Catawba Point

by Colin Campbell

  “I prefer to talk things out. Saves a lot of trouble.”

  The blue eyes and blond hair wouldn’t have gone amiss in the Hitler youth.

  “Some folks ain’t big on talking things out.”

  He leaned forward over his plate.

  “Now, you take your average black man. Ain’t no talking him down. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have had to throw him off the balcony.”

  Grant laid his knife and fork across his plate. He’d had enough.

  “Has that story been printed in a local comic book? Because I don’t remember that many people being around at the time.”

  The kid held his hands up.

  “Just saying, is all. Thing of legend. What with all that Resurrection Man stuff as well. You’re a celebrity around here.”

  Grant took a deep breath, then blew out his cheeks.

  “Yeah well, it’s kinda wearing thin. The celebrity thing.”

  He flattened one hand on the table then motioned like a plane taking off.

  “I’m just passing through.”

  The kid stuck a hand out for Grant to shake.

  “Glad I got a chance to meet you. We need more like you.”

  Grant shook it and waved his other hand to indicate everything around him.

  “Doesn’t seem like you’re short of manpower.”

  The kid followed Grant’s gesture.

  “True. But passive don’t get as much attention.”

  Grant leaned forward and lowered his voice.

  “Twelve men with guns. That got my attention.”

  The kid gave Grant an aw-shucks laugh.

  “Oh, the guns is just for hunting.”

  Grant raised an eyebrow.

  “Didn’t look like hunting guns.”

  The kid smiled.

  “Depends what you hunt.”

  Grant nodded toward the other houses.

  “You live here the whole time?”

  The kid sat up straight and puffed his chest out.

  “Pretty much. Once you’ve been inducted. This is a safe community. All white. No trouble. Big Dog keeps it that way.”

  Grant pushed his plate aside.

  “The fella that’s coming in tomorrow?”

  Pride swelled the kid’s chest.

  “Cornelius Stout the third. Big Dog. Yes, sir.”

  “That’s quite a mouthful.”

  “He’s quite a handful.”

  It was the kid’s turn to wave his hand around.

  “Formed all this so nobody has to handle him.”

  Grant nodded.

  “That’s mighty fine of him.”

  The kid nodded back.

  “He’s a mighty fine man.”

  The barbecue flames were dying, and some of the diners had drifted away. The warm air and a full stomach began to work their magic. The lack of sleep began to catch up on him as well. Grant nodded at the kid, then gathered his plate and stood up. He turned to say goodnight to Carter, but he had gone. So had the big guy with the acne scars.

  Grant scanned the thinning crowd but couldn’t see them. The kid noticed and stood up too. The distraction was complete. Carter had got away. Grant held his plate up and deployed his own distraction.

  “I’ll just get rid of these and call it a night.”

  He turned away and went in search of the waste bin, mingling with the crowd while scanning their faces. He looked for height and bulk and the familiar acne scars. It was full dark now, but the colored lanterns lit the scene and a full moon dusted the rest of the clearing. It glinted off the waters out beyond the jetty.

  The jetty is where he found them. Two silhouettes stood out against the moon glow. Carter’s was the more obvious. The body language was fairly plain as well. A heated discussion and the complete antithesis of the calm the community tried to engender. A motorboat cruised past in the distance, breaking the waters into a million sparkles of moonlight. The silhouettes faced off. Grant dumped his plate on the nearest table and walked toward a stand of trees near the jetty.

  “And you had to bring him here now. Of all times.”

  Carter balked at the big guy’s implications.

  “Wouldn’t have had to bring him at all if you’d kept your dick in your pants.”

  The big guy stood tall and thumped his chest twice.

  “Without me, this don’t work. So my dick will go where it wants.”

  Carter stepped forward and stuck his chin out.

  “There’s no crash without Crash. Is that it?”

  Crash nodded.

  “Damn right.”

  Carter jerked a thumb toward the riverside community.

  “Well, remember this. The crash don’t matter if we start laying down with the mud people. Purity above everything.”

  He let out a sigh and then held his hands out in a placating motion.

  “You don’t want to be the nail that lost the shoe.”

  Crash laughed.

  “Oh, stop it with the sermonizing. We ain’t lost a horse or a battle or the war. We lost a black hooker and her pimp.”

  Carter stepped in close and stood face-to-face.

  “And the element of surprise.”

  He held a hand up to the sky.

  “A fire in the flight path? That’s real smart.”

  Crash backed down. His shoulders sagged.

  “I might have overreacted.”

  Carter stepped forward again, and Crash took a step back.

  “Overreacted? And you’ve got guys chasing around the hospital.”

  He prodded a finger at Crash’s forehead.

  “What the fuck were you thinking?”

  Crash shrugged.

  “Damage control.”

  Carter shook his head.

  “You stick to your keyboard. I’ll perform damage control.”

  Crash nodded and started to turn away. Carter reached out and stopped him.

  “Is that everything? There’s nothing else you’re not telling me, is there?”

  Crash stood erect, too eager to answer.

  “Hell no. Promise.”

