The Hunter

by Kurt Robinson

  “I agree! We need to get back now before we get lost in this shit!” Travers yelled.

  “We can’t let them get away with that coke!” Cavanah responded.

  “They’ll die out in this! There’s no way they can survive!” Levinson tried to explain.

  “We’re not going back until we find them! Now, shut the fuck up and move!” Cavanah demanded.

  They continued the painful walk for another ten slow steps when Travers opened his mouth again, “Alright, fuck this! I’m heading back!” and then began to turn around.

  “You take one more step, I’ll fuckin’ shoot you my-“ but Cavanah’s words were cut short as he took a fall over something in the snow, something that he couldn’t even see. He fell over the object face first, his arm and head swallowed by the snow. He stood up quickly, wiping the snow off his face and shining his flashlight at the object. Travers turned around and pointed his light in that direction. They weren’t shocked, but a little relieved when they all realized it was Mr. Mob Guy’s female companion. She was pale, partly covered by snow, and her eyes were still wide open. They didn’t need to feel for a pulse - they knew she was gone.

  “Son of a bitch!” Yelled Cavanah. “Where the fuck is the guy!?”

  “He probably went a little further, but he’s gotta be dead by now too!” Levinson yelled back.

  “Yeah, he’s probably gone too! But we can’t see shit in this!” Travers joined in. “We can’t even see the footprints anymore! Let’s just grab her and take her back, we’ll look for him in the morning when the snow dies down! It’s supposed to anyway!”

  “I agree, Sergeant! He won’t survive this, but we won’t either if we keep on like we are! We’ll take her back and come back out and get him in the morning. He can’t be far!” Levinson persuaded Cavanah.

  “Fuck!” Cavanah said to himself, realizing they were right and that he was tired of fighting through the snowstorm. “Alright, we’ll go back! Grab her feet!” he shouted. Levinson grabbed the woman’s feet and Cavanah grabbed under her armpits. They made the long grueling walk back to the warehouse in whiteout conditions.

  Seven

  Saturday - 12:41 A.M.

  The impatient rookie on the Lexington Police Department, Officer Lewis, paced back and forth in the cold warehouse as the wind howled. He was able to get all the bodies in a pile in the warehouse and got Mr. Mob Guy’s cars to start. He drove them into the warehouse so the black SUVs would be out of sight. He closed the large sliding door to the warehouse a little over half way to try and keep as much of the wind and snow out. He also left one of the SUVs running with the headlights on so he could see. He absolutely hated the situation he was in right now.

  Cavanah, Levinson, and Travers were not back yet and he began to worry. Were they lost? Did they freeze to death? Did they kill each other? Did Mr. Mob Guy ambush them and kill them? Every possible scenario was running through his head. He tried calling them but no answer; they probably couldn’t hear their phones ringing in this mess anyway. He was also worried because Adam had not showed up yet. Lewis finally decided that enough was enough and he pulled his cell phone from his pocket, took off his glove, and selected Adam’s number. Just as he did, he heard grunting from the front of the warehouse and looked up.

  Travers came through the front large door of the warehouse panting and snow stuck to his coat and his scruffy face. Right behind him was Cavanah and Levinson who carried the plum white dead body of the woman. They too were panting and appeared to be shaking. Lewis, thinking quickly, ran to the shot up police cars, started them both, and turned on the heat. He was amazed they started; he was just hoping they would. He also grabbed the coats of the dead henchmen and officers that had a few holes and blood on them, which he had taken off and put in the back seat, and ran toward the three men.

  Travers fell to his knees and Cavanah and Levinson dropped the body on the cold hard concrete and fell to their knees, just exhausted. Lewis arrived at their side and threw the coats on each of them as they shook and took quick short breaths.

  “What the fuck happened out there? What took you so long?” Lewis asked but didn’t get an answer. “Shit, alright, I got the heat on in the cars, come on let’s get y’all in there.”

