In The Forest Of Harm

by Sallie Bissell

  “Now maybe I’ll make you wet your pants again.”

  He jerked her back onto the porch and around to the side of the house, where several nailed-together boards lay on the ground beneath the window. Clutching her tether, he lifted the boards up, uncovering a pit about two yards wide. He grinned and pulled her toward the hole. “Go ahead, Trudy. Call me a wixer now!”

  Trembling, she peered down. The pit at her feet was deep, with black earthen walls. At its bottom a writhing knot of rattlesnakes coiled in on each other like the entrails of some beast. For an instant, she feared she’d faint.

  “Mostly I sell these to Bible-thumpers who are too busy tattling to Jesus to do their own snake-catching,” Brank informed her. “But I’ve also found that if I uncover this every night, nobody ever climbs in my window.” He snickered.

  “But the thing you need to be aware of”—Brank picked up another long piece of cane and jabbed down into the pit—“is that if I ever again hear the slightest tinkle of laughter coming from your mouth, I want you to know that this pit’s about four feet taller than you are.”

  She stared at him, then she looked down into the shadowy pit. End it now, Alexandra, the voice in her head urged. Just jump in and let them have at you.

  She took a step forward. It’ll hurt like hell, but it’ll be over fast. He’ll never be able to put his hands on you again.

  She was at the very edge of the pit when she felt the cord bite into her neck.

  “Not yet, Trude,” Brank warned. “Our fun’s just about to start.”

  “You want to bet?” Alex asked, tensing against his rope as she gave him the darkest of smiles.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The big Huey helicopter rose like an oversized wasp from the flat coastal plain of South Carolina. It stirred up a maelstrom of dry orange dust, causing the small herd of Holstein cattle grazing in the field below to flee at a stiff gallop as the powerful rotor whopped low over their heads. The two-man crew chuckled at the panicked cows, then set a west-northwest course toward Tennessee.

  The copilot, a rangy blond man originally from Indiana, shook his head as he checked the altimeter. “Can’t believe we’re crossing the Appalachian Mountains for fifty pounds of barbecue. Don’t they make the stuff down here?”

  The pilot slipped on his sunglasses. “Not to suit General Claiborne. He’s a Tennessee boy. Folks from Tennessee figure they’re the only people on the planet who can cook pig.”

  “Damn, it’s just food. In one hole and out another.”

  “You ever had Angeline’s Barbecue?”

  “I’ve never even been to Tennessee.”

  “Well, then.” The pilot looked over and chuckled as he pointed the chopper towards the western mountains. “You’re in for a real experience.”

  In the Nantahala forest below, Harold Hobart scowled up at the sky. “What the hell is that?”

  The sudden top-limb breeze and heavy whump-whump of a rotor had made the boar, which Harold had been tracking for the better part of three hours, turn. The pig seemed to grin at Harold for a heartbeat, then he pivoted and scampered off into an impenetrable thicket of fox grape and rhododendron. Harold knew at once that he’d lost him. The boar could shimmy through brush like that and not quiver a leaf. A whole day’s hunting was over, and he hadn’t even nocked an arrow.

  “Beats me.” Jonathan Walkingstick peered up into a small patch of brilliant sky between the thick trees. The throaty hum of the engine indicated a big machine—not the little skimmers the North Carolina dope patrols used, or even the larger birds from Tennessee. This sounded like one of the CH-47s he’d served on in the Gulf. He listened for others, thinking perhaps the 82nd was on maneuvers, but no more followed. Jonathan shook his head as the low thump dopplered away.

  “Are y’all in some kind of flight path here?” Harold Hobart asked, his hair curling in angry red wisps beneath his hunting cap. Brent, Harold’s sixteen-year-old son and heir apparent, looked pointedly at his watch and sighed.

  Jonathan shook his head. “Most aircraft avoid this part of the Appalachians. The wind’s shifty and the weather can change fast.”

  “Well, if it hadn’t been for that damn ’copter I’d have had that boar,” Harold carped on.

  “Dad, can we go back now?” Brent swung his bow like a baseball bat and drilled an imaginary line drive into the forest. He shot a dark look at Jonathan. “This trail sucks.”

