The People In The Woods

by Robert Brown

Wrong.

  As Nick got to his door, Bennett glanced up, saw him, and quickly deleted a tab from his browser, leaving Nick staring at an image of a mass shooting on CNN.

  “Oh, hello, Nick.” Bennett sounded remarkably casual.

  “Um, hi. I’m looking into those petroglyphs I asked you about earlier. Do you know of any sites near here?”

  “Oh, yes, there are a couple right here in Jackson County.” Bennett moved his chair closer to his desk as if to let himself get a better view of his screen. However, Nick guessed the movement was more likely intended to hide the bulge in his slacks, which Nick had already noticed. Nick went back to looking at the mass shooting. It was easier on the eyes.

  Bennett pulled up a state map with numerous symbols marked on it.

  “These are all the Mississippian period sites in the state. The Xs are petroglyph sites,” he said, making all the other symbols disappear. Bennett zoomed in on Jackson County. There were two Xs. One was along the river not far from town. The other was farther away.

  “The one by the river is in a cave,” Bennett said. “This other one is a small rock shelter with a few poorly preserved carvings.”

  “Interesting. Any others close by?”

  “Nothing else within fifty miles. This region was populated pretty early during the western migration, so vandalism or development would have erased many petroglyph sites. I never liked that word, myself. ‘Development’ usually involves erasing the past. I fail to see how that’s developing anything.”

  “Thanks. Can you print this?”

  “Certainly. So, what are you researching again?”

  “Um, this is more personal interest. I feel I don’t know enough about the local history. I think these places would be fun to visit.”

  “Just so you know, both of these sites are on private property.”

  “Oh.”

  Bennett smiled and stood as his printer began spitting out the map.

  “It’s all right. I know you won’t get up to anything illegal.”

  At least not the kind of illegality you’re thinking of.

  Bennett fetched the map. Nick held it in both hands as an excuse to not take Bennett’s outstretched hand. Why did this guy insist on shaking hands so much?

  He decided to call Carl, who had been to at least one of these places. He’d set up a meeting for after work. As Nick scrolled through his phone to find Clayton’s contact information so that he could ask him for the forklift operator’s number, he came across Carl’s.

  Oh, so I have it already. Damn, that was a rough evening.

  Nick continued scrolling through his contacts and found he had everyone’s number, even Trisha’s. Through his mind floated a brief fantasy that he quickly suppressed. He didn’t want to end up like Bennett.

  He called Carl, who picked up on the third ring.

  “You’re in luck, Professor. Today’s my day off.”

  “It’s the middle of the week.”

  “Oh, I work Saturdays. Feed mill runs every day except Sunday. Let’s go right now. You know where the feed mill is, right? I’ll meet you there and we’ll go in my truck.”

  Nick drove over and found Carl leaning against a pickup truck. Wayne, the lean assistant manager, was there too.

  “You boys gonna have some fun without me?” Wayne asked, spitting tobacco juice on the pavement.

  “Hopefully not too much fun,” Nick said.

  “You bring a gun?” Wayne asked.

  “I don’t own one.”

  The assistant manager shook his head.

  “Don’t worry, I got one,” Carl said. Nick saw a rifle hanging on a rack in the back of the cab. He felt a prickle of fear.

  “Let’s go,” Carl said, squeezing into the driver’s seat. Nick got in.

  They decided to go to the farthest site first, then to the one by the river later, as Carl already knew how to get there.

  All the way, Carl talked cheerfully about Native American sites he had visited. He’d been all over the state gathering arrowheads and pieces of pottery.

  “The best time is right after plowing,” he said. “Especially if it rains. The plow turns up the earth and the rain washes the stuff clean, making it easy to spot. I never heard of this site you got on the map, though.”

  “It’s on private property.”

  “I don’t have a problem with that,” Carl said, laughing.

  “I don’t, either. But let’s be careful, OK?”

