill from there.”

  “Tell me about her getting shot in the Bahamas,” she said. “You didn’t do it, did you?”

  “No,” I said. “That was Holly. I covered for her.”

  Holly was my previous interest before meeting Brody. We’d spent years being off and on partners and sometimes lovers. The two women had met down in Belize. That episode of my life was safely behind me. We all wished each other well.

  “So Holly shot Taylor,” she said. “Was it some kind of jilted lover thing?”

  “Taylor went off the deep end,” I explained. “She was under investigation for bribery, not just in my case. She shot some poor sap and took his money and ran. She was with Captain Fred. I tracked the two of them down, more to warn Fred than to catch Taylor. She was about to shoot me when Holly took her out. I forced Holly to run. I stayed behind and got Taylor medical help. I was able to get through to Fred before I disappeared.”

  “And the FBI suspected you,” she said. “That’s understandable, don’t you think?”

  “I knew they would suspect me,” I said. “Like I said, I was protecting Holly, who’d just saved my life.”

  “The tangled webs we weave,” she said. “You’ve lived a complicated life, for an easy-going boat bum.”

  “Says the lady whose ex-lover shows up out the blue to keep tabs on us,” I said. “The Deputy damn Director no less. They could have sent any field agent to find out what was going on.”

  “No they couldn’t,” she came back. “It had to be somebody we knew, or at least I knew. Someone with the power to pull strings. Our past is just that. Don’t let it bother you.”

  “What happened between you two?”

  “He was on the fast track,” she said. “He really was a stellar agent. I could see that he was going places within the Bureau. I wasn’t. He left me behind to pursue his goals.”

  “His loss,” I said. “I think we can stop here. No point in picking at old scabs.”

  “Agreed,” she said. “What’s done is done.”

  We quickly changed the conversation, which I was glad for. We put our heads together to work on a plan to catch Pop’s killer. She told me I needed a good camera, one with a telephoto lens. If I could get a clear photo we could present it to law enforcement. She asked about camouflage clothing. I didn’t want it. I had my old dirty stuff. I didn’t want to have to break in new clothes or get them dirtied up and left out in the weather. I’d keep the old stuff, and wear Pop’s homemade shoes.

  When would I expect them to return? It hadn’t rained in days. The plants needed water. If the guy was a grower himself, he’d know that and be back soon. On the other hand, not much time had passed since the killing occurred. He’d probably not be in a rush to climb back up there. The side of the mountain where our cabin was built faced east, towards Boone. I knew that no one was using that side to get up over the ridge. That was my turf. He had to be coming in from the west, on the Banner Elk side. I doubted he walked from town. He’d have to find a place to park a vehicle. I remembered occasionally seeing trucks pulled off the side of Pigeon Roost Road. I figured someone was fishing. What kind of truck had I seen? I couldn’t recall. I’d ignored situational awareness early after our move. It was time to turn it back on.

  Brody asked how she could help. I didn’t want her involved. She would be a liability in the woods.

  “I need you here to feed me and fix my wounds,” I told her. “Give me a warm place to sleep. Moral support.”

  “How are we going to communicate?”

  “We won’t,” I said. “I can’t be talking when I’m stalking.”

  “What if you get hurt?” she asked. “Or shot?”

  “I’ll have to drag my sorry ass downhill so you can fix me up,” I said.

  “I just don’t like it,” she said. “No backup. Help can’t get to you. Hostile territory.”

  “Our killer is counting on all that,” I said. “He thinks no one can track him or detect his movements. I’ll prove him wrong.”

  “He managed to take out your friend,” she said. “Who was supposedly a mountain man extraordinaire.”

  “He didn’t have to get in close to make a shot with a rifle,” I said. “I’ll try to figure out where he fired from. Maybe find the bullet that passed through Pop.”

  “On a mountain?” she said. “It could be a mile away.”

  “I reckon the body slowed it down some,” I said.

  “Reckon?” she said. “Now you’re talking like a hillbilly.”

  “When in Rome,” I said. “Give me a chance. I’m going to try. If I come up with nothing so be it. Nothing lost.”

  “It will be a big loss for me if you get yourself killed up there,” she said. “You keep that in mind.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, exaggerating a southern drawl.

  Before moving to North Carolina, my best pair of shoes were flip-flops. I’d lost my good hiking shoes when they took Pop’s body away. I had boots, but they were insufficient for a stealthy approach. I put on a pair of thick socks and the deer hide shoes. I gave them a test run around the yard. The fur outside was slippery. I learned that the trick was to use my feet like I wasn’t wearing shoes at all. I practiced gripping rocks as I climbed around. On the plus side, they were incredibly soft and quiet.

