We dug the rope out of the backpack and tied one end to an outcropping of rock. I shinnied down; Willie lowered the knapsacks and followed.
When both our feet were firmly planted on solid ground, we looked around. A little trail led from the bluff into the woods. The beam from the flashlight revealed hoof marks and the imprints of little padded feet.
“Looks like the main highway for the woodland critters. Let’s see where it goes.”
We followed the trail and plunged into the dark woods. The moon shining through the trees cast eerie shadows, and occasionally we heard the beat of huge wings as some feathered creature hunted in the night.
I stopped frequently and shined the light on the ground ahead.
“What you keep lookin’ for?”
“Snakes, Willie. Don’t you remember what Dan said about copperheads and timber rattlers in the woods?”
“Oh yeah.”
“The last thing we need is a pit viper up our ass.” Frankly, I was scared shitless, trudging through the black forest without a clue where we were going, but I tried to put on a brave front for Willie.
There was a rustling in the underbrush ahead of us, and then we heard the scraping of claws climbing bark. I shined the light into the tree ahead, and two huge eyes glowed back at us. We had rousted a big coon who was now staring back at us through his furry mask.
Suddenly, the verses of a song I had learned as a kid filled my head.
I went to the animal fair; the birds and the beasts were there.
The old raccoon by the light of the moon was combing his auburn hair.
My mind seems to be overflowing with totally useless junk that I have accumulated over the years, and to my dismay, it presents itself at the most unusual times. As we continued along the trail, the little ditty wouldn’t leave.
I went to the animal fair, da da, da da, da da.
After a while, I realized that I wasn’t as scared as before. Maybe it’s not useless junk after all. I had just shined my light a few feet ahead when I found myself staring at a little black furry creature with a white stripe, whose ass-end was pointing in my direction.
“Willie! Run!”
I turned and gave my friend a shove, but it was too late. I heard a pssst, and suddenly the woods were filled with the stench from hell.
My eyes began to water and sting, and I heard Willie mutter, “Sweet Jesus!”
I pulled the water bottles out of my knapsack, and we flooded our face and eyes.
“I done smelt some bad stuff befo’, but neva nuttin’ like dat!”
“Yeah, I’m afraid we’re going to be pretty ripe for a while.”
We plodded on through the woods, and I thought I saw a faint glow in the distance. I motioned for Willie to be quiet, and we cautiously moved toward the light.
We stopped at the edge of the woods, and across a clearing was an old log barn. There were a half-dozen pickup trucks parked outside, and a yellow light shined through the gaps in the old logs where the chinking had rotted away.
“What you thinkin’?” Willie asked.
“I think we’d better find out who’s in there before we go barging in. Remember, someone tried to kill us a few hours ago.”
Seeing no one outside, I motioned for Willie to follow, and we sneaked up to the back of the old barn. We peeked through the chink holes and saw maybe a dozen men and older boys seated on hay bales.
We saw the back of a tall man dressed in black with dark locks streaked with silver addressing the men. We couldn’t understand his words, but from the tone of his voice and the looks on the faces of the seated men, the message was intense.
Then I recognized a face in the crowd: Rowdy Yates! It was the kid who had fled the Three Trails and who had driven the trolley to the Beaumont Club.
These were the Avenging Angels!
Just then, a dog that was tied in the bed of one of the pickup trucks began to wail. Aaaaooooow. Aaaaaoooow.
The tall man stopped talking, listened, and motioned to a man seated by the door.
I grabbed Willie and whispered, “Let’s vamoose!” Vamoose! That’s another one of those funny words like cahoots. Why do I keep doing this? I thought as I ran to the cover of the woods.
We had just hunkered down behind a tree when we heard the man call back, “Ain’t nothin’ here, John. There’s an awful smell out here. I think mebbe it was jest a polecat that got Ole Blue all riled up.”
“What we gonna do now?” Willie whispered.
“Well, we’re sure not going in there. Those are the guys who tried to kill us.” I pulled a pen and pad out of the knapsack. “The least I can do is get license plate numbers. Then at least we’ll know who we’re dealing with.”
I wrote down the numbers, and we hid in the trees until the meeting was over. We didn’t move until the last taillight had faded into the distance. Wearily, we followed the old gravel road back to the blacktop and headed toward town.
As we plodded along, I reflected on the day’s events. Dan had given us a tour of historic St. Clair County and saved me from a poisonous snake; we had followed a treasure map and found a stash left by outlaws over a century ago; we had been sealed in an underground vault and left to die; we had miraculously escaped into the woods, only to be attacked by an irritable skunk; and most important, we had found the hideout of the Avenging Angels.
