Chapter XIII
Baltimore Orioles flittered around them on the walk through the tree-lined lane. They hadn’t gone very far when the police chief pulled up beside them in his SUV. “Howdy, Granny,” said Chief Billy Trask. “I see you’ve been to town shoppin’. Want a ride back?”
She kept an eye on the boy, Sheriff Trask was one of those she could not read and when the boy hid behind her, she shook her head and smiled. “No, thanks. We’re enjoying the walk. Gonna stop and check out the blackberries on the way home.”
“Been checking on runaways and missing kids, Cass. Figured somebody’s missing a boy like that, you reckon? Social Services should be notified.” His eyes scanned the bandages on the boy’s wrists. “Looks like he hurt himself. You capable of dealing with a suicidal teen?”
“How do you know it was suicide? Coulda been an accident,” she returned. “He hasn’t done anything but eat, sleep and help me. You put him in foster care, and it’ll kill him.”
“Ain’t your call, Miz Elkins. Soon as I find out who he is, I’ll be out to get him.”
“You better come back with a court order, Billy Trask,” she said tartly and marched off pushing the boy in front of her. She noticed that he was wringing his hands and had worried the bandages to rags. They reached her porch an hour later and she took him into her still room to carefully snip away the gauze shreds and study the exquisite work of microsurgery. He was agitated, worried his lip and plucked her sleeve with the hand she hadn’t touched yet.
“Hush, baby,” she soothed. “I won’t let them take you. I’ve kin all through these mountains them and they’ll hide you until it’s safe, if need be. You nearly cut your wrists off.” She tried to look into his eyes but his slid away at every attempt. “You know if you die like that, your soul will be in torment? You can’t escape that way.”
She went into his mind and showed him how to build the barrier, brick by brick and hold it. The first time he could only carry it for 15 minutes before he tired and the bricks came crashing down. In those 15 minutes however, she could not breach his wall.
His new bandages were neat, flat and covered with a pair of her cotton gloves that blunted his sense of touch. He was tired, both from the gentle walk and the excitement of his excursion into town. Granny put him to bed in the downstairs bedroom and went into the kitchen. Her landline was on the wall, down here in the hollows and mountain corpses, cell phones did not work.
“Kyle, this is Cassie,” she said. “How are you? Got a little problem here and might need your help.”
She went on to explain and her kin made arrangements, the least of which was a patrol around her place so that the sheriff could not approach without advanced warning. Not only was she the nominal head of her clan, her powers as a witch woman was both well known and feared. And as a last resort, she was going to call the man whose name had been on his hospital ID band.
“How did you get from Bethesda, Maryland to Sprig’s Hollow, Tennessee, Cale Snowdon?” She mused.
That night, a trembling hand woke her with a soft shake and she sat up swiftly wide-awake in seconds. The boys anxious face stared at her directly and pulled her covers down, handed over her clothes and her shoes. She stared at him and saw the fear in his riveted gaze as she dressed.
He’d made an attempt to dress himself but he’d tied knots in his laces and misaligned his buttons. She took his hand, grabbed her phone, backpack and a few necessities before they slipped out the back door and into the woods.
The grass was cold and damp on their feet and the headlights of several vehicles came up the lane and cut off before the approach to her house. She held her finger to her lips, turned the boy around and they hurried down the narrow trail into the Gap.
Moonshine stills were a garage industry out in the country, especially with the economy so bad and the trails that led to them were convoluted, hidden and well-guarded. Within a mile of their entry into the woods, someone knew she was headed their way and shadowy figures holding rifles and sawed-off shotguns blanketed them.
“Miz Elkins,” came the surprised whisper and she paused with her hand on the child’s shoulder. Moonlight lit the face of her great-nephew, Barton Lewis Beebe Junior, all of 17, a moonshiner, illegal smuggler and family provider now that his daddy was incarcerated for dope dealing. Marijuana farming and meth labs with the other big industries down South, not that she had much truck with that.
“There’s folks after the boy,” she explained. “Not good people. Federal people and others. I believe Sheriff Trask called them, or called someone. I didn’t get a long look. He woke me, warned me before they got close. They’re sneaking up to the place now.”
“Best we take you to the Knob, then.” He handed her his rifle and reached for the boy.
“He don’t like to be handled, Bart,” she explained and was shocked when he let the teenager pick him up and toss him onto his shoulders. He gripped the nephew’s head with both hands as they jogged off. People met them in relays, one handing the pair off to another for even she did not know all the trails in and out.
The Knob was like Robber’s Roost, a hidden cabin tucked into a knob jutting out of the mountain in a valley between a swamp and a deadfall where trees had blown down from high winds. Only a dedicated and determined man could make his way through the mess of falling trunks and branches. Unless you knew the way in.
The cabin had been built in the 1700s and lovingly maintained by outlaws, moonshiners and fugitives from the hills ever since. There was a graveyard outback where those who had displeased the clan were buried along with a few government men who had thought to run in the Elkins or the Beebes. The inside was customized, it had a generator, oil lamps, Ben Franklin stove, fridge, freezer and microwave. Granny was always amazed at the stuff they carried in and had gotten to work. They had even bootlegged DirecTV and had a large screen HD TV on one wall. Their only problem, he told her was getting in the gasoline to run the generator.
The last person to carry the boy was a second cousin near her own age, thin and whipcord tough as she was. He kicked open the steel door and placed him gently down on the overstuffed leather couch, covering him with one of her Granny’s homemade quilts. The boy was sound asleep as she stood over him.
“He saved our lives tonight. I know they would’ve killed me and taken him. His name is Cale Snowdon, from Alpina, Texas. There’s 150 K bounty on him and that’s why Billy Trask is after him. Any of you get tempted, hear me now. I’ll curse you and witch you to death, you harm one hair on this boy’s head. That’s my oath as an herb woman.”
“Now, Granny. You know your kin won’t go agin you. Sides, they know I’d kill them first.” The old man chided. “Made you some hot tea. Boy’s out like a light. Drink your tea and go to sleep. We’ll keep watch.”
“He’s a special one, Kyle. Got a mind so strong, I can’t reach him. I’m teaching him to block out the other voices but he’s so young and frightened, he can’t hold it for long.” She shook her head. “I can’t reach him, he’s locked his inner core away in a dark, little strong room with a massive lock that even he doesn’t know how to open. He’s trying; he gave me eye contact twice now. If I could get it in, I could reach him. If I force my way in, I’d do worse damage.”
“Leave him,” he spoke roughly tucking the quilt around him. “He’ll come out when he’s ready. How long you gonna stay? You got a plan in mind? Beebe Junior will feed yore stock but that Trask is a bloodhound, won’t give up. They say he runs some kind of mail-order porn business on the Internet.”
“You reckon that’s why the FBI’s nosing around Memphis and his place there?”
“I’ve got contacts there. I can make things really hot for him with the FBI and the ATF, Cassie.” He whipped out a cell phone and she saw that it was one of those highly expensive satellite phones that never lost the signal and could call from anywhere. “Waterproof, too,” he grinned. “I kept dropping mine in the toilet and ruining them. It’s encrypted, too.”
“You some kind of secret spy, Kyle?” she teased, wrapping her hands around the coffee mug filled with steaming chamomile tea.
“Nope, just an enterprising businessman. You know where the bedroom is. Don’t have to lock your door, we’re all kin here. Night, Cassie.”
She grunted, found the bed with clean fresh linens and sank down on top taking only the time to kick off her shoes. Sleep was slow in coming but deep and uneventful.