  A pair of khaki Dickie’s work pants and a light brown shirt lay in a heap by
the back door. They had cobwebs on them. I shook them out and changed right there in the driveway. A tan ball cap finished out my ensemble. A four-day stubble helped to darken my face. It all felt a little ridiculous. Should I rub charcoal under my eyes? Did I need random strips of burlap hanging from my clothes? Hell, maybe I could buy a ghillie suit like the snipers wore. I dismissed that train of thought. I’d been up and down this hill a dozen or more times, honing my skills. The only thing left to get was the right camera. That required a trip to Boone. I hated going down the mountain to town. The students of Appalachian State were back in town and the roads and stores were jammed packed. Brody was less affected by the mayhem, so I let her drive. I changed back into my civilian clothes before we left.

  The traditional camera store is a dying thing. We did not locate one in Boone. We had to settle for Best Buy. The clerk who offered assistance knew no more about the choices than we did. We ended up picking the Nikon D500. It didn’t have a true telephoto lens, but it would zoom to 80mm and it looked reasonably rugged. It came with a water-resistant case and a bunch of other goodies I didn’t understand. It was compact and lightweight, which was a plus.

  I wanted to play around with it once we got home, but we had no computer to download the pictures to. All I could do was look at them on the camera’s small screen. Brody explained that it had a chip that we could take to the Sheriff. He could pop it in his computer and view whatever I got. That was good enough for me.

  We ate a good meal that night and I got a good night’s sleep. In the morning, I was ready for my first foray into the unknown. I was ready to hunt a killer. Brody fixed me breakfast and fretted over my plan of attack.

  “Protect yourself first,” she admonished. “The guy’s got a rifle. He can take you out from a distance. You’ve got to adjust what you observe to compensate. He won’t be behind the tree ten feet away.”

  “Good point,” I said. “That will take some getting used to. I’m gonna go slow today. Work on long-range awareness. Might not even make it to the plants. That’s a valuable insight, Brody. Thanks.”

  “Any doubt, any question, you bail out,” she said. “You hear me?”

  “Protect myself first,” I said. “Got it.”

  I had a pistol on my hip and a camera over my shoulder. I was filthy dirty and smelled like a bear just awake from hibernation. I was wearing silly fur shoes. An image of Elmer Fudd came to mind. I told myself to be vewy, vewy quiet as I started up the mountain. Close to the creek, I moved from birch tree to birch tree, looking up and ahead. When I left the creek side, elms and hickories provided cover. Rhododendrons presented their own challenge. I liked to think of them as mountain mangroves. It made them seem more familiar to me. I kept reminding myself to look up and ahead as I crept through the underbrush. I opened all of my senses. I listened for odd sounds. I smelled the crisp mountain air. Whoever you are, I’m coming for you.

  Six

  I made better progress than expected. I’d picked my way over this ground enough times that looking up the mountain didn’t deter me. I stopped about halfway to the weed plot and made myself as still as possible. I listened to the natural sounds around me, the occasional songbird and the light breeze disturbing leaves. I took in all of the smells of the forest, moss, and mud, the creek itself, evergreens and hardwoods. I could not detect the presence of another human being on this part of the mountainside.

  I still had time to make it to the real crime scene so I pressed on. I maintained my awareness throughout the second half of the hike. There was still no indication of another person. I crouched down in some tall weeds where I could scan the area where Pop’s pot grew. There was nobody home. I snuck around the perimeter to the opposite side and turned my attention downward. There was no one on that side either. Satisfied that I was alone, I went to the spot where I’d found the body of my friend. I studied firing lanes through the trees. I mentally positioned the body to determine the likely flight of the bullet. I doubted that old Pop had taken even one step before dropping to the ground.

  There were two distinct possibilities, not far apart. Again I paused to use all of my senses. I detected nothing. The first option was two-hundred yards to the west, just where the woods thickened. There were several large rocks suitable for resting a rifle upon. I searched the place for any kind of clue. There was no spent shell casing. The weeds were trampled and there were no obvious footprints. I moved on to the second possibility. It wasn’t quite as far from the body, had the clearer of the two firing lanes, but was less concealed. A man would likely have to already be set up in position when Pop arrived, otherwise he would have been detected.

  I didn’t find footprints, but the earth was disturbed on the backside of a boulder, like the prints had been brushed away. It hadn’t rained here since the event. I knelt down and studied everything closely. I found a patch of moss on the boulder that could have shown the outline of an arm resting, pointing a rifle. A few weeds were snapped off unnaturally, something Pop wouldn’t have done. I was pretty sure this was where the shot came from. Still no shell casing, though.