  They both turned and began to walk back along the jetty. Carter patted Crash on the back as the silhouettes moved out of the moon glow.

  “Leave me to square this with Big Dog. Damage limitation is his specialty.”

  Grant moved back into the trees and waited for the men to walk up the lawn toward the house. When he came out the other side, the world was lit with festive lanterns and moonlight. He skirted the barbecue pit and headed for the porch steps. His mind replayed the conversation and struggled with the implications. Mostly he was thinking about a fire in a motel room not being big enough to trouble Charlotte Douglas Airport. But he thought he knew a place that would.

  DAY THREE

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Gunshots broke the silence and startled Grant awake. Sunlight blazed outside the lace curtains but didn’t shine through the window because the midmorning sun was on the other side of the house. Grant rolled over in bed and forced his eyes open. He’d slept heavy and had to claw himself out of the coma. He checked his watch. It was a little after nine.

  The gunshots sounded again, a ragged volley in the distance followed by sporadic returning fire. Not hunters stalking game, gunmen stalking each other. He remembered the kid from last night commenting on the guns Grant had mentioned not looking like hunting guns. “Depends what you hunt.” Grant wondered what they were hunting this morning. He swung his legs out of bed and waited for his balance to return. The room was already warm, not that it had cooled down much overnight, and Grant needed to freshen up.

  The knock on the door stopped him halfway to the bathroom. Wrapping the towel round his waist, he went to the door. If they were going to shoot him, he doubted they’d do it in his room.

  “How d’you like to join the boys on maneuvers?”

  Carter stood in the hallway but didn’t ask to come in. Gra
nt indicated the towel.

  “You mind if I get dressed first?”

  Carter looked at the scars on Grant’s chest.

  “I wish you would. Don’t want you scaring ’em with your army past.”

  Grant kept hold of the towel.

  “Nothing to be scared of. I was a typist.”

  Carter nodded.

  “Yeah, I remember that from the news. D’you think anyone believed that?”

  Grant shrugged.

  “Probably not. But I can type.”

  “I’m sure you can do lots of things. Be nice for my boys to test themselves against a real-life war hero.”

  Grant shook his head.

  “A hero is a sandwich. I just did my job.”

  Carter smiled.

  “Well get your pants on, chief. See if you can do a job for us.”

  He waved a hand back along the corridor.

  “Millie’s rustling up some breakfast. I’ll call the boys back in.”

  He turned and headed for the stairs. Grant closed the door and headed for the shower. He had a feeling it was going to be a long day.

  Showered, shaved, and teeth brushed. Grant wished he could go back to the Sleepy Nook Inn and get some fresh clothes of his own, but if the Catawba Point supremacists wanted to play soldiers, the combat pants were probably better suited. He pulled on the khaki T-shirt then fastened his shoes. The shooting had stopped while he was in the shower. That didn’t make him feel any better. He was still behind enemy lines with a bunch of gung-ho wannabe soldiers who wanted to rid America of the black menace. He wasn’t sure which side of the fence they saw Grant as being on. Especially after the conversation he’d overheard last night. “And you had to bring him here now. Of all times.” That didn’t bode well for having a pleasant trek in the woods.

  Grant wondered about the “now of all times” part and the suggestion that he might want to delay flying home. He also thought about damage limitation being Big Dog’s specialty. Cornelius Stout the third. He checked his watch, almost ten o’clock. It didn’t look as if Big Dog was due to arrive before the military maneuvers. What would happen after that was anyone’s guess. Like he’d thought before, Grant didn’t like guessing games. He picked up his phone from the bedside cabinet and hit last-caller redial. Evelyn answered after three rings.

  “They didn’t barbecue you then.”

  Grant sighed at the sound of her voice.

  “The day’s still young.”

  Shop noises sounded behind Evelyn’s voice.

  “They planning another one today?”

  Grant sat on the edge of the bed.

  “They’re planning a hunting party. And I think I’m the fox.”

  “Fox?”

  “Oh, yeah. You don’t have foxhunts over here, do you? Hare and hounds kind of thing. Jolly toffs in redcoats riding around the countryside. D’ye ken John Peel? All that stuff.”

  “I have no idea what you just said.”

  Grant looked at the sunlight outside the window. The lace curtains turned everything white, something that would no doubt please the anti-black stance of the white supremacists returning from the woods.

  “When your good-ole American boys go hunting. Whatever it is they hunt. I think I’m standing in for it.”

  Gravel crunched under tires round the front of the house. A kettle boiled down in the kitchen. Somewhere to the east, a jet plane roared off the runway at Charlotte Douglas Airport. The sound made Grant’s decision for him.

  “I’m going to call you every two hours.”

  Evelyn laughed down the phone.

  “That’s nice of you.”

  Grant ignored the levity in her voice.

  “Keep track of my phone.”

  He stood up and went to the window. Drawing back the lace curtain, he looked outside. A line of men came out of the trees to the north and walked across the grass toward the barbecue pit. All in combat gear. All carrying guns.

  “If I don’t call in.”

  He considered how much to tell her, how much of what he suspected he could expect her to believe. At the end of the day, though, it wasn’t Evelyn he needed to convince.

