Smoky Mountain Mystery 01 - Out on a Limb (28 page)

The Professor, exhausted, lay where he was until he was able to catch his breath.
Even then, he had to use the arm of the couch to pull himself upright. Once he was standing, he gingerly made his way down the three steps to the fireplace. He gave Henry a savage kick in the ribs and watched the blood pool beneath the ranger’s head.

Whittington dabbed at his face with his handkerchief and considered what to do next. He bent to retrieve Henry’s phone. He looked at the most recent incoming calls and saw the local numbers. He listened to the messages from Phoebe about Ivy,
then
pocketed the phone.

He’d seen that ramshackle
Hamilton
place. It was a decrepit diner for the enclave of
Beverly Hillbillies
who lived north of the park. He’d be able to use the Mercedes
GPS
to find it.

He went outside and opened the
drivers
door of Henry’s SUV. He removed the keys and pocketed them. Then he used the large flashlight laying in the console to bash the radio to pieces. He went around and jerked the back hatch open. He rummaged through the gear, taking bolt cutters and the case containing the hunting rifle and ammunition. He tossed the gun case into the passenger seat of his Mercedes.

He took the bolt cutters around to the side of the house where the utility lines ran in. He used them to cut the phone lines and smash the box to smithereens. Then he headed for White Oak with the intention of concluding his collaboration with Ivy Iverson.

As it turned out, it was lucky for him that she’d survived. Now he’d have a chance to fill in those frustrating gaps in his knowledge. Then he’d kill her and anybody else she might’ve talked to. From this point on, he would gleefully kill anyone who got in his way. He was sick to death of sparring with these hicks.

Phoebe stood on the front porch of
Hamilton
’s. A million shades of grey were roiling overhead. The sky looked like a film clip on
The Weather Channel
. Clouds of different shapes and sizes were churning and racing toward the mountains where they were clustering, colliding, and drastically changing the light from one moment to the next.

The wind was gusting, but not in any consistent direction, wringing tree branches in chaotic circles, like pompom girls trying to learn a new routine. The air was filled with dust and bits of leaves.

Phoebe could smell the rain coming. It was the sharp smell of earth and plants being power-washed a mile or more away. She loved storms. In anticipation of this one, she sat in the old
naugahyde
recliner and waited for it.

She could hear the sound of rain moving through the woods. It pattered against the leaves, getting closer and closer until she could feel a fine mist on her face, then suddenly it was raining so hard she could see the huge drops fall, hit the road, and bounce back up like they were made of rubber.

She looked toward the mountains but she could barely make them out. The haze, or
miasma
as the old people called it, was opaque.

Then the hail came. At first it was sleet-like raindrops that made a pecking sound, but a couple of minutes later she could see white bits of ice falling. It didn’t look large enough to dent anything, but it was big enough to make a racket.

When the wind began to shriek and howl, she got up and moved to stand with her back against the wall of the store. The gusts of wind were propelling the rain in sheets that burst and subsided like waves. Thunder boomed and echoed off the mountainsides and the cracks of lightning were interspersed with the cracks of trees breaking.

When the wind got to full speed branches would be sent flying, then whole trees. Even now it was bad enough that Phoebe half expected Dorothy’s house to land in the middle of the road.
Time to go inside.

This kind of a storm delivered a one-two punch. First the steep slopes would get saturated with rain,
then
the wind would roar through knocking the trees over. Roots in shallow wet soil simply didn’t have enough purchase to withstand sixty to ninety mile an hour winds.

It was worse at the higher elevations.

***

As Henry returned to consciousness, all he was aware of was agonizing head pain. He was lying in the floor. He remembered he’d been talking to Professor Whittington, but he was a little foggy about the rest. He struggled to a sitting position and looked around the room.

It was dark outside and no house lights were on. Then Henry remembered the fight. He marveled that the man had been mean enough to beat him in a fight and stupid enough to leave him alive. When he could stand, he hobbled slowly around the living room, then made his way to the lab area, and checked the rest of the building.

It wasn’t a big place. Soon it was obvious that Whittington was nowhere to be found. Henry thought to look into the driveway and saw the
Geländewagen
was gone and the back of his Explorer was standing open.

That was not good. He reached for his phone. It was gone, too. That was even worse. He picked up one of the house phones and it was dead. Of course it was.

He checked his watch. He’d been out for over an hour. He limped out to his SUV. The driver’s door was ajar, the key was missing, and the radio was a mangled mess. He looked into the rear cargo area. The case containing the rifle and ammunition was missing. That was extremely bad news.

But the case with the tranquilizer gun was still there. He opened it and removed the rifle. He clumsily filled three darts, put them into a protective plastic box which he tucked inside his shirt, then slung the rifle diagonally across his back.

The night vision headset was still there, too. He picked it up. Again the Professor demonstrated that he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. Some people never learn. He shouldn’t have left that. Without night vision, Henry would never have been able to attempt what he was going to do next. Whittington had a habit of causing people big problems and walking away without any repercussions to himself, but this time he’d messed with the wrong guy.

