Banner Elk Breeze

by Ed Robinson

  “That’d be great,” I said. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

  “I get a little bored when you’re gone all day,” she said. “I’m ready when you are.”

  “Awesome,” I said. “Let’s start tomorrow.”

  I was excited to have Brody share the mountain experience with me. This was our new life. I’d immersed myself in it much more so than she had. She’d been a great help finding the bullet. We were a team no matter our surroundings. We set out in search of Pop’s home base the next day.

  We started from the weed patch. I walked all around the perimeter looking for obvious signs of his comings and goings. Of course, I didn’t find anything. I stopped and stood still, feeling the vibrations, letting the mountain speak to me. Which way did he come? I ruled out the direction of Banner’s hunting camp. He’d avoid that at all costs. He didn’t come from the direction of my cabin. I guessed that he’d want to be as far from people as possible. That meant he lived somewhere higher up. I’d never been any higher than the weed farm. It was not friendly terrain. I tried to look through the trees up the slope. I couldn’t see much. I figured he wouldn’t want to be too far from the creek. He had to camp above us, but not too far.

  I told Brody to look for some access going up, somewhere the brush wasn’t too thick to move through. We split up and probed the perimeter of the semi-flat plot of land we were standing on. It took a while, but we finally decided on a path. It ascended sharply but had plenty of rock and root footholds. We carefully climbed a hundred feet or so, until we saw what might have been a trail off to our left. It was a narrow and low tunnel that disappeared into thick growth. We crawled along a ledge for another fifty feet. Something told me to stop.

  “What do you see?” asked Brody.

  “Nothing yet,” I answered. “I think we’re close. It’s here somewhere.”

  I let the mountain talk to me. I summoned Pop, asking him to direct me. I deployed all of my senses to maximum awareness. I waited for a sign. I closed my eyes and absorbed all incoming feelings. When I opened them, I saw a wall of dying greenery. Upon close inspection, I saw that it wasn’t natural. It had been cut and carefully placed. This had to be the place. I pointed it out to Brody and we crawled towards the wall of cut evergreens. I poked around until I found an easily movable branch. Behind the façade was a semi-cave, Pop’s hideout. It was too dark to see much. We didn’t bring a flashlight.

  I brought Brody in behind me and let my eyes adjust to the dimness.

  Thirteen

  It took several minutes before we could see anything at all. I was glad to find an oil lamp pushed up against the back wall. Attached to it with a thin strip of deer hide was a grill lighter. I dialed the wick up a tad and lit the lamp. We had light, and I assumed it put off some heat as well. The little cave was not what I had expected. There was a decent bedroll up under a ledge of rock about the size of a coffin. There were two plastic containers with lids holding some of Pop’s belongings. One held books and the other was full of small tools, silverware, a can opener and the like.

  There were several books about Pop’s father, Popcorn Sutton, including Popcorn Sutton; The Making and Marketing of a Hillbilly Hero. There was also one written by Popcorn himself called Me and My Likker. There were several books on the history of the Blue Ridge and Smokey Mountains. Underneath all of them was a writing notebook, the kind one uses to keep a journal. I opened it up and read the title at the top of the first page; Denying a Legacy, by Marvin Sutton.

  Stacked in a corner were a pot and pan, along with some utensils. In a plastic garbage bag, we found thick winter clothes and a down jacket. Above us was the tarp Pop had described to me. Hanging from one of the hooks was the travel rod I’d given him. I took it down and handed it to Brody.

  “I might as well get some use out of it,” I said.

  “You should read his memoir too,” she said. “If it’s any good we should try to get it published.”

  “Excellent idea,” I said.

  The tarp was situated so that water dripped off near the entrance to the lair. There was a Mason jar under it to catch the water. A small trench carried the excess out away from the living space, what little there was. The lamp had already started to warm up the interior. Pop had lived a minimal existence, but he was far from homeless. I couldn’t imagine being stuck in there for days on end during a snowstorm. His well-worn reading material and his journal looked to be his only form of entertainment.

