THE TRASHMAN (26 page)

I remained where I was. Soon I saw the headlights of the jeep on the other side of the road. It was climbing a cleared incline. The headlights lit a tall metal structure; I could see the large wires strung in rows at the top. He was utilizing the cleared area beneath the power lines as a road.

Now that the pisser was gone, I had plenty of time without having to worry about members of the Clan being around. I continued to use stealth. The Clan members weren’t the only dangerous ones in the world. If I was here, there was no rule that there weren’t others skulking about.

I went through the door-less hole in the wall and used the dim light of a small LED flashlight to search for one of the more powerful ones the Clansmen had. Even before I found one, the small flash gave me an inkling of what I’d see in full disclosure. The reality was worse than I expected.

When I switched on the light, it was pointed in the general direction of the card table. The table and the players had been tossed by the blast to a wall. Now the table was in pieces and the men were broken and bloody clumps of meat.

I swung the flashlight to where James and Billy were working on the ‘do-it-yourself’ grenade. The table and Billy were gone. Billy who had been sitting with his back to the wall was blown to pieces out through a gaping hole in the wall. James was blown to pieces, too, but he was scattered in hundreds of different places. On the wall where the door was, I saw a wet piece of him lose its grip and fall with a sickening thud to the floor.

I went to a wall, looking for holes buckshot could make. I found plenty. My bomb had detonated theirs. I knew the pisser was probably racing to the main headquarters of the Clan. He would report that James had blown them all to hell.

I wanted to get in a jeep and trail him, but had other business to attend to. Somewhere a group of “Defectives” was being held. I had to find them.

First, I checked the storage building. As I expected, it was full of food and water, as well as a few weapons and ammo. On a shelf, I recognized blocks of C-4 packaged in thick plastic film.

Using the flashlight, even though it made me feel like a target, I circled the woods at the edge of the compound looking for a trail. Not far from my first observation point at the front of the building, I found a well-worn path leading into the woods.

I followed the trail a couple hundred feet and came upon a cage. That is the best description of it. Thick steel pipes welded six inches apart; floor, walls and ceiling. The roof pipes were covered with sheet metal. Inside the ten feet by ten feet enclosure was a dark seething mass of people. Awakened by the explosion at the house, one of them, a male, began shouting, begging for water. His voice was joined by others, male, female, and children’s, all begging for water, food, or to be let go. As I drew closer, I could smell the odor of urine, feces, and unwashed bodies.

I stopped twenty feet shy of the cage, pointed the beam of light at the ground between us, and shouted to them.

“I need for you to be quiet! Please!”

It took a repetition of my plea before they quieted.

“In a few minutes you will all be free. Is anyone in charge?”

“I am,” a voice said, “Pastor Watts of the First Community Baptist Church. Who are you?”

I shined the flashlight at myself. “My name is Ralph. How many of you are in there?”

“There’re twenty-three of us alive. One man is dead, shot. Two more are dead from being beaten, and Sister Jean, rest her soul, had a heart attack. Please sir, we’ve been in here two days and they’ve not seen fit to feed us or give us water. Open the gate and set us free.”

The odor coming from them was overwhelming. I couldn’t believe another human could cage people like animals.

“I will, but first let’s have your promise that you recognize I’m not cut from the same cloth as the men who put you here. I want your promise that I’ll be safe from attack by you or any of your people.”

Pastor Watts said, “These are all members of my congregation. We were going to our retreat here in the mountains when these men stopped our bus. Sir, I promise you will be safe from us.”

“I’m holding you to that promise.” I went to the enclosure. The door was secured with a chain and stout padlock.

“The man in charge has the keys,” the pastor said.

It took me ten minutes of retching and searching through the bloody, scattered remains of James. I found the keys inside the pocket of a section of his jeans that still held a hunk of his thigh.

In a hurry to get on the trail of the man that had left, I raced back to the cage and freed the prisoners. I had them follow me to the clearing, turning often to light their path and to make sure none of them were getting too close to me. I was mainly fearful that one of them would equate their mistreatment to cover all white men.