I smiled to myself.
Just another day in the service of Lady Justice!
Chapter 23
Our butts were dragging as we trudged along the paved county road. We had gotten up at the crack of dawn so we could meet Dan at nine, and a glance at my watch showed that it was almost ten at night.
It had been a long and stressful day.
A pair of headlights pulled off a gravel road a few hundred yards behind us. I expected it to just whiz on by, but instead it pulled up directly behind us.
Oh great, I thought. It would be just our luck to run into one of the terrorists on night patrol.
“Where are you guys headed?” came a voice from the truck.
We moved out of the blinding headlights, and when my eyes adjusted I saw a burly, middle-aged guy with shoulder-length hair and beard, dressed in bib overalls and sitting in the Ford Ranger. He looked a lot like Grizzly Adams.
“Heading back to the highway,” I replied.
“Where’s your vehicle?”
“Uh, it’s a long story.” I didn’t want to get too chummy until I determined whether he was friend or foe. “You live around here?” I asked.
“Nope. I live in Kansas City. My dad and I have a fishing cabin down by the river. You guys need a lift?”
“Where are you headed?”
“Bait store. The flatheads are hitting like crazy tonight, and we ran out of bait. I’m making one last run to Fuzzy’s before he closes. My name’s Rob. Climb in.”
“I’m Walt, and this is Willie.”
Just then, the wind shifted, and Rob got a snootful of our new cologne.
“Oooweee! You guys are ripe! Smells like you had a close encounter with one of our furry woodland creatures.”
“You noticed.”
“Pretty hard to miss tomato juice.”
“Tomato juice?”
“Yep. I’ve got an old bloodhound at home that got sprayed one night. A friend told us that tomato juice would get rid of it. We scrubbed Old Luther with the stuff. It didn’t get it all, but it sure helped.”
“About that ride.”
“Yeah, about that. My dad would be really pissed if I brought his truck home smelling like that, but you’re welcome to climb in the back.”
“Much obliged.”
Rob dropped us off at the cheese store. My old car never looked so good. I finally had bars on my cell phone, so the first thi
ng I did was call Maggie. I knew she would be worried sick. I had told her we would be home by six.
“Walt! Where are you? Are you okay? Why haven’t you called? I’ve been going crazy here!”
I waited until she was through expressing herself. “We’re fine, Maggie. It’s a long, long story. I’ll tell you all about it when we get home. In the meantime, I have a job for you.”
“What kind of job?”
“I want you to go to the supermarket and buy every can of tomato juice they have on the shelf.”
“Tomato juice? Are you nuts?”
“Well, probably, but please just do as I ask. You’ll understand when we get there.”
“Walt Williams! What have you done now?”
“Love you, Maggie. See you in a couple of hours.”
It was after midnight when we pulled up in front of the six-plex. Maggie, Dad, Jerry, and the professor were waiting on the front porch.
Maggie ran from the porch to the car. I wasn’t sure if it was to whack me or hug me. She was about to throw her arms around my neck when she stopped short. “Walt! What oh my God! That’s horrible!”
By this time, the rest of the welcoming party had joined us.
The professor spoke first. “My, my, it would appear that you have met up with a member of the Mustelidae family. Did you know that they have two scent glands, one on each side of their anus, and can spray with accuracy up to sixteen feet?”
“I do now.”
Not to be outdone, Jerry threw in his two cents’ worth. “Walt, how many skunks does it take to make a big stink?”
“Tell me, Jerry.”
He wrinkled his nose. “A phew!”
After assuring everyone that we were all in one piece, we headed inside. As we were climbing the steps, Jerry struck again.
“Walt, what did the religious skunk say?”
“No idea.”
“Let us spray.”
Being Jerry’s foil is one of my life’s greatest joys.
When we were safely inside the confines of our apartment, I stripped and told Maggie about the tomato juice. We carried the cans to the bathroom; she found a stiff brush and started scrubbing.
I was lathered from head to toe in Libby’s and DelMonte’s when Jerry stuck his head in the door. “Wouldn’t you rather have a V-8?”
“Get out!”
The tomato juice helped, but not quite enough, and for the first and hopefully the last time in my brief marriage, Maggie and I slept in separate beds.
I was anxious to get to the precinct to tell Captain Short what we had found. I figured that with the license numbers I had collected, they would soon have the names and addresses of the terrorists and would sweep into St. Clair County with an armed task force and lead the thugs away in cuffs.
“Walt, this may indeed be the break we’ve been looking for. Tell me exactly what you saw and heard.”
I told him about the old barn in the woods and seeing the young man who had driven the trolley.