  The only other supplies evident were some canned goods and other nonperishable foods. We could survey his entire house without taking a step. I wondered how I could best use it to my advantage. I doubted Banner would try to harvest his crop in the dark, but he might arrive at first light. I could be there waiting if that time ever came. What would I do if it did?

  I backed out of the cave and onto the small ledge outside. I continued along the ledge instead of going back the way we came. Soon I came to Pop’s kitchen. It was a small rock formation with a metal grate over it and the cold remains of a fire. Twigs and thin branches were piled nearby. I pictured him crawling over here with a pan of soup or the meat from some small game and cooking it after dark. I hadn’t noticed any hides or furs inside his home. He must have had another place to stash them.

  I crawled back to where Brody was waiting. The sky was gray and there was a chill in the air. She was ready to go home. I was good with that. We’d found what we’d come to find. I knew that Pop wouldn’t mind that I’d invaded his private space. He was probably proud of me for finding it. Before we started back down, I motioned for Brody to pause. I used hand signals to tell her to listen to the mountain. We needed to be sure that no one had come up to the pot farm before we backtracked through it.

  We both tuned in our senses. We concentrated on the sights, sounds, smells and even vibrations all around us. Squirrels, chipmunks, and birds made their presence known. Leaves rustled in the breeze. Clouds rolled over our heads from east to west. Fog was settling in on the higher elevations. Neither of us detected anything human other than ourselves. It was safe to work our way down.

  We didn’t make it back to the cabin until after dark. There was no warm meal cooking. I got a fire going while Brody started dinner. I propped the fly rod in a corner and dusted off Pop’s memoir. His grammar and sentence composition were surprisingly good. His handwriting was a blocky plain script, not cursive. It was clear and readable. I thumbed through the pages and noticed that sometimes the ink was black, but sometimes it was blue. Where does a vagrant get a new pen? (Wherever he can).

  The first chapter was an effort to explain the difference between loving his father, and not wanting to be like him. It was clear that Pop was torn about his feelings for his dad. Popcorn had possessed an exuberant personality that many folks loved, but some hated. Pop was proud to see his father enjoy a certain amount of fame, but he didn’t like what the fame did to him. The boy was not the most important thing in the old moonshiner’s life. Apparently being a father to his children wasn’t on Popcorn’s priority list. Pop resented that. There was a sister who felt the same way. The two siblings separated from their father and made their own way in life at an early age.

  I stopped reading and walked back through what we knew so far. I tried to prioritize what needed to be done next. We still hadn’t heard from the FBI concerning the bullet we’d recovered.

  “I think we should break out that SAT phone and call your boyfriend,” I told Brody.

  “Jealousy doesn’t become you,” she replied. “One the other hand, they should have run the evidence by now.”

  “Let’s see what they’ve got,” I said.

  Bowdich answered Brody right away. She put the phone on speaker.

  “Pop’s remains were cremated,” he said. “Nothing incriminating on Banner yet, but we’re still working on a few things.”

  “We just so happened to discover a trove of the deceased’s personal belongings,” she told him. “I’m sure his DNA is in the mix.�
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  “You realize none of this is admissible in court?” he said. “We’re way out of bounds here.”

  “We just need to be certain that Banner is the killer,” she explained. “It may have a bearing on what actions we take in the future.”

  “Not sure I like the sound of that,” said Bowdich.

  “But you got a second person’s DNA off the bullet?” she asked.

  “There was enough trace biological matter to discern DNA,” he said. “Contamination may have rendered it useless, but we won’t know until we get a sample to compare it to.”

  “Trace isn’t good enough for a proper comparison,” she said. “At least not on what I provide you. You need a skin scraping or a hair, right?”

  “A hair would work,” he said. “But we have to know that it came from the deceased. A defendant’s lawyer will kill us.”

  “They can object all they want,” she said. “But the jury will still see and hear the evidence.”

