“Go away, please.” Her trembling voice betrayed her gestures with the .410.
“Shoot, little girl.” The leader stepped forward. He swept the firearm from her grasp.
“Hester, dis here skirt done wears sumpin’ purty around her neck. Pull that thang all the way out.”
Samantha shuddered.
Hester collapsed as a stone struck his nose. Blood flew. Samantha screamed. Hester lay dazed.
Something stunned his companion. He staggered, fell, gained his feet, but dropped again.
Hester, recovering, struggled to one knee. Jim kicked him in the face. Hester, flattened, rolled to his side and grew still.
The Kid appeared with Spiffy. A twenty-four inch black sling dangled from the Kid’s right hand.
Samantha, crying, wringing her hands, cascaded into hysteria.
The Kid rocked her. “Now, Sugar, easy, whoa.”
She breathed in short burst. “Wh-what to-took you?”
“What took us? A tinkle of metal meeting rock told me something occurred here. So we hauled back pronto. We come up the draw running on stones, when possible, to limit the noise. Jim’s faster than us. The rest, you know. Tell me everything else.”
“Lo-ve you. You speak- cra-zy.”
“Samantha, the first stone to strike Hester belonged to me. Who threw the second? Spiffy, find the other. The additional may tell us something.”
“Ah yeah, Spiffy’s three steps ahead of you. Here it is by this log. A rubber band is holding a note in place.”
The Kid took the stone, removed the retainer, flipped the message, and smiled. “Reveal yourself, Chameleon. You hide nearby.” He showed the card. “Here’s the proof.”
A voice floated from the woods. “Nobody ever sees me. With your good hearing, plus the ability to pinpoint sound down to a square foot, you realize where I stand. Finish here, and don’t harbor any concerns— the decent people will withhold support from these two. Do the essentials. I’ll trail you.”
With his eyes welded open, the Kid gazed at the spot his senses computed. As forecast, beside an opening a shimmer developed. He seized Samantha’s hand. “By the hickory tree!”
Samantha regained her composure. “Nope, stay cool, dude. The Chameleon takes cover behind brush or something.”
“Not so. Please listen. Never have I witnessed anyone hide in an opening while using the forest shutter as a backdrop. He waits long enough for all of you to give up. He realizes and appreciates my persistence. However, he hopes I will miss his movement, which I don’t. His next move proves ordinary. He uses the four-foot wide red oak to the left to cover his exit, since the other tree is too small. Did you get a glimpse of him, Jim?”
“A flicker.”
Samantha preened her hair and smoothed her clothes. “Kid, how far did you go after the turkey?”
“Hmm, about three-hundred yards. Why?”
“Oh, Kid, you detect the tinkle of a crumpled beer can striking a rock at such a distance?”
“Yeah, tell me the reason for not shooting.”
“Okay. They come. They put me in jail. We’re finished turkey hunting.”
“Oh, Samantha. Next time, shoot. I’ll manage the details. Samantha, fingers in ears and close eyes. Remember. You needn’t witness what happens next.”
The Kid rose. He approached Hester, whose feet scraped the ground while he struggled to rise; to reward his efforts, the Kid drove his right foot into Hester’s ribs.
His next target stood, started off in a shuffling stumble to escape; in one stride, the Kid caught him by the nape of the neck. With one good snatch, he yanked him backwards, slamming the second target into a pine tree, where he flopped on the leaves like a burlap bag full of shucked corn. With a final tumble, his legs spread apart. The Kid thought: here’s opportunity. He used his right foot.
The four viewed the scene, while two men caught their breath. The Kid, though not as swift as Jim or as strong as Spiffy--perhaps due to the metabolism of the monkey body--suffered neither fatigue nor rapid breath.
He gazed at his followers. “Our thinking is incorrect. We saw these people from our passenger side window outside the hot dog stand this morning. They followed us. We worry about the media yet this happens; nevertheless, we face other issues.”
With a wave, he sent Jim to Spiffy’s side. Putting his arm around Samantha, he led her to a dry streambed. “Sugar, you called the Chameleon, right?”
She nodded.
“Cooperate with him. Be smart. The police are looking for him, too. Stay here twenty minutes to select a dozen stones for my sling. Me, Jim, Spiffy need to cross some bridges.”