Henry walked down a rutted gravel path toward an old barn, went in and looked around with the aid of his bionic eye. He ripped away a dusty canvas tarpaulin, revealing a red dirt bike. The rangers used it for their jaunts to check on the webcam and radio repeater tower. The key was in the ignition.

He straddled the bike and kicked started it. The engine fired right up. He backed the motorcycle out of the barn and pointed it toward the woods. He prayed the kids in the Student Conservation Association who’d lived in the house during the summer had cleared the
blowdowns
on the nearby trail like they were supposed to. If they hadn’t he’d never make it.

Henry had been a backcountry ranger for more than half his
life,
otherwise he would never have tried to travel through the wilderness in a long cross country shortcut, certainly not at night, with bad weather on the way. But he knew the park very well. He knew the hiking trails, the ones on and off the books, and he knew the ancient game trails. He could navigate the area better than any man alive.

He had to make it. If he failed, people were going to die. With the aid of electronically enhanced sight, he headed for a place at the edge of the woods that was intentionally allowed to grow up with tall grass for the purpose of hiding the trailhead.

If anyone had been watching the speed at which Henry entered the tall grass, they would’ve thought they were hallucinating. Then, a split second after he whizzed into the trees, he disappeared from view.

***

Phoebe sat with Jill in the cozy sewing studio while Doc read and kept an eye on Ivy. After a particularly violent crack of thunder that made the women flinch, Doc quoted,
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed. ….

Phoebe smiled and hoped he was right.

***

To anyone else it would be the least of their worries, but what nagged at Henry during his wild ride
was knowing
that the Park Service would fire him for sure when they found out what he’d done. Riding a motorcycle on a hiking trail was strictly forbidden.

Henry didn’t want to get fired from the only job he’d ever had. He loved his job. But he couldn’t let the Professor hurt anybody else. The man had done more than enough damage already.

As soon as Henry passed through a few yards of brush, he was on an old dirt road. The weather was terrible, but it wasn’t raining here yet and the worst of the wind was blocked by the adjoining ridges and the dense forest. Even when the rain came, it would take a while for it to soak through the canopy and the
understory
to reach the forest floor.

He made good time along the road, but had to slow down when it petered out and became a hiking trail. Nobody but Henry would have been able to find their way in the dark. Luckily he had a lot of experience navigating the trails at night with mechanically enhanced vision, although he was certainly not accustomed to moving at this speed. It might’ve been fun if he hadn’t been so scared for the people at
Hamilton
’s.

***

Leon
sat in the living room of his snug cabin in front of a cheerful fire, playing banjo. A lot of people would’ve paid big money to hear the performance he was putting on, but these days he’d only play during a storm when he knew no one would be able to hear him.

He was halfway through a rousing version of
Rollin in My Sweet Baby’s Arms
when a feeling came over him that caused him to stop playing and set the banjo aside. He quieted himself inside and sat listening for a few moments. Then he leapt up from the couch and ran out into the tempest without bothering to get a jacket.

He drove as far as he could, then
got
out of his truck and raced up the mountainside on foot. His feet seemed to barely touch the ground. There was had no time to spare. As he ran, trees were splintering, nearly exploding from the force of the winds. Exhausted, he dropped to his knees where he was, in the middle of the tempest, and prayed out loud, “Jesus Christ, Lord of the Elements, please help us.” But the ferocity of the storm tore at his words and carried them away.

***

Henry slowed after passing a huge poplar with a scar from a lightning strike that
spiraled
the length of the tree, wrapping around the trunk like a vine. He knew the tree was near the turnoff to a
manway
that connected the hiking trail he was on to an old game trail. The track was called a
manway
because it was something less than a trail, but not impenetrable.

He jounced along through tall grass, low shrubs, and spindly young trees. The occasional briars were tearing at his uniform and not doing his hide any favors either. The
manway
eventually dead-ended into the game trail and he came to
a
abrupt stop.

He awkwardly walked the motorcycle around to make a ninety degree right turn onto what was basically a single rut, worn deep by thousands of sharp hoofs. He had to be very careful from here on out. His speed dropped considerably. The game trail had been used by all manner of critters before men ever came to these mountains. It was a path between a water supply and a salt lick. The first settlers had benefited from the animals’ wisdom and used it for the same purpose.

This last bit of the ride was the toughest, and Henry was genuinely worried he’d miss the final turn. In the brief snatches of sky he was able to glimpse, he noticed the clouds were reflecting no artificial glow. That meant the storm had knocked out the power in White Oak.

That made it
much
harder to find the turnoff to the store. Henry tried to take comfort in the fact that a blackout would make it harder for the Professor to find his way too. Suddenly Henry saw a flash out of the corner of his eye. It nearly startled the life out of him. He thought for a moment he’d seen somebody standing at the edge of the trail, pointing. Then he stopped and looked back over his shoulder.