Catawba Point

by Colin Campbell

  “Aw, come on. How hard can it be?”

  There was the sound of snapping branches and rustling bushes.

  “You couldn’t hit a barn door at twenty paces.”

  “Bullshit. I could take the eyebrows off a rabbit at twenty paces.”

  “Fuck off, man. Until you get that prescription upgraded you couldn’t even see a rabbit at twenty paces.”

  There were more rustling noises and a complete lack of silence protocol. The hunting party was approaching on a broad front, crashing through the undergrowth like a herd of elephants. They might know the woods, but this wasn’t shooting at targets or stalking each other. They didn’t seem to appreciate the difference between friendly banter and shooting to kill. They hadn’t reached that point yet.

  “Yeah, well, he ain’t no rabbit. I could hit him with my eyes shut.”

  Somebody laughed. A couple of others joined in.

  “That last time? I think you were shooting with your eyes shut.”

  The noises drew closer. Louder. Then they were past Grant way to his left and approaching the road.

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  Somebody made a squealing noise.

  “Ah’m gonna make you squeal like a pig.”

  There was the sound of somebody thumping a shoulder.

  “That weren’t even funny in the movie.”

  “Hold up. Here’s another piece.”

  The man up front held up a bright yellow swatch of windcheater, then the men burst out of the woods onto the road and stopped. Grant could see them through a gap in the trees. There was a lot of milling around and looking at the ground. Some looked into the woods either side of the road. A couple followed the diminishing trail toward the cell phone tower. Nobody looked back toward Catawba Point. Why would they? Their prey was trying to get away from the white supremacists, not fall straight back into their hands.

  “He must have been a desert soldier, ’cause he sure as shit don’t know the woods. Guess he figures to be quicker on the straight.”

  One of them counted heads.

  “What’s holding that kid up? He lost again?”

  The one bringing up the rear waved a dismissive hand.

  “Probably helping JC get ready for Big Dog.”

  Grant kept his head down in case anybody looked back for the missing kid. He watched from a low angle with foliage sticking up all around him. The group conferred one last time, then the spokesman made an attempt at military leadership by pointing at his eyes then holding a hand out flat along the road.

  “Let’s pick it up. Don’t want to be out here all day.”

  The hunting party set off toward the cell phone tower and the turn-in from Walkers Ferry Road. The banter didn’t stop so much as fade into the distance. Five minutes later, they disappeared around the next bend in the road.

  Grant waited until he was sure they weren’t going to double back before pushing himself up into a crouch. The woods fell into an uneasy silence. He listened for a few minutes, letting the silence build into the natural rhythms of a forest. Not silence at all but birds and wildlife and the constant movement of trees and branches and wind. He let the hunting party build a good solid lead, then stood up slowly.

  All this hunting and stalking was okay for playing at soldiers, but the main thing about combat is doing the unpredictable. Grant’s instructors had delighted in telling him that even the best military plans fell apart as soon as the first shot was fired. The hunting party was tracking a man through the woods. That was fine if you were out in the wilds. Catawba Point was maybe two miles from an international airport and just a few miles from Downtown Charlotte. Grant didn’t need to trek through the woods. He was going to steal a car.

  FORTY

  Grand theft auto is one thing, but you have to get to the auto before you can steal it. Grant was half a mile from the Catawba Point commune along the winding entrance road. Perhaps a bit less as the crow flies. Taking a straight line would mean hacking through the woods again. He’d had enough of hacking his way through the woods. He was going to take the easy way. Along the road.

  He flexed his knees and stretched his back to get the stiffness out after being laid in the undergrowth for so long. The trees around him were thick and heavily leafed. He stood amid the dense foliage and pulled the camouflage out of his combat jacket. The branches irritated his neck, and he rubbed the itch until it eased. He hunched his shoulders and twisted his head one way, then the other. The bones in his neck grated and cracked. The loud crack behind him wasn’t his neck.