  I stood up and looked towards where Pop’s body had been. I went around behind the boulder and lined up the shot with an imaginary weapon. Where would the bullet go? Unless it lodged in a tree it would have gone way out over the ridge and arced into the valley below. I found myself concentrating too much on the scene. I couldn’t afford to let my guard down. I crept back to my original vantage point and concealed myself in the brush. I refocused my senses. As my heart rate slowed, the sights, sounds, and smells amplified. At that moment, I was transformed. I understood how Pop had done it. My senses had evolved to a higher dimension. I could hear a worm crawling. I could differentiate dozens of aromas. My vision was amazingly keen. It was all very spiritual rather than physical. I’d never been a very spiritual man, but here on this mountaintop, I was becoming more than myself. I was living elevated, taking in all the signals that nature provided like never before.

  All the various stimuli bombarding my senses threatened to overwhelm me. I was acutely aware that I was still alone, but I feared I’d get lost in this new world. I managed to dial it back a few notches. I regained control while still experiencing the sensation of heightened senses. I retraced my earlier steps. The man had knelt behind a boulder and propped his weapon there before firing. He left little trace during his approach but had obviously attempted to cover up around his shooting platform. He had not walked over to his kill. He’d left the way he came, after picking up the used shell casing.

  I looked back behind me, visualizing the path of the bullet. It was possible that it wound up in a tree trunk, but a few inches, either way, made the difference. It would take too much time to search for it that day. I was running out of daylight. Brody would have a fit if I lingered long after dark. I clicked off a bunch of pictures with the camera to jog my memory later. So far I had nothing but my intuition to go on. I knew what had happened, in my mind, but it was far from provable. I called it a day and started towards home.

  Halfway down I stopped and tried to regain that enlightened state of consciousness I’d experienced earlier. I rested so that my heart rate would slow. I breathed in slow and deep, relaxing. I opened my mind to accept this new phenomenon. It came back slowly, first the sounds, then the smells. When I realized that my eyesight had sharpened dramatically, I knew I was able to harness this capability. I also knew that it would serve me well as I hunted Pop’s killer. I would need it if I wanted to survive. I thought about how foolish I’d been thinking that I was capable enough. I’d had no idea just how good Pop must have been at it, but somehow he was able to show me how it was done even after his death. I saw no ghosts, but I felt his presence. He gave me an approving smile from somewhere in the cosmos.

  I continued down the mountain, plotting my next moves. I needed to approach the site from the west next time. I wanted to look for traces of the man, try to figure out where he was starting his climb. I would check the road daily for a t
ruck parked in a conspicuous place. I’d take note of trucks in driveways that I could see from the road, look for ones that didn’t belong. I thought about the timing of this thing. Those plants needed water soon. He had to come. How was I going to be there at the right time? Should I carry a pack and plan on camping out for a few days? I doubted Brody would approve.

  The descent was a quick one. I wasn’t worried about being watched. No one was there to detect me. I was still quiet, but my improving skills let me slide through the woods at a good clip without making noise. The outside light was on at the cabin already, even though it wasn’t fully dark. I could smell dinner cooking from fifty yards away. I was hungry, but not tired. I felt energized by the day’s experience. Yes, I’d been naïve at first, but now I knew that I could do this. Besides, it wasn’t a fight to the death. All I needed to do was get the man’s picture to the Sheriff and create a plausible scenario for them to arrest him. It would come together.

  Brody was in the kitchen. She looked as lovely as the food smelled. I, on the other hand, looked like a homeless person with no care towards personal hygiene.

  “Straight to the shower, mountain man,” she demanded. “We’ll talk after.”

  I obeyed her command. I was indeed ripe. It didn’t bother me up in the hills, but inside the cabin, I knew I was just plain disgusting. I stepped outside the back door and shed my clothes, leaving them in a heap by the steps. I walked back through the cabin to the bathroom naked, embarrassed by how stinky I really was. I ran the hot water for several minutes before stepping into the shower. Our cabin had an interesting water system. There was no pump for the house. Higher up on the mountain was a well and a thousand-gallon water tank. The pump kept the tank full at all times, but the house was fed by gravity only. The water ran downhill to the cabin. The big advantage of such a system was that we’d still have hot water when the power went out. The disadvantage was the lack of decent water pressure. The shower dribbled out water. At least it was good and hot. I stood there and slowly turned. I had days worth of caked on dirt to remove. Once clean, I had a serious stubble to scrape off my face. I’d done my mountain thing, now I needed to do my Brody thing.