Moon Underfoot

by Cole, Bobby

  “Will do, General.”

  CHAPTER 109

  WHEN JAKE REGAINED consciousness, he couldn’t feel his broken leg and he was shivering uncontrollably. The water inside the tube was now around his waist. He desperately tried kicking with his right leg, to force mud and debris down the pipe, and then, realizing that his body was also blocking the flow of water, he strained to wiggle and twist. Jake fought through the pain, knowing that his life depended on it. For the moment, the water level appeared to recede.

  Jake quit moving when he realized that he wasn’t holding the flashlight. He had dropped it when he passed out. Rocking back and forth as he squatted into the water, he was able to reach the light, but doing so was costly.

  He was completely soaked and knew that his core body temperature would be dropping like a stone. The higher cost, however, was that all his movements jarred the pipe, causing mud from the beaver dam to loosen and erode, allowing more water to rush into the pipe. The greater the water flow into the pipe, the farther down it sucked Jake. It was a vicious and rapidly escalating circle.

  “Shit! I gotta fight this. I gotta figure a way out for my girls,” he said aloud.

  Jake looked up and shined the light out of the pipe into the misty fog and in desperation screamed, “Help me! Can anybody hear me! Help!”

  Jake Crosby was exhausted and growing drowsy from the onset of hypothermia and, unbeknownst to him, blood being forced into his legs by the suction of the current. He’d been defeated, and the realization was settling in. He leaned his head back against the pipe and slowly closed his eyes in silent prayer.

  CHAPTER 110

  THE MYSTERIOUS TRUCK driving by their dig unnerved the grave robbers. They discussed options for a few minutes and decided that one of them would resume work while the other stood guard, listening and watching for anything else unusual.

  Several minutes passed, when Trance heard unintelligible shouting. He listened intently but could not figure out where it was coming from. He called for his partner to discuss the situation. But because sound travels great distances over water and through winter woods—coupled with their promising site and impending bad weather—they decided to resume digging.

  The same truck sped back by twenty minutes later. The robbers again discussed what to do. They were in the middle of several thousands of acres of public-hunting property owned by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Every access point had large metal gates to prevent vehicle entry, as the area was to be strictly walk-in. A pickup truck racing up and down a logging road was puzzling but possibly explainable as joyriding teenagers, something they both had done as kids. They wrote off the strange events and went back to work.

  An hour later, while taking a smoke break, Yancey heard a man’s scream in the distance. A chill went down his spine. When he clearly heard the scream for help, he tossed his cigarette and called to his partner.

  “Shhhh. Listen!” Yancey said.

  Silence filled the swamp until the distant sound of a barred owl interrupted the eerie quiet.

  “I don’t hear shit…’sides that owl. And there’s that campground just down the river. If someone was callin’ for help, it coulda been someone down there.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Man, we don’t need this shit,” Trance said nervously.

  “We gotta go check it out.”

  “Are you a hundred percent sure you heard, ‘Help me’?”

  “Absolutely,” Yancey said, obviously unnerved.

  “Man, I don’t know. We’ll be in serious shit for being here. It’s federal property.”

  “Look, I know, but somebody needs help. It came from that direction,” Yancey explained, pointing northwest. “But I couldn’t judge how far.”

  The two men weren’t known for making good decisions, and for obvious reasons they didn’t want anyone to know about their activities; but the thought that somebody needed help stirred something in both of them.

  After a long moment, Trance spoke. “Shit! Okay, iffin’ somebody’s in trouble, they can’t be too far away. Mark the direction on your GPS, and we’ll ease that way and see what’s goin’ on.”

  CHAPTER 111

  THE OLD MEN sat in the Henry Clay’s library looking despondent—gloom and despair written all over their faces. They had managed to steal over a million dollars and had effectively gotten away with it until Bailey took it. Now they had less than zero, and Walter was facing another meeting with Kroger’s security team, at which, Samantha had warned, he might be arrested.