  Officer Lewis helped each one of them to the cars that would be heating up soon. He put Cavanah and Levinson in the front seat of one car, put the coats over top of them, and cranked the heat up. Then he got in the front of the other car with Travers, threw a coat over him, and cranked up the heat in there as well.

  They could do nothing right now. All they could do was sit, get warmed back up, and wait for Adam to arrive. They had been sitting in the now warm cars for almost fifteen minutes when Lewis finally noticed that he left the body of the dead woman near the entrance of the warehouse. “Fuck,” he said under his breath and then opened the door and got out of the car. He closed the door behind him and walked toward to the front of the warehouse. As he neared the dead body, he saw headlights moving back and forth, up and down through the still falling snow.

  “Shit!” he yelled and drew his Sig Sauer pistol and moved behind the large door out of sight. He peeked around the door and saw that the vehicle came to a stop in front of the warehouse, by now he could tell it was a truck. The headlights turned off and the driver’s door opened. Lewis then held his pistol up and removed himself from cover. “Freeze! Don’t move! Who are you!?” He yelled.

  The front door slammed shut and a pissed off voice yelled out, “It’s me you fucking idiot!”

  “Who!?”

  “Adam! Your fucking boss! Put down the gun,” Adam said as he walked toward Officer Lewis.

  “Oh,” Lewis said and then holstered his weapon. “Sorry, Adam. A little jumpy.”

  “You’re a fucking police officer. You’re not supposed to be jumpy,” Adam said as he maneuvered through the snow and then past Lewis and into the warehouse.

  He stopped by the dead woman’s body just inside and knelt down to get a closer look at her. Her skin was blue and purple and she was very stiff. Her eyes were opened and looked frozen along with her hair, which was full of snow. “Who is this and why is she here?” Adam asked.

  “That’s your man’s girlfriend. The mob guy. For some reason he brought her. They found her but couldn’t find him,” Lewis told him.

  “Are they back? Cavanah, Levinson, and Travers?”

  “Yes, sir. Got back almost twenty minutes ago. They’re in the cars getting warmed up.”

  Adam looked up, saw the exhaust coming out from behind the cars, and then saw his fellow police officers in the front seats looking at him. He saw the blood on the concrete floor too. “Where are the bodies?”

  “They’re toward the back.”

  “Alright, put her back there with the rest. We’ll take care of them later.”

  Adam Hart stood up, walked to the police cars, past Mr. Mob Guy’s SUVs, and around the blood stained floor. Lewis grabbed the woman and began dragging her to the pile of henchmen bodies. He put the downed officers in their own spot, all three lying beside each other. Adam was almost to the bullet hole riddled cars when Cavanah opened the front door of one of them.

  “I’m sorry, Adam. We fucked up.” Cavanah told him as Adam neared the car.

  “Fuckin’ right you did. How did they know we were cops?”

  “I don’t know, but they knew long before they got here because the cases were already full of paper,” Cavanah explained.

  “Yeah, Lewis told me. Did the thought not cross their minds that we are dirty cops? That we want to make extra money? I mean, what the fuck!? This wasn’t a fuckin’ bust! Harris had done business with them for over twenty years! So how the fuck does something like this happen!?” Adam yelled out the rhetorical question. He was absolutely furious. He had no idea why this happened; his mentor, Harris, never had this happen before. His mentor also never mentioned they were police officers because he didn’t feel like he had to, even if they were dirty. Something went wrong a
nd Adam wanted answers, but he knew he probably wouldn’t get them from these men.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know,” Cavanah said.

  Adam took a deep breath and looked down at the ground for a second. Lewis had just put the dead woman on the pile and made his way back over to them. Cavanah, Levinson, and Travers were still in the cars. Travers had slid over and opened the door so he could hear the conversation. They still were not warmed up yet.

  “So I see you found her?” Adam asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Cavanah answered. “The boss guy got away with the coke, but the storm was so bad we had to come back. But I’m sure he’s dead now too, there’s no way he could’ve survived out there much longer than her. We just couldn’t see.”

  “Yeah, well we’ll all go out in a few hours, once the storm blows over and find him. After that, we’ll figure out how to sort all this out here. But we gotta get that coke back, that can’t be left behind.” Adam told all of them.

