New River Breeze

by Ed Robinson

  “Would you do it again?”

  “It’s been a long time,” I said. “But I think that under the right circumstances, I would try it.”

  “What would those circumstances be?”

  “Controlled environment with someone you trust,” I said. “Like at home with you.”

  “I will file that away for future reference,” she said. “I’ve never done anything like that.”

  “I wasn’t a straight arrow hoping to be an FBI agent someday,” I said. “I went through a phase where I would try just about anything, except needles.”

  “So what do you think happened to this guy?”

  “Somebody put regular mushrooms in a bag and dropped some acid on them.”

  “People are strange,” she said.

  “Now he’ll be exhausted, thirsty, and confused,” I said. “He hasn’t eaten, and he has no clothes. Doesn’t know where he is or how he got there. He’s in trouble.”

  “Eat up,” she said. “We’ll round up the troops and save his sorry ass.”

  We cleaned up our breakfast mess and prepared a light pack for the day. We spread out on the way to Jessie’s and looked for Bobbie’s clothes. Brody found a pair of jeans, but that was it. We found the girl with the Maine couple at their site.

  “Is everyone ready for a little hiking today?” I asked.

  “We’ve got to find Bobbie,” Jessie said. “But how?”

  “We go in the direction he was traveling,” I said. “We spread out but not so far we can’t hear each other. We yell his name, look for footprints, beat the bushes. He’ll turn up.”

  “I can carry a little extra food for when we find him,” the Loon said. “I see you found his pants.”

  “I’ve got an aversion to seeing other dude’s junk,” I said. “Must have been something in my upbringing.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said. “In case Chickadee wants to go skinny dipping.”

  “Let’s hit the trail,” I said. “Once we get away from the campsites, we’ll start yelling for him.”

  “Everyone ready?” Brody asked.

  We all nodded in the affirmative.

  “Let’s roll,” said the Loon.

  Two

  The New River flows north in Ashe County, North Carolina, into Virginia. I’ve heard it’s the only major river in the United States to flow north. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but we followed it north looking for Bobbie. We gradually fanned out and started calling his name. I was closest to the river, thinking that’s where he would be. Brody was roughly one hundred yards to my left. The others were similarly staggered to the left of her. The Loon was farthest away from the river. I couldn’t hear him yell, but I could hear his wife and everyone else. I kept looking for a bare footprint in the mud beside the river. I kept an eye on Brody, so we didn’t wander too far apart.

  We assumed that all the noise we were making would deter bears and that Bobbie would hear us sooner or later. None of us thought that it would take long to find him, but as the day wore on, our thinking began to change. Sometime after noon, I called everyone together so we could take a break. We took stock of our supplies. We’d only brought enough water and snacks to last the day. If we didn’t find him in the next few hours, we’d be forced to turn back. We didn’t want to get stuck out there in the dark. We had more supplies back at camp to get us through the night.

  “You think maybe we ought to call the authorities?” asked Loon.

  “I do,” said Chickadee. “Figured we’d have got him by now.”

  “Any chance he’s hiding from us due to all the racket?” Brody asked. “Maybe he thinks we want to arrest him.”

  “I’ll defer to Jessie Lynn,” I said. “She knows him.”

  “He went berserk,” said Jessie. “The drugs made him crazy. He’s not like that. He’s a curious sort, kind of sensitive. Always talking about nature and stuff. He’s got to be afraid right now, which is all the more reason we need to find him.”

  “He’s never done anything like this before?” I asked.

  “Never,” she said. “He doesn’t even do drugs, other than a puff of weed if someone offers it.”

  “He was at a dead run when we saw him,” I said. “If he kept that up for long he could still be miles north of us. How're everyone’s legs holding up?”

  I secretly wished that someone would say they’d had enough. My knees were holding out, but I was about to push them more than I wanted to. I didn’t want to be the one to beg for mercy, though. I didn’t get my wish. The Loon and the Chickadee reported that they were fine and willing to go on. Jessie was eager to continue. Brody gave me a look of concern, reading my mind in regards to my knees. I used the last of the bottle of water I was drinking to wash down two Ibuprofen.

  “Let’s find him,” I said. “Keep up the chatter.”

  We spread out again and continued our trek north. I hoped that Bobbie hadn’t strayed so far from the river that he couldn’t hear us. He would definitely want a drink. His thirst would drive him to the river. If we had to turn around and go back, we could look farther west on the return trip. We hiked for two more hours, yelling his name at intervals. Where was he?

  Finally, I decided that we’d strayed far enough from camp. We’d be pushed to make it back by dark, even if we hurried. I made my way to Brody’s side, and together we met up with the other three. After a short rest, we redeployed farther west and started our march back. After a few hours, my knees started to give me warning signs. They weren’t screaming, but I could feel some tenderness creeping in. I didn’t like it, but it was to be expected. I’d done too much. I got close enough to Brody to talk without yelling.

  “I’m going to slow down,” I told her. “I’ll be stopping and resting too. Stay with the others in case Bobbie turns up.”

  “I hate to leave you behind,” she said. “You won’t make it back before dark.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “Mountain man and all that shit.”