  “I’m not gonna let you take the rap for the Kroger deal,” Sebastian said, discreetly sipping an adult beverage.

  “Me neither,” Bernard added.

  “I ’preciate it, guys. But maybe Sam will think of something.”

  “How we gonna pay her?”

  Walter sighed and then said, “I’m hoping we haven’t used up the retainer yet.”

  “You better ask.”

  “Walter, you got any other ideas?” Bernard asked.

  “I don’t have the heart to do another job. I’m not cut out for this. This was all just a crazy dream of some crazy old men. Not to mention it was illegal,” Walter said, stirring the ice in his drink.

  Bernard and Sebastian looked at each other. A big question hadn’t been answered yet. “Walter, what about your plan…you know…to get even with your ex-son-in-law?”

  Walter took a big swig of his drink and then leaned his head back. He noticed the wall clock showed 10:32 p.m. The halls of the retirement home were quiet. His gaze moved to the big windows and out onto Commerce Street. No one was moving outside either. He smiled and said, “There’s one thing I’m certain of: I have been so vocal about wantin’ revenge that if anything ever happens to that guy, I’ll be the first one they come looking for. That’s why I wanted the money—to hire a pro. I’d have a solid alibi, and there’d be no financial records tying me to it.”

  “What about me?” Sebastian offered.

  “No, Sebastian. Thank you, but it’s over. We’ve pushed our luck…past the edge. I’m thinkin’ that I should focus my energy into doing somethin’ good. We, as a group, oughta look at helpin’ folks some other way.”

  “Legally?” Bernard asked.

  “Yes, legally.”

  The three old men sat quietly drinking, staring out the windows, thinking about all that had happened and what the future might bring.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Sebastian said.

  “What?” Walter asked.

  “Bailey just drove up.”

  CHAPTER 112

  BAILEY PARKED IN front of the old hotel and almost started crying when she saw the old men in the library looking out at her. She dreaded having to face them. She hadn’t slept much during the last few days, and she had lost over a million dollars of their money to a guy who she had thought loved her. Most of the stolen money had been Moon Pie’s. But, since he treated Levi like shit, she hadn’t thought they were close enough for Levi to choose a hateful half-blood over her. Obviously she had misread both relationships, so she never attempted to call Levi. Bailey figured that he would just lie, and she was tired of being lied to and tired of lying herself. It was time to face what she had done. Her main motivation in taking the money had been to protect it, but it was now painfully obvious that she should not have told Levi. Her next move was to tell her grandmother and her friends the truth and pray that they would one day forgive her.

  On the drive home, she had decided to commit herself to achieving her dream of designing dresses, knowing that it might take several years to legally earn the needed start-up money. She was ready to make a fresh start, and she desperately wanted her grandmother in her life. Family is everything. Bailey supposed she would also have to pay back the money from Kroger that she had lost…though she had no idea how. That notion was almost too overwhelming to contemplate.

  Bailey—embarrassed, confused, and praying for no small amount of forgiveness—walked inside to face the four old fo
lks whose dreams she had destroyed.

  CHAPTER 113

  AS MOON PIE finally made it back to the road that exited the Corps of Engineers property, his cell phone rang. When he saw that it was Levi calling, he was relieved. He wiped sweat off his face and answered, “Hey, man, where the hell are you!”

  Levi could hear Moon Pie’s voice, but the connection was poor. “Listen, I’ve got the money.”

  Moon Pie couldn’t hear Levi. He said, “Levi, I can’t hear you, so shut the hell up and listen to me. I’m bad hurt. Where are you?”

  “I’m near the Holiday Inn. The cops are all over your trailer. Don’t go there!”

  Moon Pie was still driving and hadn’t turned the radio down. He only heard something about cops at his trailer. What he said was, “I’ve lost a lot of blood, I…I need a…I’m goin’ to the hospital!”

  “I can barely hear you! Where are you? How bad are you hurt?”