  “May as well.” Harold wiped the sweat from his forehead. “We’re done for the day.” He turned and began marching back up the trail they’d just crept down. Brent plugged in a set of ear buds and, with a smirk at Jonathan, lumbered through the forest behind his father, his head bobbing to music only he could hear.

  Jonathan was glad this job had been cut short. The Hobarts had called from Greenville, South Carolina, saying they wanted boar, but he realized twenty minutes out that as hunters and bowmen, father and son were not up to the challenge. Jonathan had flushed that particular boar on purpose. He’d chased the animal for the past three years himself, and he knew the little guy was fast enough to give the Hobarts a good chase, and smart enough not to get shot. Setting them up like that was probably not the most sporting thing to do, but what the hell. The Hobarts got to feel like real bow hunters, and the boar was no worse for the wear. Both parties would live to prey another day.

  Lena Owle stood on the porch of Little Jump Off, a pink gingham apron tied around her waist. She smiled as Jonathan thumped the top of the Hobarts’ gleaming black Cadillac with the flat of his hand and headed them back home.

  “Good trip?” Lena called as the big car purred out of sight.

  “Terrific,” Jonathan replied. “Hobart can’t shoot and his kid can’t even pick his nose.” He frowned up at Lena, who stood holding her big French butcher’s knife. “Did you hear a chopper fly over about three hours ago?”

  She shook her head. “Been too busy cooking. Sunday dinner, remember?”

  Jonathan looked blank.

  “Cassoulet, Jonathan. French country stew. We planned it last weekend.” She folded her arms under her ample bosom. “I bought two bottles of wine and fresh raspberries for dessert.”

  “Oh, right.” He nodded vigorously, trying to look enthusiastic. Lena was nice to come over and cook. Nicer still to linger and make love to him afterwards, but beyond that, she made him uncomfortable. She always wanted to stay, sometimes for days at a time, rearranging his books, straightening his closet, once even lining up his spices in alphabetical order. He liked her, but she needed things nailed down, defined. He thrived on the vagaries of life.

  “You forgot, didn’t you?” Triumph tinged her voice, as if she’d caught him in a lie.

  He faked a smile. “No. Cassoulet. Lena. Sunday night. I’m sure I jotted it down in my day-planner.”

  “You’re such a teaser.” She laughed and bustled back into his kitchen.

  He followed her into the store, wondering what forest emergency might have called in a chopper that big. A lost hiker? A heart attack victim at the bottom of a cliff? The image of Mary and her friends flashed across his mind. They were just going to Atagahi, but that was a stiff hike for three city women. Maybe he ought to check on them.

  Don’t be a jerk, he scolded himself as Lena clattered a pan upstairs. Mary’s probably already back at her desk in Atlanta, nursing shinsplints and poison ivy. He walked over to the cooler and opened a Coke. Still . . . It was foolish, but maybe if Lena got involved in a TV show later he would walk to the trailhead, just to make sure that red BMW was gone.

  Mitchell Whitman was lying on his back with his eyes closed as the helicopter approached. Though he lay on a high mountain bald in Appalachia, Mitch was really drifting in the aquamarine waters of Rio Blanco. A sultry breeze carried the smell of brine and shrimp up from the river’s estuary and the laughter of the fisherwomen fell like soft petals around him. His mouth filled with the sweet taste of sugarcane, and he felt like someone new. Someone who would not have a simpering broth
er or a sot for a mother, or a father who roared like a dragon. To him they suddenly seemed like people you read about in the paper: damaged people you feel pity for, grateful they did not belong to you. Then the hum of the helicopter roared through his dream, and suddenly he was back on the sixth floor of the Deckard County Courthouse.

  “Mr. Whitman,” Mary Crow said in the now-hushed court. “In the last very long hour, we’ve gone to great lengths to establish that you knew Sandra Manning, that you had a relationship with Sandra, that you might have even been willing to include your brother in your moments with Sandra. But you insist that you do not have any idea why your brother might have wanted to kill her.”Mary Crow paced in front of the jury and scratched her head. “It’s funny how you can know so much, and yet so little, isn’t it?”