  The kid from the barbecue last night had been quieter than the others until he stood on the dry twig. The wood snapped like a gunshot in the quiet, spinning Grant round in a flash and bringing the kid up short. He jerked his head up from watching the ground just in time to see Grant’s elbow slam across his jaw. The gun he was holding loosely at his side flew upwards and out and went sailing through the air. It dropped with a rustle of bushes into dense undergrowth beyond the trees.

  Grant stepped behind him and clamped his neck in a headlock. The kid went red in the face as Grant applied pressure to the illegal chokehold. Five seconds later, his legs went limp and Grant lowered him to the ground. He checked the kid’s pockets for car keys but came up empty. That would have been too easy. Using the fingers of one hand, he pressed them into the kid’s throat to feel his pulse. It was strong and healthy, his breathing coming in ragged gasps. Down but not completely out.

  The woods fell back into their own version of silence. Constant creaking and swaying sprinkled with birdsong and woodland creatures. Grant tore a strip off the already ragged windcheater and balled it in the kid’s mouth. He tied another strip around his head to keep it in place, making sure he didn’t block his nose. He wanted to keep him quiet, not suffocate him. He yanked the kid’s jacket down off his shoulders to clamp his arms and used his belt to tie his legs. Nothing the kid wouldn’t be able to get out of eventually but enough to buy Grant some time. He didn’t waste any looking for the gun in the undergrowth, setting off toward the commune at a jog instead.

  Two bends later he came out at the overlook and stopped.

  “Oh, shit.”

  All the cars had gone.

  Grant scanned the two acres of grassland and the clusters of buildings. There were no cars parked out front of the bungalows to the north or the houses to the south. There was nothing parked behind the main house or in the dust and gravel turnaround where Grant had heard wheels crunching this morning. The road he’d just come along was the only way in or out, and nobody had driven past while he’d charged through the woods. The convoy he’d arrived in had to be here somewhere.

  He checked again, paying as much attention to movement as looking for the cars. This would all be for naught if John Carter saw him crossing the grass and shot him where he stood. There was no movement. Whatever activity was going on preparing for the arrival of Big Dog must have been at the back of the main house. That made sense. You don’t welcome your supreme leader with a bungalow and a washing line.

  None of the houses had carports or garages. There were no driveways round the back of the buildings. That only left the barn and the storage shed at the turnaround. The storage shed wasn’t big enough. Grant set off down the slope to the barn, keeping his eyes peeled for anyone looking out of the windows from the main house or the satellite buildings.

  He stopped at the side of the barn, out of sight from the other buildings, and listened. Grant never underestimated the value of sound. It was often the first thing you noticed before seeing anything. There was no sound inside the barn.

  Stepping round the front, he went to the main doors. They weren’t locked. This was an enclosed community; they didn’t need to lock their doors. He opened the left-hand door a few inches and looked inside. He nodded his satisfaction. This wasn’t a barn. It was the motor pool.

  Grant stepped inside and closed the door. The floor space held five vehicles includin
g the pickup and the SUV from his arrival convoy. The big American car he’d ridden in was parked against the far wall. Two of the cars had their hoods up for servicing. There was a workbench along one side and shelves containing tools and oil and cleaning products. A glass-fronted office took up one corner next to the big car, but Grant doubted the repair shop needed to keep records like the Citgo near the Sleepy Nook Inn. Before Brubaker turned the repair bays into a meeting hall.

  The cars were parked two abreast and three deep. The office and the big car took up the third tier. The front row held a rusty foreign car and the pickup. Grant chose the pickup. He was getting used to borrowing people’s flatbacks. He wondered if this one had a Satnav.

  What it didn’t have was keys in the ignition. Grant tried behind the sun visor and in the glove box. No keys. Nothing. He looked around for a screwdriver and found one on the workbench. The steering column was textured plastic with the ignition barrel jutting out of one side. He ran his fingers around the back and gave the cover a gentle pull. There was no give. The column was solid. He jammed the screwdriver in behind the cover and tried again. Still solid but there was a little movement. He gripped the handle tight then paused.

