by Alan Monroe
Nighthawk
For my wife who encouraged me in my writing and everything else I’ve tried to do.
I love you babe.
Six Years Ago
Pete propped the rifle barrel on the log and pointed it down the muddy dirt road. Tiny uniformed bodies lined up in the crosshairs one by one, their badges reflecting in the sunlight. An old man followed close behind a muscular officer wearing a leather cowboy hat with the brim pulled low over his eyes. The crosshairs settled on the old man’s left leg, and a slight squeeze of the trigger sent a thirty caliber round down the road and into the middle of the thigh. The old man’s leg flipped out from under his body sending him into the dirt. By the time he racked another round in the bolt action .308 the officers rolled off the side of the road into the forest. He emptied the rifle into the trees anyway searching for movement, and he reached into his pocked to pull out another four rounds.
The solid heel of the brand new size six hiking boot caught his left knee right on the joint; the leg buckled under his weight sending him tumbling to the forest floor. Fingers released the rifle and the unused cartridges allowing them to slide through the mud; Pete ground his teeth together listening to the girl’s footfalls growing steadily quieter. Spots filled his eyes while he stared upward into the dark sky. Tense fingers slowly released his knee and clawed their way along the ground where his rifle landed. After wedging the rifle stock against a tree root, he gripped the barrel and began to pull himself upward with his arms while pushing with his good leg.
Excited voices traveled up the mountain slope perking his ears. He pounded a nearby tree with his right hand until red lines dripped from each knuckle; veins bulged to the surface on his forehead while his teeth ground together. He imagined the stupid girl hugging the pigs further down the mountain; all those hours spent waiting and watching selecting the perfect child down the drain.
Pete adjusted his backpack and slung the rifle over his shoulder and took a few short, gentle steps up the mountain; each heartbeat shot a wave of pain through his knee. Thunder rolled across the sky and water quickly soaked deep into the heavy orange fleece. Pete turned and looked down at the clear footprints in the muddy ground; he stared at the rain driving the ridges left by his boot prints back into the dirt. Despite the pain a smile spread across his face.
Pete took the rifle off his shoulder and double checked the safety. He gripped the barrel with his hand and pressed the stock against the ground, relieving the pressure from his knee. Still, every heartbeat sent a wave of pain through his entire body radiating outward from the knee, but he kept placing one foot in front of the other, following the mountain’s rise. The forest thickened as he moved away from the old service road, allowing him to grip the tree trunks with his left hand and pull himself forward through the thick underbrush.
A branch snapped back into his face below his right eye, digging a path through his skin. Blood trickled down his neck onto the collar of his fleece. After about fifteen minutes, he stopped and stared back at the forest through rain holding his breath and straining his ears. Pete laughed out loud and turned around, but the branch he grabbed with his left hand snapped off. He fell backwards on the wet leaves and slid headfirst down the slope. His shoulders struck a large tree root snapping his body sideways and sending his left knee into the side of a thick tree.
Pete’s eyes grew wide, and he crammed his right hand in between his teeth. Blood dripped from the corners of his mouth; his left hand pounded the tree trunk as he fought to choke back the scream. After several moments, he wiped the bloody right hand on his pants and flipped over so his back rested against the tree. He eased his left pants leg up and looked at the knee swollen to almost twice its normal size. Tread marks from the girl’s boots flexed as the building fluid rolled under the flesh.
Without turning his pants back down, he lunged for the rifle and rammed the stock into the ground wrenching himself back to his feet. Tears dripped from the corners of his eyes as he recovered each step lost from the fall.
Long shadows stretched outward from the base of the trees. Pete closed his eyes and looked straight up, allowing the rain to fall into his mouth. When he lowered his head, he shook the water from his face and started dragging his bad leg up the mountain. Water soaked clothing added twenty pounds to his body, and mud caked to the sides of his boots. After only five steps, he stopped and took several deep breaths; he slammed his left hand into his jaw when his teeth began to chatter.
Pete hobbled to a large stump and sat down; he laid the rifle across his lap and wiped the mud off the stock. Hunched over, the rain began to run down his back, but he did not even move. His eyes stared at the stump’s surface until he finally ran his hand across the smooth cut. Another similar stump sat only ten feet away; a quick look across the slope above him showed hundreds of stumps surrounded by countless smaller trees and brush.
The breath left his mouth ragged when he staggered to his feet and stumbled through the old logging area. His head swiveled back and forth until finally a flat dark shape caught his eye; an old shack with rotten walls stood on the edge of the logged area. He jammed the rifle butt into the mud propelling himself toward an abandoned shack. Pete clawed through the tall grass surrounding the tiny shack and yanked on the door. It finally creaked open, and he stepped in out of the rain pulling the door closed behind him.
Pete stood in the just inside the doorway imagining the girl giving his description to the hick police officers. He served time in prison because of eyewitness testimony before, but they had to find him to send him back to prison. He thought of the miles he covered since the girl kicked him in the knee, and he closed his eyes visualizing the downpour washing away his tracks and scent. Pete smiled again.