  It took some time to find the county road that led to the site. They were in a forested area and couldn’t see any landmarks. At last, they passed a farmhouse and the county road zigzagged between a couple of rock outcroppings, just as the nearby road did on the map.

  “Should be about two hundred yards north of here,” Nick said, studying the map. “Let’s find a place where we can hide the truck.”

  Carl found a clear spot between two bushes and managed to get the pickup off the road enough that it wouldn’t be spotted unless someone passed by and looked into the woods. They got out and Carl took his rifle.

  “Is that really necessary?” Nick asked.

  “Didn’t these nutcases shoot at you?”

  Nick didn’t have an answer to that.

  They started walking. Though it was autumn, most of the leaves were still on the trees and the air was muggy. Cicadas hummed but the birds were silent, resting on the boughs in the mid-afternoon heat. Carl was soon huffing and sweating.

  “We almost there?” he asked, keeping his voice low. They had passed a No Trespassing sign a little way back.

  “Hung over?” Nick asked with a smile.

  “Always am.”

  “My daughter would say, ‘That’s not a good look.’”

  Carl laughed. “Family man, eh? No wonder you want to get rid of these Satanists. Don’t want them around a respectable town like Republic.”

  Nick thought of the students who had been assaulted by townies when they strayed too far off campus but didn’t say anything. These guys seemed to accept him, or at least see him as useful. He had nothing to fear from them.

  That bar, though. What if he had gone in there by himself?

  The map wasn’t of a fine enough scale to guide them very well. It took half an hour of wandering and sweating before they spotted a rock outcropping that looked like the one Bennett had described.

  It was a pile of granite boulders, no doubt deposited by retreating glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age. The landscape in this region was littered with them.

  They circled it slowly, coming to a spot where the main boulder, an oblong stone the size of a van, leaned to one side. Three smaller boulders were arrayed nearby, making a small inner area partially sheltered by the main stone. Scrambling inside, they found themselves crouching on a small patch of dirt about five by five feet. On the ground they found several used condoms and an empty bottle of vodka. The label was only slightly faded; Nick could see that it was an expensive brand.

  “Looks like someone had a party,” Carl whispered.

  “Yeah, and not too long ago.” Nick looked up. “Hey! Look at the carvings.”

  “Keep your voice down. We’re not far from that farmhouse.”

  The carvings were faint, but in the slanting light of afternoon Nick and Carl could make out the shallow, weathered lines. One carving was of a crescent moon, while another showed the wolf. Another seemed to be some sort of geometric form, but it was too faint to make out clearly.

  “You think the cult left this stuff here?” Carl whispered, indicating the bottle and condoms.

  Nick shrugged. They searched around but found no animal corpses. Nick took pictures of the litter and the petroglyphs and they returned to the truck.

  “That rock art was pretty neat. Too bad we didn’t get a lead on those Satanists,” Carl said, pulling out.

  “Let’s check out that cave by the river.”

  As they drove past the farmhouse, they saw an old man with a thick white beard and overalls come running out
of the front door, moving surprisingly fast for someone his age.

  “Shit,” Carl said. “Spotted.”

  In the rearview mirror, Nick saw the old man run into the road and stand staring at them, fists on his hips as they drove away.

  “You think he’ll call the cops?” Nick asked.

  “I hope not. Even if he did, he can’t prove we were trespassing. We can say we got lost.”

  Nick sat uneasily as Carl headed for the river, thinking that at any moment a police car would pull them over.

  That made him think of Sheriff O’Connor. He should really tell the sheriff about what was going on, but how could he do that while protecting Matt? If he couldn’t talk about the incident near Matt’s country store, what did he have? Some cut-up animals in the woods and a brief sighting of someone in a hooded robe. Not much more than what they already had. No, Nick had to get something solid, a confirmed sighting with more than one witness at another site, without involving Matt.

  But even if he did, would the sheriff care? He was busy arresting violent criminals and busting up meth labs. Without a report of gunplay, this cult would remain low priority.