  Why bother with an office if you aren’t going to use it? Maybe for servicing records and maintenance? Vehicle details and registration? And car keys.

  Grant took the screwdriver out from behind the steering column and crossed to the office. He opened the door and looked around the narrow space. There was a desk and a cupboard and some inspirational sayings on the back wall. The thing that inspired Grant was the key rack above the desk. The Catawba Point militia were as organized as they were insular. The key hooks were arranged in the same order as the parking spaces. There was even a floor plan with a little square denoting the office. He didn’t have to check the make of the pickup to find the keys that matched. All he had to do was find the right space and, bingo.

  Grant smiled and took the keys. He checked that the pickup would start, then left the engine running and walked to the front doors. He opened them a few inches to look outside. This wasn’t the snowplow bus in Where Eagles Dare. He wasn’t going to crash through the doors and skid across the turnaround. Once he was satisfied there was nobody waiting to ambush him, he opened both doors wide and committed grand theft auto.

  FORTY-ONE

  Once he was out of the barn, there was no avoiding putting his foot down and beating a hasty retreat. The wheels spat gravel and raised a cloud of dust as the pickup skidded left on the turnaround and sped up the hill past the overlook onto the entrance road. The trees swallowed him immediately, blocking out the powder blue sky and the sunlight.

  Everything was green. The woods and the undergrowth and even the light were all tinged with green. The tarmac fought to add a hint of grey but even that was contaminated by everything around it. The bright yellow windcheater was a thing of the past. The faded combat jacket still had snatches of foliage he hadn’t fully cleared. Grant eased his foot off the gas after the first bend. He didn’t want the hunting party to hear the urgency in the motor approaching when he caught up with them.

  A crow squawked and flew across the road.

  The twists and turns of the road forced Grant to slow even more until he was driving at a pedestrian pace more in keeping with a funeral procession than a getaway. He passed the trees where the kid was tied up. There was no sign of movement. Grant looked through the side window and caught a glimpse of the bound figure in the undergrowth. Then he drove through the false trail he’d set after coming out of the woods. Everything up ahead was now a threat. There were no friendlies from here on out.

  A deer wandered out of the trees twenty yards in front of him and stopped at the sound of the pickup. Grant slowed to a crawl. The deer looked at him. Grant looked at the deer. There was a moment of clarity between two animals that were constantly under siege. There was deadwood along the side of the road, storm damage pulled aside long ago to the clear the way. Grant stopped the pickup. The deer stared at him a few seconds longer, then ambled off into the woods. Grant watched it go but didn’t slip the pickup into gear. He looked at the space where the deer had stood and let out a sigh. He nodded once, then set off again. A bit faster this time but still not at breakneck speed.

  Grant kept his eyes peeled for movement up ahead. The ragged platoon of hunters couldn’t be far away now. He moved through the gears until the pickup was hitting forty. Too fast for the winding road but not fast enough for Grant’s liking. The hunting party might think they were tracking a man in a yellow windcheater, but they weren’t blind. They’d see it was Grant driving as soon as they looked through the windshield. He put his foot down.

  Forty-five.

  A better pace but not getaway speed. The bend rushing toward him was more like a moderate curve in the road. He added weight to his foot.

  Fifty-five.

  Sixty.

  Anytime now he was going to run into the hunting party, and they were going to realize they’d been taken for fools. The sweeping bend came on fast. Grant used soft hands to ease over to the outside of the curve so he could cut the corner and maintain his speed. Standard police driver training technique. Never go faster into a bend than you could safely see ahead. Grant took the bend too fast. And saw that the hunting party weren’t fools after all.