“Tell me about the man leading the group. He’s the one we need to find.”
“Unfortunately, his back was to us. I never saw his face. He was huge, at least six feet four, and must’ve weighed two-fifty. He had shoulder-length hair streaked with silver. That’s about it.”
“Good job, Walt! We’ll get on it.”
I felt really good when I left the captain’s office. Maybe with this information the nightmare would come to an end. Every day after that, I hoped for an announcement that the gang had been apprehended, but there was nothing.
I saw the captain in the hall. “Anything cooking with the license numbers?”
I could tell by the look on his face that it was not good news. “Come into my office, Walt.
“We were able to get names and addresses from the plates and on the strength of the information you gave us obtained search warrants. We searched a half-dozen homes and unfortunately found no evidence directly tying any of them to the bombings.”
“But”
“Oh sure, we found stuff. One guy, Micah something, had bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in his barn, but he said it was for his four hundred acres. It’s not illegal to fertilize your field. Another guy had a fifty-five-gallon drum of nitro methane, but his son uses it in his drag racer at a track in a little town called Wheatland, east of Osceola.
“We questioned them all about the tall guy, but no one said they knew him. We got nothing. All we can do is keep an eye on them and hope they slip up before they strike again. I’m sorry, Walt.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Chapter 24
In the ensuing days, relative calm had settled over the city.
There were no more bombings or scriptural threats to the sinners of Kansas City. Maggie and I had settled into our new digs and were adjusting quite well to marital cohabitation. Maybe old dogs can learn new tricks. I still preferred my Wheaties to Maggie’s cardboard fiber, but life is full of compromises. My colon was clean as a whistle. Life was good.
Things were even sailing smoothly at the Three Trails. Mary was in a good mood. After Hazmat had cleared the explosives out of number fourteen, she had cleaned the unit and rented it to an old guy from the labor pool. Old man Feeney hadn’t clogged the toilet, which was a good thing, because when Mary’s not happy, nobody’s happy.
Willie was a new man. He drug his old family Bible and the artifacts we had found in the cave all over the neighborhood. He would tell his story to anyone who would take the time to listen. I think Willie talked more in the week after our return from the cave than in his entire life.
Willie’s life had been like one of those little whirligig seed things that fall from maple trees in the spring. He had blown from one place to another with every gust of wind. But like that little seed that finally finds fertile soil and grows, Willie found something solid and nurturing in that old family Bible. Willie’s discovery was not unlike the 1977 TV mini-series Roots by Alex Haley. Willie had found his roots, and it had changed his life. I had never seen my little friend so happy.
Then one day, everything changed.
When the captain entered the squad room, everyone could sense that he was bearing bad news.
“Fox 4 News received another message on its website last night. It’s lengthy, but you need to hear the whole thing.”
He began reading from his clipboard:
When the people saw that Moses was long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us.”
Aaron answered them. “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods.”
When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.” So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward, they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods.’
“I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them.”
When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them into pieces at the foo
t of the mountain.
Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so became a laughing stock to their enemies.
The Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. Now, go, lead the people to the place I spoke of and my angels will go before you. However, when the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin.”
And the Lord struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made.
As in the days of Moses, the idolaters have built an altar for their false gods and will dance and feast and drink and commit acts of abomination before the Lord.
But also, as in the days of Moses, the Lord of Hosts will send his angels to punish them for their sins.
“This message can only be referring to one thing, the Rockfest at Penn Valley Park.”
The minute he said the words, memories of last year’s event flooded my mind.
Penn Valley Park covers 176 acres of rolling hills just south of Union Station and west of the World War II memorial. On one weekend during the summer, a huge stage is built to showcase a whole day of hard rock and heavy metal music. About fourteen acres of the park is cordoned off, and on the appointed day thousands of hard rock enthusiasts flood the area for a day of revelry.
Even without the added threat of terrorists, it’s a police department nightmare. Alcohol, drugs, nudity, and vulgarity seem to be the order of the day. It’s impossible to stop it; all we try to do is control it and prevent incidents from turning violent.
The captain’s words brought me back to the present.
“Gentlemen, this event, organized by KQRC-FM 98.9 the Rock, is billed by AEG, the concert promoter, as the biggest one-day festival in America. There are already over fifty thousand tickets sold.
“Fifteen rock and metal bands are scheduled to play throughout the day. Those of you who have worked the Rockfest before know what we’re up against. Unlike an enclosed arena or club where we can have some control as to who comes and goes, this is an enormous open space. There is no way we can cover the entire area.
[Lady Justice 04] - Lady Justice And The Avenging Angels Page 13