  Nick sighed as he watched the countryside go by, patches of wood separated by long stretches of open farmland. It was pretty country, now that he was looking at it. He’d never really explored it much. In fact, other than his jogging, this exploration of the rock shelter had been the first time he’d ventured into the countryside in over a year.

  “So, what other historical sites are around here?” he asked Carl.

  “You mean ones you can go to legally? Plenty.” That launched the forklift driver into a long, rambling monologue about historic homes and villages in the area. Nick smiled. For an uneducated man, Carl certainly knew a lot. The guy had obviously explored his home state well.

  The trees thickened as they approached the river, the road dipping down to the bottomland. Every now and then, housing developments scarred the countryside, but those petered out as they continued. Nick realized they were heading away from Republic. The town was not on the river but about five miles away from it on a tributary. The cave was a good ten miles downstream. They left the last of the suburbs far behind them.

  The river had plenty of pull-off points. Carl explained that it was a popular place for fishing and float trips, during which groups of friends brought tires and beer and floated down the river. Nick had never tried that. Except for dining at a fancy restaurant overlooking the river close to town, he had never been down here at all.

  Carl pulled off at an open patch of ground next to the river just as the sun disappeared behind a line of trees on the far shore. However, there was still enough light to see as they got out. Carl fetched his rifle.

  “Do we really need that?” Nick asked again. “No one else is here.”

  “Better safe than sorry.”

  They started walking along a path skirting the water. The river was wide and calm, with muddy water that moved sluggishly between overgrown banks. Far out, they saw a small motorboat moving away from them, the sound of its engine fading into the distance. Soon it was gone and the only sounds they heard were birdsong and the rising buzz of cicadas.

  They saw no one. After about fifteen minutes, Nick asked how much farther they had to go.

  “Not far. There’s another pull-off point on the other side. That one’s closer, but I wanted to keep some distance in case those inbreds are up there.”

  Nick suppressed a smile at the term “inbreds.” If anyone was inbred, it was Carl and his friends. He glanced nervously at the rifle that Carl had slung over his shoulder.

  “Do the cops ever come down here? I don’t want them seeing you with that.”

  Carl laughed. “You’re allowed open carry outside of town. Don’t you know anything?”

  “Never been much into guns,” Nick muttered.

  “I don’t really care if you are. But come on, buddy, you ain’t never been to any historical sites, you don’t know the laws…it’s like you don’t live here.”

  “I’m pretty busy at the university.”

  “So busy you can’t explore the county you live in? That’s the problem with you university folks. You come here from back East or from California and you take one look around you and raise your noses in the air. Think you’re too good for us.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “The hell it isn’t,” Carl retorted. His words lacked heat, sounding more amused than angry. “I go to the Drunken Indian near every week, and until last night I’ve never seen a university professor take a step inside. Hell, the students don’t even go to Dreams Cum True. You’d think some titties would get them out of their shell, but no.”

  Nick stopped and turned on him, suddenly angry. Carl stopped too, cocking his head.

  “You think we’d be welcome? Everyone stared at me when I walked into that bar. I’m surprised the bartender didn’t spit in my drink. And what about that Brett Dawson kid? They beat him up and put fishhooks in him, for Christ’s sake. And what about that black kid who got roughed up at the dance hall?”

  Carl snorted. “Let me tell you about Brett Dawson. I heard all about it from one of the guys that was there. A group of local guys were fishing on the bank of the river, catching catfish not far from where we are now. One guy is divorced, and he had his daughter with him. The ex-wife and kid live up in Sykeston, so he gets to see her only on weekends. The girl’s only fourteen. Well, she wasn’t interested in fishing, so she was wandering around along the riverbank while her dad and his friends did their thing. Then they hear her screaming in the woods. They run over and find that Brett Dawson kid trying to rip off her clothes. Fourteen! The kid can’t get some college pussy his own age?”

  “OK, assuming that’s what really happened, why didn’t they call the police?”