  “Yes, sir,” Cavanah said, the others just nodded.

  “Stay in the cars, hopefully there is enough gas to last awhile. Get warmed back up and some sleep. I’ll wake you when we’re going back out. I gotta call the wife.”

  Adam shut the door to the car, pulled out his cell phone, and walked away. Lewis then ran back to the other car and got in with Travers to stay warm. Adam called his wife.

  Eight

  Saturday - 3:18 A.M.

  John Watkins alarm had been going off for a solid three minutes before he even heard it. He opened his eyes, sat up, and reached over to turn it off. This was his least favorite part about hunting, getting up so early. He looked over at April who was still sound asleep. His eyes still wanted to stay closed, so he forced himself up, and thanks to the night light plugged in an outlet on the wall, was able to walk to the door and out into the hallway. Once in the hallway, he shut the door, and turned on the hall light. He needed light to help him wake up, that was the only thing that would do it, always had been.

  Before he made his way to the kitchen, he walked in the living room, to the front door, and turned on the outside light. He looked outside and saw that it had finally stopped snowing, but everything was covered. He guessed there was probably eight or so inches of snow on the ground. He turned off the light, turned back around, and saw Derby sitting up in his bed looking at him. John walked over, pet him on the head for a few seconds, and went into the kitchen.

  While he was trying to wake up, he fixed him a few scrambled eggs and ate those for breakfast. He put the plate in the sink and then walked back to their bedroom and into the bathroom to brush his teeth. Once done in there he got dressed. He put on his blue jeans, a white undershirt, a long-sleeve white t-shirt, and wool socks. Before leaving the bedroom, he walked over to the bed, leaned over, and gave April a kiss on the forehead and whispered, “I love you.” He grabbed his cell phone off his nightstand, put it in his front pocket, and went back to the living room.

  There, he put on his button up camouflage shirt, which he tucked in, hunting boots, orange coveralls, and an orange hat. He picked up his heavy orange coat, which had pairs of thin and thick gloves in the pockets. John then grabbed his backpack and went to the refrigerator to get his ham and cheese sandwich and two bottles of water. He gave Derby one last pat on the head and walked to the garage.

  Once in the garage, he closed the door and then hit the button to raise the garage door. He pulled out his keys and unlocked the truck, opened the door, jumped in, set the backpack in the passenger seat, and started the truck. He got out and walked over to the four-wheeler where he grabbed his rifle. He opened the left passenger door on the truck and set the rifle in the back seat. Next, he grabbed his Para Ordnance 1911 pistol, already in its holster that he would put on his hip when he got to the destination, and sat it in the seat with his backpack.

  After he was in his truck, he closed the driver’s side door, put it in gear, and drove it out of the garage a little ways. The salt he put out the previous night helped a lot but it was still so cold that there was at least an inch on the driveway, if not more. He stepped out, the snow crunching under his boots, let his tailgate down, grabbed the aluminum loading ramps, set them on the tailgate, and drove the four-wheeler up them and into the bed of the truck. He jumped down, carefully, and slid each loading ramp down each side of the four-wheeler in the bed and closed the tailgate.

  John got back in the truck, closed the door, hit the button on his visor that closed the garage door, put the truck in drive, and began down the driveway to the road. As he went further down the driveway, the snow got thicker because he did not go all the way down with the salt. He was going very slowly to get a feel for how slick it was. Their driveway, after being flat from the house to about halfway through the front yard, went down in a little incline the rest of the way to the road. It wasn’t too steep, but steep enough that during winter it could be dangerous. Once he hit that section, he hit the brakes slightly and felt the truck sliding. He could see the road had been plowed once, but had another thin layer of snow covering the blacktop. He was going to need four-wheel-drive, so he hit the button that engaged four-wheel high and then had total control of the truck. He let the vehicle ease down the incline and then on to the road, that seemed deserted.

  John Watkins then slowly drove his truck to his new hunting destination.

  Saturday - 4:17 A.M.