At the Clan’s building, I asked for a volunteer to go inside to search for more flashlights. A young man stepped forward to accept the small LED flashlight. I warned him about the mayhem he’d see. He went inside, but came rushing back out, stopping when he was off the porch to vomit.

Another man said, “I’ll do it.” He took the flashlight from the younger man and went inside. The ex-captives were milling around, not knowing what to do. I called for Pastor Watts.

I pointed my light at the storage shed. “There’s food and water in the shed. Take care of your people. I handed him the flashlight and went to the young man who was still bent over, retching. The rest of the captives followed their pastor.

I put my hand on the man’s shoulder. “I’m sorry you had to see that.” I noticed as I spoke that a brighter light came on inside the building and knew a more powerful flashlight had been found.

“I didn’t know they were blown up so bad.”

“They got what they deserved. Besides what they’ve done to you and the ones with you, I know for a fact they murdered a young couple a few miles from here. They raped the woman first.”

The man took a deep breath and stood, wiping spittle and vomit from his face with his shirt sleeve. “Were they black?”

“No, they were white. This bunch is equal opportunity trash. Go join your friends. There’s food and water in the shed.”

I went into the house. The man searching, saw me and came to hand over another flashlight he’d found. I took it and went outside to the generator shed. I examined the generator and then turned off the breakers and restarted the generator. The first breaker I flipped on, flashed, and killed the generator. I flipped it back to off, restarted the genny and tried another breaker. The floods came on, swamping the clearing with light so bright I was momentarily blinded.

The floods revealed the condition of the captives. They were filthy, soiled with excrement, some bloody from being beaten. The clothing of the younger women was ripped and torn. A few had only panties for bottoms. Several of the men were shirtless, their shirts having been given to cover the abused women.

The pastor was passing out water and cans of peanuts. The children had been taken care of first. They were seated on the ground in a group tended by an elderly woman. There were six who were preteen and another three in their early teens. I went to the pastor.

“Pastor Watt’s, grab some water and come with me. I need to talk to you. Let someone else hand out the supplies.”

I led him onto the porch and took a seat on a folding lawn chair, motioning for him to do the same.

After he sat, he leaned toward me. “We need to make plans.”

“Yes you do,” I replied. “My plans are already made. I have to follow a man I allowed to escape. This bunch here was only an outpost for an even larger group.”

“What do you suggest we do?”

“There’s a place you can go. I want you to get these people fed and watered as fast as you can and get out of here. Follow this road south, but do it in the woods and keep an ear for vehicles on the road. If the Clansmen find you, they’ll kill you.”

“The KKK?”

“Nope, the Bradford Clan. They’re claiming this section of the Smokies… Listen. Three days walking will put you out of their territory. A little farther on, you’ll come to a walking trail with a small gatehouse and a doublewide trailer. Behind the doublewide, you’ll find a van. In the van are weapons and other supplies. I’d appreciate it if you stack my supplies on the porch of the trailer and cover them with a tarp. I’d advise not opening the trailer. The caretakers of the trail are dead and the bodies rotting. They have an SUV parked in front of the trailer. It’ll be a tight fit, but use the SUV and my van to get away.”

“And go where?”

I told him how to get to William and Carl.

“Do you believe we’ll be welcome there?”

Half joking, I said, “If you’re not, I recon I’ll have to kill them when I return.”

Pastor Watt’s thanked me and then broke down into tears. “Thirteen hundred members of my flock gathered together to suffer God’s trial. Oh Lord, please forgive me. I could not help the sick and dying. I did not give them grace. I stayed with my own, with my wife and child. I abandoned my people to tend to my own wife. These few are all that were spared.”

“I’m sorry for your people and for the loss of your loved ones. We all have a load of pain to carry.” I stood and left him to his grief.

It took another hour to help the group prepare to leave the area. They raided the house for clothing, blankets and anything else they thought they’d need for their trek.