  “We’re going to have to call in the police,” she said.

  “They’ll call me and ask me to bring Red out here,” I said. “I don’t think I’ll be able to keep up with him.”

  We had boarded our hound dog at the vet in Banner Elk. The girls there loved him and spoiled him rotten. He was normally part of our team, but this camping trip wasn’t a good fit. He would have to be kept on a leash and sleep in the tent with us. Brody didn’t allow him in our bed, let alone in our sleeping bag.

  “Go ahead without me,” I said. “Keep the others out from the river. Keep calling for Bobbie.”

  “See you back at camp,” she said.

  I rested and cursed my knees for a few minutes. Getting old was a bitch. I’d been trying to come to terms with it lately, with little success. I had no time for weakness. I had shit to do. I started walking again at a slower pace, taking care not to stress my aching joints. I also started to hear better without the noise of the rest of my team. I started picking up on the scents of the woods too. I let it come to me, feeling the vibrations of the woods and the river. Now that I was alone, I could get a better feel for what was happening around me. I hadn’t thought that I’d need to go all Zen to find a naked tripper, but I went with it anyway. If I was going to move slowly, I could at least take advantage of the skills that I possessed.

  After two hours, I heard something that was not natural to the forest. I stopped and listened more intently. I heard it again. It was a muffled sobbing sound off to my right, barely audible. I zeroed in on it and tracked it down. Tucked up under a low hanging pine was a naked man, snuffling into his hands.

  “It’s okay, Bobbie,” I said. “I’m here to help. Are you hurt?”

  “The Moon-eyed People, man,” he said. “They were everywhere.”

  “Moon-eyed People?”

  “All over these woods,” he said. “Up and down the hill.”

  “Are they here now?”

  “They only come out at night,” he said. “They were carry
ing rocks up the hill from the river.”

  “Are you still tripping?”

  “I’m not tripping, man,” he said. “You said you were here to help me.”

  “I’ve got your pants,” I said, tossing them to him. “We need to get you back to Jessie Lynn. She’s worried sick about you.”

  He came out of hiding, wearing the jeans. I gave him water and a granola bar. He kept telling me about the Moon-eyed People, insisting that what he saw was not drug-induced.

  “They carried the rocks up there,” he said, pointing. “Come on; I’ll show you.”

  I followed him up the hill where we found rocks stacked in a line about ten feet long and two feet high. They were smooth like river rocks and obviously placed by hand. It was a curious sight, given Bobbie’s story, but I was sure there was some reasonable explanation.

  “See?” he said. “I’m telling you the truth.”

  “Let’s get back to the campsite,” I told him. “Get you warm by the fire and put some dinner in you. Jessie will be relieved that you’re okay.”

  “You believe me, don’t you?” he asked.

  “I believe that you think you saw something.”

  “I was coming down when I saw them,” he said. “I don’t know what the deal was with those mushrooms, but I wasn’t tripping all night long.”

  “Somebody dropped you some acid,” I told him. “Let that be a lesson to you.”

  “I only did it because it was supposed to be an organic high,” he said. “People told me it was a nice experience.”

  “It should have been,” I said. “But you got punked.”

  “Fuck,” he said.

  “You scared the hell out of your girlfriend and put several other people out,” I said. “You’ll be apologizing when we get back, understand?”

  “I am sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting anything like what happened.”

  “Follow me,” I said. “I’m moving a little slow, but we’ll get there.”

  By the time we made camp, I’d had enough of my knees whining, and enough of the Moon-eyed People. Jessie ran out to hug Bobbie and wrapped him in her sleeping bag. The Loon had some meat cooking over the fire and a bottle of brandy by his side. Brody kissed me and asked how I was doing.

  “I wish we could go home now,” I said. “But I’m not canoeing out of here in the dark. Booze and Advil will have to hold me until morning.”

  “Coming up,” she said. “Go sit by the fire.”

  I pulled up a stump and sat next to the Loon.

  “Where was he?” he asked.

  “A natural hut under a pine,” I told him. “We passed close by it this morning.”

  “He must have been asleep,” he said.

  “Maybe so,” I said. “He keeps rambling on about little white people with big eyes.”

  “Moon-eyed People?”

  “How did you know?” I asked.

  “We did some research on local lore before we came down here,” he explained. “Read about the Cherokee legends. The story of the Moon-eyes caught our attention.”

  “Bobbie claims to have seen them firsthand,” I said. “Says he was no longer high when it happened.”

  “This trip just got a lot more interesting,” he said. “Excuse me while I talk to the boy.”

  Brody brought me what was left of the whiskey. I sat staring at the fire, listening to Bobbie tell the Loon all about the Moon-eyed People. His hallucination involved intricate details that could only have been produced by LSD. The Loon, however, seemed fascinated. The Chickadee was listening intently as well. These people were very white, with hair that was so blond it was almost white too. They had big blue eyes that shone in the dim moonlight. They wore flowing robes that made them appear ghostlike. They were all busy gathering rocks and transporting them up the hill. Bobbie watched from his hiding spot, too afraid to move.

  “Not that I believe any of this,” I said. “But I saw a wall of rocks up the hill from where I found him.”