***
Over the last several days, a series of ideas had sprouted in his brain. When thoughts occurred, Spiffy and Jim needed to be informed.
He told them, “I won’t put up with Mean Man much longer—I must kill him. The messier the killing, the messier the cleanup, and how messy depends on factors too difficult to predict.” He touched Spiffy’s arm. “Remember the Rocky Mountain goat trick.” Spiffy responded with a nod.
Jim rose to his feet. “Sorry, guys, gotta go to the bathroom.” He hustled off toward the brush.
Spiffy chuckled. “Wait up, Jim. You’ve given me inspiration.” Upon leaving, he nodded to the Kid.
The Kid squatted and stirred leaves with a stick. Spiffy was going to try for a DNA sample.
Ten minutes later, Jim returned. Spiffy came back in fifteen. At the right moment, he gave the Kid a headshake.
“Since you two have finished your ‘business,’ let’s continue. The Chameleon, for some reason, has a vigilante complex— therefore, he wants a share in the punishment of the murderer or murderers of the people found on Mr. Slaughter’s property. Furthermore, the possibility exists for a personal connection to at least one of the murders. Ross Slaughter is probably the killer, but do not rule out the possibility that another individual or individuals are the perps.”
Spiffy stared at the Kid. Jim did not make eye contact, but he blinked faster, while his feet angled away from them.
“To the point, Samantha’s quest for a gobbler no longer occupies first place.”
Samantha came back laughing, attempting to juggle four stones with little success.
The Kid slung on his backpack and picked up his gun. “Ready?”
“But …” She pointed at the beaten men. “Shouldn’t you call the emergency squad?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Samantha, listen. Never mind.” He thought: The naiveté of youth.
He looked at her and stroked his chin. “Pay attention, gang. My watch says eleven forty- five and Virginia has a twelve o’clock shooting deadline until the last two weeks of the season. The cutoff time forces us to confront reality—opening day lapses, we get no shot. Don’t fret, Honey. You’ll drop a turkey in the leaves. What I can’t tell is when. Tomorrow is Sunday. I have to make some phone calls. Me and Spiffy may visit a friend Sunday evening. Samantha, I’ll arrange for Priscilla to come at sundown. At eight-thirty, lights out.”
“Great, we’ll catch up on our girl talk.”
“Jim, call me if their room isn’t dark by nine.”
“Yes, Suh. You da’ boss.”
Chapter 21
The Kid tapped on Samantha’s door.
In five minutes Priscilla, with her usual peek-a-boo glance, swung the entrance open and left.
He entered. “Today’s Monday. The weather forecast calls for a low of sixty with a high of eighty-three, without a cloud in the sky. Load up.”
She rubbed sleep from her eyes. “We awoke early and snapped on the TV. What methods can the authorities use to hook this serial killer? Or killers?”
“Don’t worry, Samantha. The cops will succeed.”
They piled into the red four-by-four. Fifty minutes later, they halted beside a mixed forest of pine, oak, and yellow poplar, which lay four miles west of Keeling, Virginia.
A three-quarter moon supplied the predawn light, and the
hooting of great horned owls signaled goodbye to the dark, with their familiar, ‘‘Who cooks for you,” while the cries of whippoorwills echoed from ridge to valley.
Sunup arrived. Through the forest screen fifty feet away, five coyotes appeared, dashed, and pranced into a meadow.
Oh, boy! What a day! What a girl! She’s confident. She holds the .410 with both hands four inches below the muzzle with the butt plate on the leaves.
“Ready, Samantha?” She nodded.
Five minutes passed. The sounds of yelps, clucks, and gobbles mingled with songs from varieties of birds and insects.
They took a logging path which wound to the top of a ridge. Stopping at the summit, pulling her closer, he spoke into her ear. “Take-your-pick time, Sam.”
“Yup. You mean ‘Samantha.’ Check.”
“Correction— Samantha.”
“Cool. The turkey gobbling his brains out to our left— sounds like he gobbles from a tree halfway along the ridge. Perhaps we’ll be able to slip up on the dude by following the crest. Then we come out above him. Calling him in will be as easy as making snot on a cold day.”