A small metal wood burning stove sat in corner; cobwebs covered the corners, and broken chairs littered the floor. A cloud of dust floated out of the stove when Pete opened its door, but that did not stop Pete from filling it with broken chair legs. He unzipped the waterproof backpack and began tearing pages out of a magazine; the wads of paper slipped between the broken chair legs. His hands shook while he held his match to the paper, and the dry chair legs quickly caught fire.
In five minutes, the tiny stove warmed the shack’s interior; Pete carefully pulled off the wet boots and set them close to the hot stove. Next, he stripped out of wet cloths and hung them over the rafters until he was completely naked. His unrolled sleeping bag covered most of the floor, and he sat in the middle silently until he finished eating a few granola bars.
Pete placed the backpack in his lap and removed a roll of duct tape and a package of long thick zip ties; he carefully placed them to the side of his sleeping bag. The picture album followed. He opened it to the first page and stared at the picture of an unknowing teenage girl; the opposite page held a long lock of hair that clearly matched the girl’s hair in the picture. Each page held the picture of a different girl along with a matching lock of hair. He flipped through the book lingering on each page for a moment; on the second to last page, he removed the lock of hair from the plastic and caressed it in his fingers. After sliding it through the edge of his lips, he carefully placed it back in the plastic.
The last occupied page of the large album held a picture of a young girl dressed for a hike in what looked like a brand new pair of unscuffed boots, but the opposite page held no lock of hair. Pete frowned while he ran his fingers across the surface of the picture, and he looked down at the imprint from the girls boot on his knee. He calmly slid the picture from its plastic sleeve and folded it in half before he opened the stove slipping it into the fire. The picture faded quickly as the corners curled inward.
Pete covered his eyes with his arm when the sunlight started to creep through the cracks near the shack’s roofline. Musc
les protested while he slowly sat up; a gentle tap to the bad knee sent a streak of pain through his entire leg. The fire still simmered in the hot stove as he gently pulled on his dry pants, the flames even managed to wick every bit of moisture from the heavy fleece pull over. The cold breeze bit into his face when he opened the door and stepped outside. He looked down the slope at the miles he limped the previous day, and he saw only prison.
Pete zipped his fleece jacket to his chin and leaned on his makeshift crutch trudging up the mountainside. A thick fog clung to the ground limiting his view, but heading up the mountain took him further from capture. He looked back on his life choices which led him to numerous opportunities to hide in a forest. As a boy, the woods had been the only escape from his father’s beatings, and later they gave him the necessary privacy to have the pleasure he deserved. Convincing a judge that a hard life had made him a pedophile seldom proved difficult; Pete chuckled quietly. Only the girls escape dampened his mood.
The fog cleared by midmorning as Pete continued to move uphill, and his pace increased as the bad kneed began to loosen up. From the trees, he peered out into a large firebreak that cut him off from the upper reaches of the mountain. It looked like a giant sword cut deep into the forest removing all trees and grass leaving only a huge muddy path over fifty yards wide in its wake. Pete scanned the empty gash in the side of the mountain to his right and left, but only clear skies and muddy ground greeted his eyes. His leg sank into the mud up to his bad knee with his first step into the open ground; suction threated to slip the hiking boot from his foot when he tried to draw it from the mire. Finally, he struggled from one small grassy patch to the next trying to avoid the deeper puddles.
A line of small trees covered the firebreak’s far edge, but behind them a crown of ancient timber sat on the mountain top stretching far into the sky. Pete clawed his way through the mud pit without ever taking his eyes of the pristine forest less than one hundred yards away. He managed to pull himself out of the firebreak back into the forest, but only managed a broken pace on his way toward the forest’s center. The first old growth trees measured at least twenty feet in circumference. Pete placed his hands on the cold wood, and he could not help but notice the darkness of the forest ahead.
He propped his rifle against the tree and sat down among the huge exposed roots finding it a surprisingly comfortable seat; with some effort, he stretched out his bad leg relieving some of the pressure. Pete stared over the young treetops surround the old growth down into the wide valley holding the town of Nighthawk where all his plans fell apart because of one stupid sheriff’s deputy. There should not have been any deputies in a ghost town. All the time spent watching her and convincing those two ignorant rednecks to help kidnap her and hold her for ransom, completely wasted. Young girls offered much more interesting things than money. Losing the giant fat man and his scrawny cohort turned out to be easier than tricking them into helping take the girl in the first place. Heavy eyelids began to drop, and Pete stretched out even further.
A cool breeze chilled the skin on his face, but the air held a slight tang that just began to tickle Pete’s nose. Without opening his eyes, he lifted his wrist to his nose and scratched. The odor slowly thickened in the air around Pete until he opened his eyes and sat up. His upper lipped curled, and he covered his nose with his hand. Pete scanned the ground looking for a dead animal or manure.
He reached for his makeshift crutch, but his hand only grasped the bark of the tree. His body turned rigid, and he slowly turned his head to the tree’s base staring at the empty ground. Pete placed his left arm against the tree slowly pulling himself to his feet. He quietly limped around the tree’s entire base, but the gun never appeared. Sweat started to roll down his back, and the odor remained.