  He sat there, hoping this might be the end. Mary Crow had pried up and exposed every nasty, humiliating little corner of his life, but so far she hadn’t been able to come up with anything he could be indicted for. As juicy an entertainment as his testimony had provided, Cal was still the only Whitman sitting in the defendant’s chair.

  “I just have one more question.” She turned and faced him, her eyes suddenly sharp as a hawk’s.“Why did Sandra Manning call your apartment approximately three hours before the police found her dead?”

  He took a deep breath. He could hear the sweat oozing from his forehead, feel his heart thudding like an executioner’s drum. He turned his eyes on Mary Crow.

  “I don’t know,” he lied in as sincere a voice as he could muster.

  “I don’t know, either.” Billy Swimmer squinted up into the sun as the helicopter thumped above their heads. He and Homer sat opposite Mitch, eating cornbread and watching two male mockingbirds squabble over a tree limb heavy with arrowood berries.

  “Huh?” said Mitch, rushing back so fast from the Deckard County courtroom that he felt he was riding a roller coaster.

  “You said I don’t know. I agreed with you. Lost hikers and dope growers are what they’re after most of the time.”

  “Oh.” Mitch blinked. “You mean the helicopter.”

  “Right.” Billy gave Mitch a curious look as he fed Homer the last piece of cornbread. Then his expression grew alarmed. “Say, you don’t reckon somebody else from your work might be looking for Mary, do you?”

  Mitch’s face paled. He stared up at the sky, his brows knotted in a frown. “I don’t think so. If they planned to send out a helicopter, they didn’t tell me.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t worry about it none,” Billy reassured him. “These trees are too thick for choppers to find most people. Anyway, they’re going the opposite direction from Atagahi.” He winked at Mitch. “You’ll probably be the hero of the day, after all.”

  “I sure hope so,” replied Mitch, rubbing the stubble that was beginning to grizzle his chin. “I’d hate to have come all the way up here after Mary and have someone beat me to her.”

  Mary Crow was squatting behind a bush when she heard the oncoming whump of the helicopter. The various waters she and Joan had consumed were carving new paths through both of them, requiring them to stop often and defecate behind whatever tree or bush was handy. Sometimes they had enough warning to scoop out a cat hole with sticks and the palette knife; other times their bowels would give way and it was all they could do to drop and squat, trembling in the grip of a microbic demon that froze their legs and seared their foreheads at the same time.

  At first she thought the sound over her head was thunder, then she recognized the growl of an engine. Hastily, she pulled up her underpants and ran to a small break in the forest.

  She shielded her eyes and searched the sky. Far away in the southeast, a gray dot flew toward her.

  “Hey!” she yelled, even though she knew they couldn’t hear her. “Over here!” The copter came closer. She jumped up and down, waving her arms, desperately looking around the clearing. There were no logs she could arrange in an X, and she had no means for a quick fire. Surely, there must be something. She ran back up to the spot where she’d been squatting. The little palette knife lay there, half-hidden in the tall grass. She grabbed it and wiped the blade on her shirt as she ran back to the clearing. If she could just get the angle of the sun right, maybe she could flash the blade and attract the helicopter’s attention.

  “Over here!” she yelled again. The chopper dipped closer, but still too far to the north. She raised the palette knife over her head and tried to catch the sun. She couldn’t tell if the angle was correct, but the thing did seem to make some sort of glimmer if she held it just so and wiggled it gently.

  “Over here!” she hollered, the helicopter whirring closer still. If she squinted she could read letters on its side—SCNG-107C. Frantically, she flashed the knife. The big helicopter seemed to hesitate, hovering like a massive dragonfly over a stream. She yelled again, louder, expecting to see the thing circle and land, but the helicopter began to churn away.

  “Stop!” she screamed, throwing the palette knife to the ground and stripping off her sweatshirt. She waved it over her head like some crazed person with a semaphore flag.

  “We’re here! We’re here!” She careened in a wide circle, making as much noise and movement as she could, but the helicopter flew on. The SCNG-107C on its side grew smaller, the roar of the engine faded. If it had been searching for them, then it had missed them by less than a hundred yards.

  “We’re here!” Mary called again, watching as the aircraft diminished into a tiny speck in the sky.