“Samantha, you’ve read those books on my shelves. In addition, you possess good auditory acuity. Time to get moving.”
A quizzical expression crossed Jim’s face. “What does audie cuty mean?”
Spiffy turned to Jim with his palms up. “She has the ears of a bat.”
The Kid listened while the gobbler continued his love song. From their starting point, this bird lay five hundred yards away. When the distance shrunk to seventy, he would be in calling range, but still hidden, because these woods consisted of mature timber, which meant that from any given area, the turkey’s vision penetrated in an uneven line. For about fifty yards before that length, the Kid would have the forest to provide invisibility.
On the approach, the Kid saw five abandoned buildings—years ago he had learned about heart pine and its resistance to decay. Several doors lay on the ground because the hinges had failed, owing to rust. Boards had fallen due to nail failure, but those constructed of resin-laden wood challenged rot for years. All of the buildings’ foundations sat on native rocks. The craft persons had worked with selected stones matching them to hide cracks. As a result, human skill created art. With the marriage to gravity, the structure stood.
After the last building, he motioned for them to follow him to the edge of a twenty-foot stream, with a temperature in the forties. To ford a creek in April over boulders of varying sizes with an uneven bottom could have been trouble.
The Kid watched and listened as the water tumbled over and around rocks large and small.
He crossed first.
Spiffy received her gun and handed the .410 to Jim. “Take two?”
“Sure.”
Spiffy crouched. She climbed on. With his size twelve shoes, he took them across in nine strides.
“Play football in college?” said Samantha.
“Linebacker. Go Pumas.”
The Kid nodded. “Nice job crossing, gang. Nobody has wet socks, huh? Try not to fall in on the way out— it’s early spring and the water’s cold. Now, let’s hurry to a good setup. Spiffy, follow me, Samantha next, and Jim, stay in the back. “ He stroked Samantha’s hair. Cheer up.”
Samantha, cheer up, Samantha cheer up, she thought. Kid, you dorkster, sometimes I don’t get you. All Jim will do is stare at my nice rear. Little good the view’ll do him. Yeah, Jim Gunther, he gives me the creeps. He’s handsome and very confident, but something’s wonky about him. I’ll stay a virgin before he or any creepy person touches me. Hey, think, girl. He has hunted the Slaughter property. I wonder...
As she touched the Kid’s shoulder, a turkey gobbled. His head tilted in that direction. “The old boy gobbles for us. When we get to the spot, be prepared. He’ll run in or fly to us. He might sort of slip in.”
She faced him and held her hands out palms up, “But what about—”
“Quiet.”
With an air of skepticism, Spiffy, Samantha, and Jim stared at him.
“Kid— what’s up?” said Samantha.
“Someone’s following us. Listen— footsteps. Also, the crack of a stick. Both sounds come from one hundred yards to the left.” He nodded toward the direction of the noise. “He stopped. He hunts the same turkey. Perhaps he doesn’t comprehend our presence. He stands behind the drape so I can’t detect him. At this point, the screen doesn’t waver much, anyway. He takes two---no, let’s say three steps. I’ll bet he listens for us due to the turkey gobbling his brains out. This person hesitates to move into position to call. Okay, gang, we’ll play the game this way. We go ahead and hunt while I watch this individual with my ears. Perhaps, ‘the dude,’ as Samantha calls some people, lacks hunting skills and means no problem for us. At any rate, we find ourselves too involved with this turkey to look for another. Are we set?”
“Owl ears call the shots,” said Samantha.
Jim nodded. “Right, Samantha.”
Ten minutes later, they huddled among a mixed stand of white and red oaks, which included some scattered brush. Many years before, the area served a family farm to house and cure tobacco. The Kid and Samantha rested their backs on large trees while Spiffy leaned against a curing barn with a foundation made from stones. Beside the structure lay a sprawled tin roof, which covered the skeleton of a tobacco looping shelter. Jim, with lighter-colored camouflaged clothing, blended with an ordering pit, a four-foot foundation constructed with native rock. Much of the underpinning supported a blanket of honeysuckle, Virginia creeper, and poison ivy. This back cover, for all four, rendered them invisible from behind.