  The Loon tried to convince Bobbie to take him to see those rocks the next day. Bobbie and Jessie just wanted to go home. He turned and looked at me.

  “I want to go home too,” I said. “I can try to give you directions, but that’s the best I can do.”

  “If the rock wall is there like you say it is,” he said. “I might want to move our camp near there and see these little people myself.”

  “You’ll need more than brandy to see them,” I said. “Ask Bobbie if he has any more magic mushrooms.”

  “I threw them in the river with the rest of our stuff,” Bobbie said. “There was bad juju in those things.”

  “Maybe the Moon-eyed People will find them,” I said. “They’ll be seeing naked humans hiding under every tree.”

  “I saw what I saw,” he said. “I’m sorry to be of nuisance to you. I want to thank you for coming for me.”

  “Apologize to your girlfriend,” I said. “If we weren’t here, she would have had a rough time of it.”

  He got up with the sleeping bag still wrapped around him and went to Jessie Lynn. They hugged tightly for a minute.

  “I’m so sorry, baby,” he said. “I won’t do anything like that again. Not even dope. I swear it.”

  “It will be okay,” she said. “We’ll get out of here tomorrow and go back home.”

  “You probably shouldn’t go around telling everyone about the little people you saw in the woods,” I said. “Wouldn’t want folks to think you’ve gone crazy.”

  “Take your tent and go with your friend here,” Bobbie said. “You’ll see.”

  “You’re welcome to come along,” The Loon said.

  “No thanks,” I said. “This trip is over in the morning.”

  We didn’t bother with cooking breakfast. We packed up our stuff and loaded the canoe at first light. We exchanged contact information with our new friends before shoving off and paddling back to the park office. We stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Boone to get some food before driving to Banner Elk to pick up our hound dog Red. He practically licked the stubble off my face when they let him out. I hugged him and rubbed behind his ears until he finally settled down. Brody took care of the bill while I took him out to the car. He was as ready to go home as we were.

  I let him run around the yard once we got to the cabin. He marked his favorite spots to reestablish his territory before we went inside. It wasn’t long before he was lying on the rug in front of the fireplace. I propped my tired legs up in the recliner instead of unloading our gear.

  “I’ll get it later,” I told Brody. “Just leave it for now.”

  “How are your bones?” she asked.

  “Not horrible,” I said. “I didn’t wreck them again, but I think I pushed them right up to their limit.”

  “You would have been fine if we didn’t have to organize a search party for a fool,” she said.

  “He was damn lucky for that,” I said. “Could have gone bad for them otherwise.”

  “You’re either in the right place at the right time, or the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said. “I’m not sure which.”

  “At least there were no dead bodies involved this time,” I said.

  “You’re going to need to rest those old knees again,” she said. “We’ll find some flat ground to explore when you’re feeling better.”

  “Flat ground is a rare thing in the High Country.”

  “We can walk around the park,” she said. “Get you some good walking shoes. Build you back up before we hit the mountains again.”

  “We live on a mountain.”

  “Don’t be stubborn,” she said. “You need to take this seriously, or you won’t be able to do shit.”

  She was right. There wasn’t much point to living here if I couldn’t enjoy all the things that I loved about the area. I’d been trying to turn myself into a mountain man, and had done a good job of it, but if I wanted that to continue, I needed to manage the arthritis in my knees. It sucked getting old. If my knees didn’t im
prove, I might as well move back to Florida. Walking in the sand was a good workout, and there were no hills.

  “While I’m sitting here doing nothing,” I said. “Why don’t you look up those Moon People that Bobbie was talking about?”

  “Moon-eyed People,” she said. “He was very specific about that.”

  “Let’s see what the internet has to say about them.”

  Red came and begged to be rubbed while Brody asked Google about the Moon-eyed People. I stroked his smooth fur from my position in the recliner. He wanted me to get down on the floor with him like I normally would, but my knees nixed that idea.

  “It’s a real thing,” Brody said. “At least the legend is.”

  “The Cherokee thing?”

  “Yes, they said that little white people inhabited these lands before the Indians arrived,” she said. “Eventually the Cherokee ran them off or killed them.”

  “Where’s the Moon-eyed part come in?”

  “They only came out at night,” she said. “Couldn’t see in the daytime. These descriptions are exactly like Bobbie’s.”

  “I’m guessing Bobbie has read the same story,” I said. “Or heard the legend passed down over the generations.”

  “Come look at this,” she said. “This is a sandstone sculpture on display at the Cherokee History Museum.”

  The picture showed two little people, about three feet tall, with huge eyes. They were conjoined like Siamese twins. It was found in the 1840s near Murphy, North Carolina. It meshed nicely with the legend we were discussing, but hardly convinced me. It did arouse my curiosity.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “Myth based on some reality,” she said. “Embellished over hundreds of years.”

  “What’s the real part?” I asked. “Little people, big-eyed people, white-skinned people?”

  “Albinos maybe,” she said.

  “Albinos that only come out at night,” I said. “Aliens landed at Roswell.”

  “Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

  “Sure,” I said. “But let’s stay rational about this. There is probably a reasonable explanation for the legend.”