  “We’re here!” she called one final time, her voice dying as she stood sadly in the middle of the clearing, once again alone.

  Joan huddled above the logging road, in the exact spot in which Mary had left her twenty minutes ago. Her eyes were closed and she was humming to herself, waving one hand as if she were conducting an orchestra. Her nose had darkened from red to deep purple, and her blistered feet were obscenely swollen. She jumped as Mary crashed through the bushes.

  “Did you see Barefoot?” Already Joan was halfway to her feet, ready to run.

  “No,” Mary replied. “I saw a helicopter.”

  “A helicopter?” Joan’s eye brightened. “Were they looking for us? Did you flag them down?”

  “I tried.” Mary sighed. “They didn’t see me.”

  “Jeez, how could they not see you? Did you run around and yell?”

  “I did my best.”

  “You don’t have enough voice,” complained Joan. “You can barely carry past the jury box. I bet I could have gotten them to land.”

  Mary glared at her. “Okay, Joan. Next time we hear a helicopter, you just go out and cut loose with a little Madame Butterfly. They’ll land in a heartbeat.” She picked up a stick and hurled it at a hickory tree. “Hell, they’ll probably ask for your damn autograph.”

  Joan shrugged. “Don’t blame me if I’ve got a voice and you don’t.”

  For a moment, they glared at each other, then Joan turned her face away from Mary and looked up into the bright arc of sky. “What are we going to do now?” she asked softly.

  Mary followed Joan’s gaze. The sky was as blue and empty of helicopters as it had been a thousand years ago. Maybe it hadn’t been real. Maybe she’d just seen a bird and imagined rotors whirring, imagined numbers on its flank. They’d had virtually no food and little sleep. Maybe she was even now imagining things—that Alex was still alive, that this trail would lead them to her. Maybe Joan had been right and Alex really had been murdered and dumped in some nameless, unfindable ravine. Maybe everything else was just wishful thinking. Her throat grew hot and aching. She was beginning not to know what to believe.

  “We’ll go on,” she told Joan. “If another helicopter comes, we can worry about it then.”

  “Are we going to be walking over those cactus things again?”

  “Probably.”

  Joan greedily eyed Mary’s feet. “Then can I wear the boots for a while?”

  Maybe another helicopter will come, Mary
thought as she knelt down and unlaced her shoes. Maybe Charlie and Jonathan will figure this out and send a whole fleet of helicopters. And Joan can sing the Alleluia Chorus from the mountaintops, just to help them land.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  After the helicopter passed, the weather turned sour. For the rest of the afternoon, biting wind with icy chips of sleet whipped from the sky as Joan and Mary picked their way over slippery rocks high above a rushing mountain river. Though the tracking itself was laughably easy, they progressed at a pitiable pace, sliding backwards on the slick rocks each time they pushed themselves forward. Still, they shared their one pair of boots and struggled on. As long as Alex kept marking a trail, Mary was determined to follow it.

  They had just thrashed through some weeds into a small clearing along the river when they heard a high, barely audible whistle coming from the clouds above their heads. They looked up just in time to see a reddish-brown streak plummet down from the sky. Before they could speak, before they could even breathe, a dark shadow swooped to the earth not ten feet ahead of them. Something scurried frantically among the wet leaves; then they heard one panicked shriek of anguish and surprise. Dark wings flapped twice, and the brown shadow rose again, this time lifting another creature high into the air. One more terrified scream reached their ears, then there was silence. It was over before they realized what had happened.

  “Jeez!” Joan cried. “What was that?”

  “A hawk, I think.” Mary watched as the bird flew away, its awesome wings thrusting it upward.

  “It killed something, didn’t it?” Joan kept her eyes on Mary, away from the creature still squirming vainly in the hawk’s talons.

  Mary nodded, her palms suddenly clammy. “A squirrel. Or maybe a rabbit. They scream like that sometimes.”

  “Oh, jeez.” Joan knelt down on the ground. She huddled beside Mary, trembling and rubbing her arms. “Are they now just dropping out of the sky?”

  “Who, Joan?”

  “The hunters,” she sobbed. “The things that kill.”