Instead of a mouth or a box call, the Kid selected one made of slate, of the friction variety. It came with an acrylic striker. He issued a number of yelps. This imitation of one hen calling to seek another triggered the lovesick tom to glide to earth, confirmed by the “whump whump” sound of his wings arresting his airspeed, putting him softly down. After landing, he double clucked at the base of the tree. Pausing for ten seconds, he triple gobbled. The Kid drew the striker across the slate in a backward question mark to create a sexy purr to excite the tom. To arouse him further, he punctuated the sound with a series of yelps, but the gobbling ceased.
He sprung to Spiffy’s side, whispered something, and slid to Samantha. “My ears warn me. Someone approaches from behind.”
“Same here. Next to yours, mine are best.”
He chewed his bottom lip. “It’s bad news. I’ll betcha’ the turkey’s coming. Let’s hope the bird arrives before the intruder. Sit here. I’ll take a position on your side of the shoulder-high boulder and watch. Give me the instruction I want to hear.”
“Gotcha,” said Samantha. “When he goes behind anything opaque, I place the gunstock under my armpit. When he approaches to within thirty-five yards, I wait for him to vanish behind something else. After he becomes visible, I shoot, or he might tuck his neck and head, puff up his feathers, spread his tail, and strut. Most of the time, he’ll turn around. Okay, shoulder the shotgun and be patient until he pivots. Whew.”
“Samantha, who loves ya’?”
“You do.”
He swallowed a lump. He moved to the boulder. Why did his skin crawl? If the footsteps continue, the failure of the owner to pause will spoil the hunt.
The turkey drew closer. After stopping and double gobbling, he ran toward Samantha, closing the distance to seventy-five yards.
Mean Man burst into view and rushed to the gobbler. Samantha went to the ready position. The creature caught sight of the intruder sprinting and waving his arms. Its powerful wings drove him skyward while a tail wind increased the speed to forty-five miles per hour.
“You suck!” screamed Samantha.
The Kid stood mute. He paced to the right. Spiffy started to rise, but the Kid motioned for him to stay seated. Aside from the contracting and rising of his upper body, the enemy remained motionless, his face exemplifying mental incompetence.
&
nbsp; He signaled for Samantha to lower the hammer on the .410. “Did you enjoy your trick?”
A maniacal grin swept Mean Man’s face. “Yeah Kid, you like the show?”
“Let’s fight,” said the Kid.
His grin did not fade. “Sounds good to me.”
“Fine, give me a few minutes.” He walked to Samantha, gestured with his fingers, and she followed him for a quiet talk. “Samantha, walk back to the pickup with Jim.”
Jim moved into their space. “Right Samantha,” He seized her shoulder and shook her. “This ain’t no place for a girl.”
She snatched away as if he’d metamorphosed into a brain-eating zombie. “I am not a child. I’m not going.”
The Kid pulled her by both shoulders until their faces lay inches apart. “Yes, you will.”
Her eyeballs floated. “This scene scares me. Can I stay? If anything goes wrong, I’ll give him a free one in the chest.”
He fought a smile. “Do what I say.”
“Can you take this sucker?”
“You betcha! Back to our truck, hit the trail with Jim.”
His pupil sashayed through the woods until they vanished into the curtain. He sucked air. “Will a fistfight satisfy you? A struggle that leaves the other whipped?”
“Why not?” Mean Man jerked a forest green camouflage handkerchief from his pocket to bind his forehead, but he failed to discover an object which the bandanna dislodged. With the exception of the Kid, the item fell unnoticed.
“Say, Mean Man, how about we hold this little altercation across the stream?”
“You planning something?”
“Several of these trees are easy to climb. If I happen to beat your tail, you cannot say I used them as I did the scaffold. So let’s fight in the clearing. We eliminate climbing from the equation.”
“Sounds okay to me.”
The Kid paused, extended his hand toward the path with palm up. The trick worked. Mean Man left first. The Kid snagged the fallen object from the ground. In minutes the Kid, Spiffy, and Mean Man stood among the heart pine buildings.
He withdrew the item. “Oh, by the way, I believe this red and white cord belongs to you.”
Mean Man slapped at his pocket. He studied the Kid’s eyes. The Kid backed up.
“Satisfy me about something. How did you find us here after we ducked the media?”