  “If I miss once, there’s somebody I want you to call.”

  He stepped back from the window and told her what he wanted her to do.

  THIRTY-NINE

  The hunting party gathered after breakfast. Breakfast for Grant that is, because they’d already been playing soldiers since dawn. Grant felt like the condemned man being given a hearty meal. He followed the military rulebook and made sure he fueled up because once the battle starts you never know when you’re going to eat again. This wasn’t the breakfast rush at Hardee’s.

  “How’s this work? You count to ten then shout ‘Coming, ready or not’?”

  Grant stood on the porch and zipped up his bright yellow windcheater. Carter leaned against the railing at the top of the back steps.

  “I think we can make it more interesting than that.”

  He indicated the twelve men who’d been with him yesterday at Notebook Trail.

  “We’ll stay round back here and give you half an hour head start.”

  He jerked a thumb toward the river.

  “Of course, you can’t go west, but everything else is woods. Plenty of cover.”

  Grant looked at the river.

  “I could swim for it.”

  Carter shook his head.

  “That’d be a naval exercise. This here is military maneuvers.”

  Grant turned to Carter.

  “Me being ex-military.”

  “You being The Resurrection Man.”

  “You think I’m going to need resurrecting?”

  Carter shrugged.

  “I think hunting is a dangerous game.”

  Grant wasn’t offered a weapon. He wasn’t given a compass or supplies. This was a chance for the white supremacists to have something to hunt that could fight back. They just didn’t want the fighting back to include being shot at. The lanterns from last night swayed in a gentle offshore breeze that didn’t help cool the day. The Stars & Stripes flapped atop the flagpole. A wisp of dust swirled in the turnaround out front of the barn and storage shed. The men stayed at the bottom of the steps. Carter waved a hand for Grant to set off.

  “Coming, ready or not.”

  Grant turned left at the bottom of the steps and jogged round the side of the house heading south. As soon as he was out of sight he turned north and sprinted toward the bungalows. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure nobody was watching, then unzipped the windcheater as he approached the nearest bungalow. Without slowing, he snatched a faded green combat jacket off the washing line and turned east into the woods.

  Branches snapped and foliage was bent as he crashed through the undergrowth. He wasn’t trying to be quiet, just fast. He needed to put as much distance between him and the trackers before Carter finished counting to ten. With twelve against one, this wasn’t about finding a good place to fight but rather not fighting at all. The best way to do that was to not get caught. In the woods surrounding Catawba Point, that was going to be difficult. Carter’s men had been hunting in these woods for years. They knew them like the back of their hands. The only places Grant knew were the entrance road and the cell phone tower. He headed for the cell phone tower.

  Ten minutes.

  The undergrowth tugged at his legs and low branches whipped his face. He kept one arm up in front of his eyes to protect them but didn’t slow down. He crashed through the trees and let them snag his windcheater. The more damage the better. The flimsy material tore easily. A pocket was ripped off. The zip broke. Grant threw the torn pocket aside and used his fingers to make the other tears bigger. He crested a ridge and plunged into a shallow trough. The uneven ground slowed him down but he kept heading east, searching the trees for signs of the entrance road.

  Twenty minutes.

  He came out of the other sid
e of the trough and veered right. Not a sharp right but enough to intercept the road as it twisted and turned through the woods. He tore another swatch of cloth from the windcheater and tossed it aside. The summer jacket was just a big yellow rag now. He saw the road through the trees and angled toward it. The trees hugged the road. Good.

  Thirty minutes.

  Coming, ready or not.

  Grant burst through the trees onto the narrow road and stopped. He stripped off the remnants of the windcheater and put the combat jacket on, fastening it tight. Twelve angry men would now be tracking from the bungalow and snapped branches. Coming this way. They wanted to play soldiers. Grant turned toward them and nodded. Enough running. If they wanted to play, he’d play.

  The first thing Grant did was snap off a few small branches and pull up some more foliage. He scattered them on the road where he’d come out of the trees and set a thinning trail along the tarmac toward the cell phone tower. Not too obvious but hard to miss. He scuffed some of the leaves into the ground to show he’d run over them on his way out of Catawba Point, then carefully retraced his steps until he was past the broken branches.

  He walked back ten yards to the first bend in the road, then found space between the trees where he could safely melt into the woods without disturbing the branches. The first rule of camouflage was to break up the human body shape. Once he was far enough into the woods, he pulled up some of the tangled undergrowth that wouldn’t show from the road and jammed them into the collar and chest cavity of the combat jacket. He stuffed the folded windcheater inside the zipper so it was hidden; the hunting party would be looking for a man wearing bright yellow, especially since swatches of cloth had been torn off in the woods. He blackened his face with dirt, then lay flat behind a dense patch of undergrowth and trees.

  Fifteen minutes later he heard the first sounds of approaching hunters. They weren’t being quiet. They weren’t observing the golden rule of silent combat; talk by sign language and don’t give your position away. The Catawba Point supremacists were working from their country-boy rulebook. Bitch and moan and have a good laugh. This was supposed to be fun.