  After almost an hour on the highway and interstate, a drive that would normally only take just over a half hour, John got off the exit just a few miles shy of Williamstown, Kentucky. The exit ramp and the road he was about to get on were much worse than the interstate. As he got on the ramp, the female voice from his GPS system instructed him to take a right and travel south on US-25. He had to backtrack some because there were no exits closer to where he was going. He could have gotten off the exit at Corinth and gone north on US-25, but he feared that road was worse. As it turned out, US-25 South was worse than the interstate, but he chose to go this way because it would be faster in the end.

  John drove for almost twenty more minutes on the snow-covered road until his GPS finally told him that his destination was coming up on the left. He was told that the driveway would be long; he would need to drive past a house, go another couple hundred yards until he reached a barn, drive past the barn another two hundred yards until he reached a tree line, and the tree stand would be at the end of that tree line to the right. He had been there a few days earlier to check things out, but that was during the day and with no snow. It looked completely different to him at night and with several inches of snow on the ground.

  The tree stand was still a long way away from the entrance of the driveway. John remembered Larry told him he could park the truck by the barn and use his four-wheeler to take him the rest of the way. This sounded like a good idea to John because if he was stuck somewhere he would rather it be the ATV than the truck. However, John was confident that his camouflage Yamaha Kodiak 700 could handle the snow.

  John Watkins plowed his truck down the driveway, through more thick snow. It was a rougher ride because it hadn’t been touched at all since the snow began to fall, unlike the roads. His wheels threw snow in the air all the way to the barn. He never let up off the gas; he was not going to get stuck. He finally arrived at the barn and the truck came to a stop.

  He turned the truck off and stepped into the snow. He walked to the back, opened the tailgate, pulled out each loading ramp, climbed into the bed and got on the ATV to start it, and backed it down the ramps. It sunk a little into the snow as he gave it gas and backed it up far enough to get around his truck. He got off, put the ramps up, went to his truck, grabbed his backpack and his pistol, hooked the holster on his belt, and then grabbed his rifle and slung it over his shoulder.

  The powerful ATV made its way through the snow, its headlights piercing through the darkness, toward the tree line. Once he neared it, he veered to the right and followed the tree line almost three hundred yards until he reached the end.
He looked up and saw the tree stand in a large tree, about twenty-five feet high. He slowed down the ATV and turned the handlebars to the left, so the head light would shine into the woods. He saw an opening where he could pull the ATV in to hide from the deer. He gave it gas and pulled it into the woods.

  Saturday - 4:27 A.M.

  The warehouse was cold and quiet. All five men had fallen asleep in the cars. The dead bodies on the warehouse floor were now frozen like popsicles. The snow had stopped and it was still dark. They had already slept longer than what Adam had planned. He was going to stay awake but the darkness, coolness, and quietness of the old warehouse were the perfect conditions to fall asleep. They had also fallen asleep with the cars still running. They had been running for almost three hours. One had just reached a quarter tank of gas. The other car ran out of gas just as Adam woke up. Regardless the heat could barely keep up with the bullet holes in the front and back windshield and broken car door windows.

  Nothing in particular woke Adam - he just woke himself up. He tried to adjust his eyes in the dark environment. He blinked several times and looked around, as if trying to figure out where he was and then it hit him. He brought his hand up quickly to look at his watch and then yelled, “FUCK!” Adam was in the backseat of the car with Travers and Lewis, both of whom jumped when he yelled.

  “Get up!” Adam yelled as he reached and shook both of their shoulders.

  “I’m up!” Travers said.

  “I’m awake!” Lewis followed. Adam opened the back door, got out, and went to Cavanah and Levinson’s car to wake them up. “The heat in these cars suck,” Lewis added.

  “The windows have been shot out,” Travers told him.

  Lewis looked up and said, “Oh, yeah.”

  Adam opened the front door of the other car and yelled at Cavanah and Levinson, “Wake up! We slept way too long! We gotta move!” They both opened their eyes as Adam reach over and turned off the engine so it would have some gas left.