  “And embarrass the girl with a trial? Hell, the kid would have probably gotten off anyway. Said a bunch of stuff about how she wanted it or something. Hired some slick lawyer from the city. No, they decided to make their own justice.”

  “So, what about that black kid? Did he deserve to get threatened just for going to a dance hall?”

  “Oh, he was just trying to make a fuss. What black guy wants to go square dancing? Sure, there are some rednecks in this town. Plenty of racists around here, just like there are wherever you’re from. But there are plenty of places where colored folk are welcome. Look at the Drunken Indian. You saw blacks in there, didn’t you? Hell, sometimes Brandon goes next door to get a lap dance from the white chicks there and no one says a word crosswise.”

  “Look,” Nick said in a conciliatory tone. “I’m not saying everyone here is bad. You guys are proof of that. But it wouldn’t hurt to be more welcoming.”

  “Why should we be more welcoming? You’re the incomers. Why don’t you take the first step? Now come on, light’s fading. Let’s get this done.”

  They walked in silence for a time. To their left rose a limestone cliff about forty feet high. When Nick opened his mouth to speak again, Carl put a finger to his lips and pointed ahead of them.

  About halfway up the cliff gaped the cave’s open mouth. It was roughly flat on the bottom and arched at the top, about ten feet wide and twelve feet high. In the fading light, Nick didn’t see a way up.

  Carl took his rifle off his shoulder and led him a little past the cliff, where a thin trail appeared, hugging the cliff face and sloping upward.

  As they set foot on the trail, a burst of laughter from the cliff stopped them cold.

  It was followed by low conversation. The voices sounded young, like the cultists they had surprised near the country store.

  With care, Carl crept up the trail, his gun leveled. Nick was surprised that such a big man could move so quietly. He figured Carl must be a hunter. Nick tried not to make any sound as he followed.

  As they approached the cave mouth, they saw a faint light burning inside. The voices grew clearer—a group of young men all talking at once.


  “We smashed them!”

  “They didn’t stand a chance.”

  “Next time we’ll do even better.”

  Nick’s heart pounded so hard in his chest, he felt sure the hidden men in the cave would hear it. As they neared the top, Carl rushed up the last few yards and planted himself at the cave mouth, pointing his rifle at the interior.

  “Freeze!”

  Nick expected a fusillade. Instead, he heard a chorus of screams.

  “Holy shit!”

  “Don’t hurt us, man!”

  Nick rushed up and peeked around Carl’s wide frame. Half a dozen teenaged boys stood or sat in the cave, hands raised in the air, eyes wide. A case of beer sat at their feet. Several open cans lay scattered about.

  “Relax!” Nick said, putting a hand on Carl’s shoulder. “It’s not them.”

  “How do you know?” Carl whispered so the kids couldn’t hear. “You said their faces were hidden by hoods.”

  “Yeah, but they weren’t scared of seeing a gun,” Nick whispered back. “They shot at us. Besides, these kids look like they’re in high school.”

  “That doesn’t mean nothing. We just got the drop on them, is all.”

  “They’re all boys, too. There was at least one woman among them.”

  The boys stared at them, trying to listen in on their whispered conversation. One of them spoke up, his voice quavering. “We didn’t do anything. Can’t you just let us leave?”

  “What are you doing here?” Carl demanded.

  “Just drinking. Having some fun. We’re from the Republic High School football team. We came here to celebrate a win.”

  Nick nodded. That would explain what he’d overheard.

  “You seen anyone else around here?” he asked.

  “No. We got here only, like, half an hour ago.”

  “Move over to the other side of the cave there,” Carl said, gesturing with his gun.

  “Put that away,” Nick said. Carl still had his finger on the trigger. Nick was terrified that he’d fire by accident or if one of the boys made a sudden move.

  “I’ll put it away when I’m sure it’s not them.”

  “Who do you think we are?” asked one of the boys.

  “Quiet,” Carl snapped.