He began a cautious walk around the edge of the old growth forest, but the smell followed him like a hunter. He changed his direction, but the stench cut him off at every turn. Bile rose in his throat with every breath. Pete ignored the bad knee and ran uphill through thorns and brush cutting his face and hands; when he stopped, he drew a breath of fresh air deep into his lungs. He exhaled once, and the next breath he took felt thick and putrid. Pete fell to his knees and vomited what little food remained in his stomach.
A low growl crawled from forest up the mountain rising in a crescendo until it erupted into a brutal scream. Pete covered his ears with both hands and immediately staggered back down the mountain. He caught his right foot on a root and tumbled head over heels downward until crashing into boulder nestled into a pocket on the steep slope; the scream never stopped. Fingers dug deep into the dirt as he pulled himself around the rock and down the slope.
The smell crawled over him again from his left; the deep, loud roar erupted from the edge of the forest in front of Pete. He ran parallel to the old growth line heedless of the terrain and his swollen knee. When he tried to stop short, he found himself falling forward until his face struck soft forest floor, but the forward momentum pulled his feet over and past his head until he cartwheeled downhill uncontrollably until his back slammed into a tree. He heard half a dozen bones in his spine crack like a giants knuckles.
His world turned upside down and filled with pain; tears squeezed from corners of his closed eyes when his body twisted away from the tree sending him face down in a puddle. Sweat and tears blurred his vision, and the raw stench covered his body again. He sensed a powerful presence nearby, and Pete felt the rage cut through the air. Heavy footsteps sent tiny ripples through the puddle near his face, but Pete’s broken back prevented him from turning his head. Rays from the sun broke through canopy overhead and reflected in the small puddle. Pete saw his own face come into focus after a moment, but it looked different yet familiar. It matched the expression he saw on the faces of dozens of young women when their perception caught up with reality. Darkness loomed over his should blotting out sun erasing the reflection.
Sunday May 5, 12:30 P.M.
“Daddy you got big feet.”
Sheriff Davis looked down at the footprints he left in the three inches of snow while he carried the laughing four year old boy to his wife’s SUV. He turned and looked at the size twelve prints leading all the way back to the door of the Chinese Restaurant while he shook his head and smiled at the pointing boy. Davis’ wife, Misty, laughed and opened the backdoor allowing him to set their oldest son in the booster seat, and the two year climbed over his impatient brother and into his own car seat giggling the entire way.
The spring snowfall came as a surprise to Okanogan County, Washington residents ready for warm weather and the summer tourist season. Nestled against the Canadian border, the largest county in Washington held less than one percent of the state’s entire population.
The phone in Davis’ hip pocket started to ring.
“I hate that thing,” Davis grumbled.
“Throw it away,” Misty replied.
“Don’t tempt me.”
“What the worst that could happen? It’s not like the county can fire you.”
The phone continued to ring.
“Probably not. But they might not re-elect me.”
“True,” Misty said. “You should probably at least look at the caller id. The house isn’t paid for yet.”
Davis finished buckling his oldest son, Jason, into the car seat of his wife’s black Ford Explorer. He pulled out the phone and looked at the caller I.D.
He looked toward his wife, “Its Tom Roundtree, I’m going to have to take this.”
Misty finished buckling in the couple’s youngest son, Drew. “Just as long as you can drive in 3 inches of snow and talk on the phone at the same time.”
Davis laughed and said, “I’ll talk before I drive.”
After listening for a few moments, he ended the call and stared the SUV. “Up for a side trip on the way home babe.”
“Do I get to arrest someone this time?” Misty asked.
“Probably not.”
“All right. Just please turn on th
e four wheel drive this time.”
“It’s only three inches deep.”
“It will make me feel better Mr. Macho. I know you can get by without it.”
“Yes mam.”
Davis pressed the button to engage the Explorer’s four wheel drive as he accelerated through the fresh snow.
Twenty minutes later Davis was pulling over to the side of the road a short distance from the car accident. He turned around and looked at the sleeping 4 year old and 2 year old boys.
“Good looking boys aren’t they?”
Misty smiled. “Yes they are; everyone says they look just like their father.”
“Didn’t I lock him up a few years back?”
Misty punched Davis in the arm. “Not funny.”
“Hey, I’d lock up all your old boyfriends if I could. You’re worth holding onto.”
“Whatever,” Misty rolled her eyes. “Why is Tom working a car accident? Isn’t he your special something or another?”
“Chief of Special Operations.”
“Too many names and titles. Why is he working an accident?”
Davis sighed. “We’re so shorthanded right now with the forest fire two counties south, everybody has to pitch in.”
“Even the sheriff on his day off?”
“Especially the sheriff.” Davis looked toward the accident scene. “Tom said somebody got hurt real bad in this one.”
“When are you going to get the rest of your deputies back?”
“I don’t know. It could be another couple of weeks.”
Misty turned towards the wrecked car. “DUI?”
“I don’t know yet. Sunday morning isn’t our peek time for drunk drivers.”
“Not everybody is in Church with the sheriff. Do you want the boys and me to wait for you?”
“No; this could take a while. I’ll get Tom to drop me off when we’re done.”