After they left, I assessed how the Bradford Clan would view the disaster at their outpost. I was sure the one I let escape would report that James blew them up. I could only hope that they assumed one of the captives had managed to pick the lock of the cage soon after the explosion.

I went to the jeep the man hadn’t tried. It cranked and showed a full tank of gasoline. I turned on the headlamps and drove to the storage shed. I loaded the back floorboard with blocks of the C-4. I made another stop to turn off the generator and waited a few minutes for my eyes to adjust to the dark.

The hilly up-and-down trail under the high voltage wires, rutted from rain and constant use, was not made for speed. I settled into the chore of watching the trail and looking for any sign of lights indicating vehicles or a settlement.

Hours later, before dawn, the trail ended at another paved road. I saw the huge pipe crossing this road, too. I stepped from the jeep to see if I could tell which way the jeep I was following had turned. The ground was rutted and used left and right leading to the pavement. I thought a set of tracks to the right looked newer, but I wasn’t positive.

I drove onto the road and turned left. A few hundred feet down, I saw a place where I could drive into the woods and hide the jeep. I walked back to the road. The ground was hard and dry enough that I couldn’t see any tire tracks where I turned off, but I had flattened a few plants and shrubs. I straightened them as best I could and then walked back to the trail. I found a comfortable place behind a shield of brush to hunker down and wait.

Covered with my tarp, tired, I soon nodded off. Two things woke me. The sun beating down on my tarp was cooking me, and the noise of approaching vehicles assailed my ears. They were close.

I shifted to a spot where I could see the road. Moving at 30 mph or so, the vehicles came from the east. Two Toyota high-lift pickup trucks, with huge all-terrain tires, barely slowed to take the turn onto the electrical utility trail. There were two men in the cab and four armed men in the bed of each truck.

I had my direction to the main base. I waited until the roar of the truck engines faded to silence and then struck east, keeping to the woods as much as I could. The terrain in some places, because the road was bordered by a bluff on one side and steeply falling terrain on the other, forced me to use the roadbed. This two-lane highway, with its sharp curves weaving along a ridge top to save construction money, would be a motorcyclist’s dream.

Within an hour, I smelled wood smoke. Thirty minutes later, I came to an area where I could see houses. They weren’t the source of the smoke, but I had to scout the homes. None of them were occupied so I continued east. A short trek from the homes, the road reached a point where it left the ridge to descend to a large relatively flat area. There was a sign that welcomed travelers to Fontana village. A half mile farther along, at the base of the descent, was a roadblock made with large concrete sections like the ones the highway departments used to divide lanes of traffic. There was a dump truck parked to block a gap in the sections that would allow entry. Behind the barricade was a guardhouse; I could see a man with a rifle sitting in a chair in front of it. Spread out in the valley before me was the homeland of the Bradford Clan.

The large welcome sign had a map of the community painted on it, but to not be spotted by the guard, I left my exposed position and hurried to find an observation point. In the brief glimpse I had of the village, I saw enough homes and large buildings, and enough people, men, women and children, to realize the Bradford Clan could not be made up of just family members.

From inside a thicket of Mountain Laurel, I made an opening in the branches to allow a view of the community. Using a small set of folding binoculars to observe the community, I removed my pad and pencil and made notes.

My elevation above the village wasn’t more than thirty-five or forty feet, but it was sufficient to see that it was a small town and that the homes and buildings were spread out with large spaces between and around them.

In a clear area, just past a subdivision of a few houses, I saw a group of ten fuel tankers. Deeper into the village I could see other groupings of the gasoline trucks and also propane tankers. The presence of such a large amount of fuel explained the Clan’s mobility. They must’ve had crews scouring the highways for tankers. I doubt it mattered at all if the driver, assuming he was around, didn’t want to part with it. I had a feeling the Clan’s MO was to simply take what they wanted.

Near a cluster of what appeared to be stores and other types of businesses, I saw many people walking or cycling the streets and sidewalks,  but no moving motorized vehicles other than a couple of battery-powered golf carts. Bradford, if there was a Bradford, was smart enough to use his fuel where it was needed and not for frivolous driving.