  The splintered piece of deadwood was a wide, straight tree trunk devoid of branches and foliage. It wasn’t lying at the side of the road; it had been pulled across the tarmac to block any traffic coming out of Catawba Point. The hunters were evenly spaced either end of the tree on the far side. Either end in case Grant decided to smash through the trunk and splinter them all to death.

  Grant stamped on the brakes. The pickup skidded but didn’t slow. It screeched sideways and broadsided the tree with a shuddering crunch. The side window shattered. The airbag deployed and smacked Grant in the chin, his second airbag in two days. The radiator burst and steam hissed from the crumpled hood. Dust and splinters danced in the stagnant air.

  Half a dozen figures emerged through the dust. The rest stayed back to cover their colleagues. They fanned out so the first six weren’t in the firing line. Good tactics. Right up there with taking the high ground at Notebook Trail with the sun at their backs. Carter had taught them well.

  Grant patted the airbag down and slid across the bench seat to the passenger side. His ears were ringing with the impact. His jaw ached. He shook his head clear and got out. He swayed slightly until he regained his balance then stood tall, hands in the air.

  “Looks like you got me.”

  The spokesman stepped forward pointing a bulky weapon that looked to be somewhere between a machine gun and a revolver. He kept his arms tucked in for stability. Gun extended.

  “Stealing a truck. Smart. But not exactly playing fair.”

  Grant shrugged.

  “Oh, I didn’t know there were rules. I thought Carter wanted you to get some real-world experience.”

  He emphasized his hands being up in the air.

  “Well. You caught me.”

  The spokesman shook his head.

  “Thing about hunting. You ain’t caught until you’re hung and dried.”

  Grant was about to ask what that was supposed to mean when the spokesman raised the gun and shot him in the chest.

  FORTY-TWO

  They returned Grant to Catawba Point lying flat on his back in the load bed of the pickup. The bodywork was damaged and the radiator leaked, but the pickup worked just well enough to make the trip. Grant felt about the same, damaged and leaky and banged up once too many times since he’d come to Charlotte, North Carolina. The pain in his chest eased but it was still pain. Grant didn’t like pain. He didn’t like being shot point-blank in the chest either.

  “Paintball?”

  “It was a training exercise. D’you think we’d shoot you for real?”

  Grant shrugged and took a drink of iced tea on the rear deck of the ma
in house.

  “For a minute there, I thought someone was going to play ‘Dueling Banjos.’”

  Carter laughed, leaning against the railing like nothing had happened.

  “Wrong woods. But I see your point.”

  He took some of the jovial out of his voice.

  “Although you were the one doing the hog tying.”

  Grant’s tone reflected the change of mood.

  “Sorry about that. Things seemed to be getting a bit serious out there.”

  Carter looked at Grant, with the splash of red paint on his chest.

  “They certainly did.”

  If there was hidden meaning, he quickly diffused it. The Crocodile Dundee smile returned, full wattage.

  “My fault. I wanted the boys to taste real combat before they went to war.”

  Grant leaned back in his chair.

  “There’s a war?”

  Carter’s smile disappeared.

  “This is America. We’re always at war.”

  He folded his arms across his chest.

  “Rich against poor. North against South.”

  Grant rattled the ice in his iced tea.

  “I thought they’d sorted that one out.”

  Carter ignored the remark.

  “Black against white.”

  He tilted his head at an angle and scrutinized Grant.

  “Which kind of begs the question.”

  All the humor drained out of his voice.

  “Why exactly are you here? Really?”

  Grant considered telling Carter about the innocent girl fighting for her life and the black fella getting his neck snapped in the shower. He thought about telling the white supremacist that he didn’t like bullies or loudmouths or people of low moral fiber. But this wasn’t the time for that. Grant was surrounded by people of low moral fiber. There was no point antagonizing them any more than he already had. No, this was a time for tact and diplomacy. Tact and diplomacy weren’t Grant’s strong suit. He took a sip of iced tea to give himself time. When he put the glass on the table, he sat up straight.