  Moon Pie was getting weaker and having great difficulty focusing on anything. Everything seemed to confuse him more the harder he tried to concentrate.

  “I’ll call you when I got better service!” Moon Pie yelled in frustration and hung up.

  Moon Pie was now taking short, quick breaths and was getting colder. He turned the heater and blower to high. He rounded a bend, and through the dim fog, he saw the gate about two hundred yards ahead. Once his tires finally hit pavement, he knew that he’d make it to the hospital.

  His glance down to check his injury was not quick. His mental acuity and reflexes were sluggish due to blood loss. The problem, besides the obvious, was that he couldn’t recognize it.

  When he finally looked back to the road, he saw a vehicle pulling up to the gate facing him. By the time he stopped, he was about eighty yards away.

  He was trapped because the only other way out that he knew was several miles down the road he had just traveled and most likely impassable beyond where he had turned around. For what seemed like a long time, Moon Pie just stared straight ahead at the bright headlights. He couldn’t make out any details of the vehicle.

  At the gate, the game warden was surprised to see a vehicle coming out of the public hunting area, especially at ten thirty at night. Damn spotlighters! he thought, flipping on his dash-mounted blue light. He radioed the county dispatch his location and that he was approaching a suspicious vehicle.

  The game warden assumed that it was meat hunters. Because the economy had gotten so bad, a fresh-killed deer would bring fifty dollars cash in some communities. A good group of night hunters, under the right conditions, could kill five to ten deer each night. If it was just a couple of teenage boys, he usually could put the fear of God in them. He hoped for that.

  He took a deep breath. He knew he was in a position of strength. Not only did he have the authority of the state behind him, but he also had the training and the experience, and his truck was blocking the only exit of the property for miles. He noticed that the gate chain was hanging loose. That asshole cut it, he thought.

  Moon Pie could see only the bright headlights in front of him. He wanted to continue forward. He could tell he didn’t have the time or the strength for a chase. He pulled his pistol with the intention of shooting his way out if necessary, but he was too weak to hold it, so he rested the weapon on the side mirror with his left hand and eased his foot off the brake pedal, slowly rolling forward.

  The game warden smelled trouble. He grabbed his binoculars, but the lights were so bright that through the fog everything was magnified and it looked as if it were snowing. Dammit!

  He used the push bar on the front of his truck to bump the gate open, then slowly eased toward the suspicious vehicle. He stopped his truck just inside the gate so that the metal posts on either side provided an even wider barricade. The trucks were now only forty yards apart. The warden used his binoculars again.

  “Shit! That looks like Jake Crosby’s truck,” he said aloud.

  Moon Pie was eyeing what appeared to be an open spot to the right of the gate. He revved the engine and grinned deliriously. Either he was going to shoot the gap or he was going out in a hail of gunfire.

  The warden flipped on the mounted spotlight, and Jake’s truck was completely illuminated. He hoped that it would blind or disorient the driver. He slipped out of his truck, ran behind it, and then ran into the woods on his right side so he could identify the driver of the other truck and better assess the situation. Once he was into the woods, he saw the pistol resting on the mirror. He pulled his weapon and trained it on the driver as he crept toward the truck. The driver had been revving the engine, but now the truck was idling, stopped in a mud hole. The warden took three cautious steps toward the truck and noticed that the driver’s head was slumped forward, leaning on the steering wheel. What the hell? he thought.

  At twenty yards, the warden trained his pistol on the slumped head and gripped the pistol tightly enough to activate the laser sight. A small, bouncing red dot appeared on the side of the driver’s head. He yelled, “Drop the gun and get out of the vehicle!”

  There was no response and no movement. Again he yelled, “Drop the pistol! Get out of the vehicle right now!”

  Still there was no movement in the truck or by the driver, which was very disconcerting.