  “Not if a judge throws it out,” he countered. “We wouldn’t attempt to take this to trial on what we have.”

  “So we lay it all out for the Sheriff here,” she said. “If he won’t follow up then you lean on him, hard. Threats from the Bureau can be quite effective, as you know.”

  “You’re asking an awful lot here,” he said. “Unpaid lab testing, influencing a local investigation, tampering with evidence.”

  “We’ve kept our mouths shut over what the Bureau did to us,” she reminded him. “We could be very wealthy by now if we had squeaked enough. You and your boys would have too much explaining to do and your reputation would likely be lost forever.”

  “I wouldn’t advise taking that route,” he said. “We have a truce over the matter, but this hints at blackmail.”

  “A truce but not a written contract,” she said. “I don’t want to betray the FBI. I’m simply asking for your help.”

  “Get me a good DNA medium,” he said. “We’ll run it. I’ll let you know.”

  “We’ll be in touch,” she said.

  The conversation was much less friendly than previous ones. We may have pushed him a bit too hard. I trusted that Brody knew what she was doing. She knew the inner workings of the FBI and she also knew Bowdich. I chose not to waste time dissecting what I’d just heard.

  “We’ll go find what we need tomorrow,” I said. “As long as his hair and beard were, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Another drive to Washington,” she said. “Probably for nothing.”

  “We’re making progress,” I told her. “How long did it take you to find me?”

  “Too long,” she said. “You were a worthy adversary.”

  “Just like I’ll be for Banner,” I declared.

  “But I found you in the end,” she said.

  “Only after I’d been cleared,” I said. “If I was still wanted I wouldn’t have been sitting in that bar. You would have gotten close, but not close enough.”

  “Fair point,” she said. “But I did find you.”

  “Outstanding detective work and perseverance,” I said. “Made me curious about you the minute we met.”

  “I was curious about you for a year before we met,” she said. “I didn’t understand how a boat bum could avoid the reach of the FBI. I had no idea you were so resourceful and so far off the grid. People just don’t live like that.”

  “You’d be surprised,” I said. “Florida has an embarrassment of fugitives.”

  “Homeless and drug-addicted mostly,” she said. “You were neither.”

  “I had a boat and a booze problem instead,” I said. “But I managed to keep my wits.”

  “You’re a unique individual, Breeze,” she said. “I’m honored to share this life with you.”

  “I thank the good Lord daily for you, Brody,” I said. “I hardly deserve a woman like you.”

  “Deserve has nothing to do with it,” she said. “We were meant for each other.”

  “Which is why you’re humoring me on this Pop and Banner thing,” I said. “Thanks for understanding.”

  “Now that I’m part of the mission,” she said. “I want to get that son of a bitch as much as you do.”

  “Music to my ears,” I said.

  The next day we packed two flashlights and a pair of tweezers that had been sterilized and placed in a ziplock bag. We made a beeline for Pop’s lair, only stopping briefly to listen to the woods. Once inside the cave, we each searched one half of the tiny space. It didn’t take long. Brody plucked a long gray hair with the tweezers and placed it carefully in the bag. We backed out of there and started down towards the weed farm, but someone was down there.

  I motioned for Brody to stop and hold still. We both froze and listened. I couldn’t see so I carefully crawled a little further along the ledge. I didn’t make a sound as I got into position. I slowly parted two branches to get a look below. Banner was walking among the plants. He had his rifle slung over his shoulder and a fifth of whiskey in his hand. He took a slug from the bottle and inspected his crop. The plants weren’t ready to harvest yet. I gathered that he knew as much.

