The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape

39

IT WAS EARLY morning in Georgia, the sun just fingering up through dense growths of maples and sourwoods. A Floyd County truck stood parked in the woods at the foot of Turkey Mountain Ridge, its tires leaving a fresh trail along the narrow dirt road. Agents Hillerman and Clark of the FBI and GBI respectively, and Deputy Riker of the Floyd County Sheriff’s Department, had already climbed halfway up the steep slope. Sweating in heavy khaki clothing and high, laced boots, they shouldered through thorny tangles and dense, second-growth saplings. Hillerman was perhaps the most uncomfortable in the hot protective clothing, with his thirty pounds of extra weight. Clark, the youngest, was fit and tanned, blond crew cut covered by a sturdy cap, his ruddy face clear and sunny. Each man wore a backpack fitted out with water, snacks, and the tools they would need if they found the hidden well.

Though the three men wielded machetes, cutting away the briars that tripped and clawed at them, still the thorny tangles ripped through their clothing, tearing into their skin leaving their pants and shirts dotted with blood, their hands and legs throbbing. They had driven up the old rutted logging road as far as the truck would go. When the incline grew too steep they had left the vehicle to climb the eastern slope on foot. Riker was in the lead, a rail-thin, leathery man as dry and wrinkled as if the cigarettes he smoked, two packs a day, were surely embalming him. Breathing hard, he led the two men back and forth, tacking across the steep hill searching carefully, stopping often to study the ground, the surrounding growth, and the mountain that rose above them. He was looking for signs of old, rotted fences, abandoned farm tools. He did not smoke while in the woods, he chewed.

Years ago Riker had hunted deer on this mountain. He didn’t remember any old homeplace up here, but often all that was left would be a few bramble-covered artifacts or, higher up the hill, fragments of an old rock foundation and the old well, both long ago covered by heavy growth. As they neared the crest he glanced back at the bureau men, cautioned them again to take care. “You step in a hidden well, you fall a hundred feet straight down.” They’d climbed in silence for another five minutes when Riker stopped suddenly, stood looking above them where a dozen huge oak trees came into view, towering above small, scrubby saplings.

“There. That’ll be it.” He moved on quickly, straight up the ridge until it leveled off to flat ground. There was no sign of a house or of fences or foundation, but Riker nodded with satisfaction, stood wiping his forehead with his bandana. “I’d forgotten this place. Watch your step, the well’s somewhere close.”

Hillerman, the FBI agent, stared around him searching for signs of a homeplace.

“These big old trees,” Riker said, “crowding all together in a half circle? That’s where the house stood, in their shade. And the brushy land that drops on down? That would have been cleared, that’s the garden spot.” The other two looked at him, questioning, but Riker knew these woods. And for the past hundred yards they’d been walking over old, worn terraces.

“There would have been crops here, too,” Riker said, “corn, beans, more tomatoes, collards. Off to your right,” he said, pointing, “those old pear trees gone wild? Someone planted those.” He paused beside a low-branched sourwood, took a small folding saw from his pack, and cut three long straight branches so they could feel ahead through the scrub and grass.

“The well won’t likely be near the bigger trees,” Riker said, “where the roots would grow in.” They moved on slowly, poking ahead, doubling back and forth watching the ground. Near the old homeplace, Hillerman shouted.

Riker and Clark joined him. Kneeling, Riker pulled aside a tangle of honeysuckle, revealing the remains of a crumbled stone curb. Carefully they pulled out long, tangled vines, clearing the stone circle beneath. It was some five feet across, the hole in the center yawning black and deep.

The sides of the well were lined with stone, too, the carefully laid rocks gray with moss where Riker shone the beam of his torch down inside. Tying a rope around his waist, handing the ends to Clark and Hillerman, he leaned down in until his light picked out the far, muddy bottom. He moved the beam slowly, looking.

“It’s there,” Riker said. “The ammo box.”

Hillerman fished a coiled rope from his backpack, a treble hook tied at one end, and handed it to Clark. Kneeling beside Riker, the younger man let the coil play out easy, down and down, the swinging steel claw catching torchlight as it bounced against the well’s stone and earth sides. When it reached bottom he let it settle, then eased it toward the dark metal box lying deep in the mud against the earthen wall.

It took seven passes, Clark gently finessing the hook, before he snagged one of the two handles. Slowly he pulled the box up, afraid at every move that he’d lose it or it would pop open and spill its contents. Keeping it clear of the edges, he at last lifted the dirt-encrusted ammo box above the well and out over solid ground.

Hillerman had to use the beer opener on his pocketknife to pry up the two heavy, rusty latches. When he had pulled the lid open the three men, kneeling around the box, looked at each other grinning.

Within lay the bundles of greenbacks, moldy smelling, each secured with a brown paper collar. They touched nothing. Tucked in beside the money was a tightly rolled canvas bag and a dark blue stocking cap. Hillerman picked this up carefully with the point of his knife, held it high, revealing its length, which would easily cover a man’s face. Two ragged eyeholes had been cut in one side. Underneath, where he’d removed the cap and bag, lay a .38-caliber revolver.

Pulling on clean cotton gloves, Hillerman dropped the cap, bank bag, and revolver into clean paper bags. Carefully he checked the serial numbers on several of the bills, lifting their edges with the point of his knife. “Now,” the overweight agent said, grinning, “let’s see what the lab makes of this.”

“The lab and the U.S. attorney,” said Riker.

Latching the lid, they placed the box in a larger evidence bag. The agents fitted the bags into their backpacks and, all three smiling, they headed back down the mountain. Ever since Quaker Lowe had filled them in fully on Falon’s long record, on Blake’s murder trial, and on comments made by prison authorities, and knowing Lowe’s honest reputation as a straight shooter, they wanted to see Falon fry. Descending the ridge on the trail they’d partially cleared, Riker said, “That old parolee, the old train robber? Whatever his reasons, if it was Fontana who made Falon talk, I’d say he’s earned the court’s blessing.”

“And maybe the Lord’s blessing,” said Hillerman, smiling.