  The game warden had decided that he would give one more verbal warning and then he would approach the vehicle, ready to shoot the driver in the head if he moved a muscle. At that moment, a state trooper pulled up behind his truck, and more blue lights popped on. Their bright, fast, erratic pattern reflected off everything.

  The warden, still sighting on the driver’s head, eased closer to Jake’s truck. At ten yards, he loudly ordered the driver out of the vehicle. There was still no movement. At this distance, he could tell that the driver was not Jake Crosby. This guy had long, stringy hair. Keeping his pistol trained on the driver’s head, he quietly slipped up to the driver’s side of the truck, and with snake-fast reflexes he grabbed the pistol free. The slumped driver never twitched. Upon securing the pistol, the warden once again ordered the driver out, and when he didn’t respond, he snatched open the door, and Moon Pie, along with two additional handguns, fell out onto the muddy road.

  As the state trooper approached, weapon drawn, the warden kicked the two guns out of reach and did a quick look inside Jake’s truck to ensure there was no one else there.

  The warden recognized Moon Pie, but his ashen color was shocking. When he saw his bloodstained shirt, he knelt down to feel for a pulse. He used the barrel of his weapon to push the bloody shirt back to reveal the wound.

  “Gunshot! Call an ambulance! We got a gunshot victim.”

  The trooper called it in using his shoulder mic while the warden handcuffed Moon Pie. He knew better than to trust a dead snake. Administering first aid never crossed the mind of either officer. With Moon Pie secure, the warden quickly searched the vehicle and checked its tag.

  “This is Jake Crosby’s truck,” he said excitedly and then stood over Moon Pie. He shook him while yelling, “Moon Pie! Wake up! Wake up, you sumbitch! Where’s Jake Crosby! Where’s Jake!”

  Not getting any response, he left Moon Pie lying handcuffed, facedown, on the cold, muddy ground and ran to his truck to radio in the details and request assistance.

  CHAPTER 114

  AFTER TRAVELING LESS than a quarter mile, the grave robbers checked the GPS to make certain they hadn’t gotten off track. They could hear a tugboat pushing a barge down the river. Since the constant drone of the diesel engines was going to make it difficult for them to hear anything for several minutes, they decided to sit on a log and wait.

  Although these men were not easily spooked, the presence of the vehicle and the screams had them very much on edge. At times, the searchlight of the tugboat reflected off the water into the air, briefly creating the appearance of an aurora. Each time the captain panned the several-million-candlepower light on their side of the river, it created hundreds of eerie, quickly moving shadows though the woods.


  “It seems extra dark out here tonight, don’t it?” Trance observed.

  “Moon’s underfoot; that’s why. Darkest nights are when the moon’s underfoot.”

  The men simultaneously pondered the idea of chasing a screaming sound in a river swamp on a dark night. “It’s gonna take at least ten more minutes for that damn boat to get by us,” Yancey said, watching how deeply the light penetrated the woods.

  “I know, I know, but I swear I heard somethin’.”

  “I believe you heard something; we just don’t know what.”

  “Maybe it was that campground.”

  “Coulda been anything, the way sound travels over water.” Yancey paused and added, “Well, you ’bout ready? Your ex-wife will be pissed if we don’t find some artifacts to sell.”

  “Look at that!”

  “What? Where?”

  “Right there. Almost at the far edge of the water. It looks like a light shining straight out of the water into the fog.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  They watched in amazement as a narrow column of light went straight up out of the water into the fog and then disappeared. The light returned in a few moments and then went out again.

  “What the hell is it? That’s just too freakin’ weird,” Trance said, trying to focus his binoculars on the light beam.

  “It ain’t the tugboat. He’s searching past us now.”

  “I’ll tell you what…if I was out here by myself, I’d be running like crazy to get as far away from whatever in the hell that is.”

  “There’s gotta be an explanation. Come on.”

  “Are you out of your freakin’ mind?”

  “Oh, hell, come on. After years of digging in graves, you ain’t gone and got scared of haints on me now, have ya?”