  I watched as he crossed over the plot towards my side of the mountain. He poked around, looking for footprints or other signs that someone else had been up there. We hadn’t been particularly careful on our way through. No doubt we’d left tracks here and there. He saw something that made him unsling his weapon. He assumed a cautious stance, looking around. I eased back away from my vantage point, motioning to Brody to retreat. We were vulnerable without a rifle. We were on a narrow ledge with nowhere to run. We weren’t prepared to have a standoff with Banner. I silently cursed myself for my stupidity. There was nothing else to do but hide. I looked Brody in the eye then transferred my gaze to Pop’s den. She understood. We crawled back to the entrance and slithered inside. I repositioned the blocking branches to conceal the cave. It was dark but we made no effort to create light. I touched Brody on the shoulder and made downward hand motions.

  “Stay calm,” I whispered. “Lower your heart rate. Listen and be still.”

  We could hear him stomping around below us. The spot where we climbed off the plateau with the weed plants was solid rock. He wouldn’t see our tracks going upward. He had to be baffled about the mystery person who knew about this place. The body had disappeared first, now someone had been here walking around. Nothing was disturbed but his peace of mind. It would be a real head-scratcher for him. We listened as he walked away from the ledge towards our side of the mountain. The sounds grew faint, then stopped. Banner spoke loudly, almost yelling.

  “Whoever you are, let’s talk,” he said. “I gather you know where to find me.”

  Getting no reply, he walked back through the weed plants and started down the slope towards his hunting camp. We remained still and silent for a long time. I thought he might settle in and wait us out. It’s what I would have done. He was familiar with these woods and had the patience of a hunter. I pictured him lying in concealment, listening and watching for us. I thought I could slip out undetected, but I wasn’t confident that Brody could do the same. The cave walls closed in on us in the dark. It was uncomfortable in more ways than one.

  “Stay here,” I whispered. “I’m going to go out and get a feel for what’s going on.”

  I crawled out on the ledge and sat cross-legged with my back to the rock face. I slowed my breathing and relaxed. I felt my heart beating slower and slower. The sounds came into focus. I smelled the mountain air. There was a hint of gun oil and leather on the wind. The creek babbled down the mountain like it always did. A crow was raising hell somewhere in the distance. There was no indication that Banner was still close.

  I further dropped my resistance and let the increased flow of information wash over me. The sounds became more and more clear. The smells introduced themselves one by one. I felt the vibrations of a hummingbird in the treetops. I could see the breeze, not just feel it. Banner was gone. Nothing about the sensations that I experienced told me t
hat he was waiting for us to show ourselves.

  Just then I heard a sound that was not part of nature. It was a beer can being opened. There was no doubt what I’d heard, even though the hunting cabin was a mile away. I’d heard the sound millions of time. The suddenness of it snapped me out of my hyper-aware state. I pulled myself back to normal and went to get Brody.

  “It’s safe to come out now,” I said. “He’s back at his shack.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “I heard him crack open a beer,” I told her. “If you want to try to hear it I’m sure he’ll open another one soon.”

  “Let’s just get out of here,” she said. “We got what we came for.”

  Over the next few days, we got the hair sample to Bowdich in Washington. We met at a different hotel but the procedure was the same. An evidence tech took our baggie and disappeared.

  “There is trace on the bullet,” he said. “But we can’t make certain it was Banner’s until we have his weapon and can run ballistics.”

  “If at some point someone decides to talk to the man, maybe get a warrant, then maybe you could get his gun,” said Brody.

  “A lot of dots would have to be connected before that would ever happen,” he said. “At least from our standpoint.”

  “From our standpoint,” she said. “We’re drowning you with evidence. You and the Sheriff both.”

  “We have a different point of view,” he said. “Just so you know, we’re starting to learn a few things about your senator. Not exactly mountain mafia stuff.”

  “Just run of the mill corruption?” I asked.

  “The same things go on all around the country every day,” he said. “He runs his little fiefdom until the voters take him out or he dies. Small potatoes.”

  “Until it comes to covering up a murder,” I said. “Not the senator himself, but officers of the law under his thumb.”

  “We’re still learning about him,” he said. “But it’s not a high priority.”

  “Let us know if the hair matches what’s on the bullet,” said Brody.