Deputy U.S. Marshal Mason Raines turned his black Ford F150 truck up the long dirt driveway. The morning air was crisp, and fog steamed out from the thick green foliage like the breath of a sleeping dragon. He carefully navigated a full quarter mile up the drive, steering around deep ruts that had resulted from a year of unusually heavy rain. Arriving at a large metal gate, he stepped from the warmth of his truck and unlocked the chains holding it in place. A gentle push sent the heavy barrier swinging open. The simple action reminded him of the countless times he had sat in a truck very similar to his own, watching his father open the same gate. The nostalgia left Mason imagining his father there with him, as if time had folded over to allow the past and present to briefly coexist.
He pulled the truck forward a few paces and climbed out again to close the gate behind him. He wondered why he even bothered. The turn off to his property was difficult to see, and other than the occasional teenagers looking for a make-out spot, there was very little chance of anyone disturbing his remote getaway. Even if they did, what trouble could they cause? Vandalism perhaps, but that didn’t seem likely. Most people were decent enough. More likely, they would simply let themselves into his cabin and enjoy a weekend in the mountains. For all he knew, the occasional unannounced visitor might even do the place a little good.
The cabin was distant enough from Mason’s daily routine that he would have let the place go if circumstances had not dictated otherwise. With his father doing fifteen years in the Talladega Federal Correctional Institution for manslaughter and his mother living with her sister on an Amish farm in rural New York, the duty of maintaining the family’s mountain retreat had fallen squarely on his shoulders.
More than just duty brought him to the cabin. Mason’s job as a firearms instructor at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in Glynco, Georgia was an endless routine of high-stress training, one that he gladly escaped when offered the chance to breathe the fresh mountain air and enjoy a little peace and quiet.
He drove the final hundred yards and parked on a small gravel lot directly in front of the cabin. Built in the truest tradition of log cabins, his father had constructed it from huge trees cut from the surrounding property. From the outside, it looked more like a small cavalry outpost hardened to protect against hostile Apaches than a weekend mountain getaway.
As Mason approached the cabin, he reached out and rubbed a wooden eagle that sat like a protective totem to one side of the porch. His mother had fancied herself a bit of an undiscovered artist, and the eagle was one of her many contributions to their family retreat. Like those who suffer from compulsive behavior disorders, Mason had an almost uncontrollable urge to touch the eagle each time he went into the home, especially when he had been away for some time. Perhaps it stemmed from a fond remembrance of his mother, or perhaps it was just a simple request for divine luck, similar to rubbing the belly of a Buddha statue.
The cabin’s door was a massive slab of oak, one rivaling the castle drawbridges of medieval England. His mother had added a large metal knocker in the shape of a monkey’s fist, saying that, without it, someone would have to bloody their knuckles for anyone inside to hear them. The point ultimately proved irrelevant since the cabin remained unknown to any but their immediate family. It was a small secret in a world where few secrets remained. As far as anyone from the nearby towns knew, the land was simply another tract of undeveloped property that one day might be cleared for trees or mined for ore.
Mason entered the cabin, and the familiar smell of wood and dust welcomed him like the scent of a mother’s freshly baked cookies. It had been nearly six months since he had last stepped foot in the cabin, and as with all homes, time and nature were its worst enemies. A few small items had been knocked over, almost certainly by raccoons searching for food. Despite his many efforts to keep the structure well sealed and protected from the elements, raccoons and the occasional squirrel or bat invariably found their way in. He took down the heavy wooden shutters and opened a few windows. The temperatures in late March were still chilly in the morning, but the fresh air brought life back to the sleepy cabin.
He walked around to the back of the building and removed a heavy tarp from a large downdraft gasification generator. The unique electromechanical system consisted of a pressure vessel, burner unit, gas-burning turbine, and a maze of copper plumbing that tied it all together. Mason took great pride in having successfully built the unit two years earlier. It could be fueled by a variety of biomass products, including timber and crops. He had picked up most of the parts from a salvage yard, and as such, the twenty-kilowatt beast looked as if it belonged in the belly of a Navy destroyer.
He piled a full load of dried timber into the main vessel and lit it from below. Within minutes chemical reactions would begin producing syngas, a composition of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. That gas would in turn be cleaned and then burned in the electricity-generating turbine. The entire energy conversion process was remarkably clean and self-sustaining.
Next to the generator was a large burn box that his father had used to heat both the house and the water. It would burn most anything from wood to garbage, and Mason could remember many an early morning loading the box with freshly cut firewood. He was a bit ashamed to admit that he hadn’t even fired it up since installing a more modern furnace and hot water heater that ran off the gasification-generated electricity. Still, just looking at the heavy metal box reassured him that the cabin would remain warm throughout the harshest of winters, even if his prized generator was to fail.
Mason’s next stop was the main breaker box where he switched on the power. He spent a few minutes checking the motion-detecting flood lights mounted at each corner of the cabin. While they could certainly be useful against potential intruders, they were handiest at keeping away bears and other creatures in search of food. Doing a quick inspection of the inside of the cabin revealed little damage, save for a couple of lamps that had been knocked over and some fresh scratches on the doorframe. He checked the refrigerator, and it appeared to be cooling down just fine.
Returning to his truck, he retrieved several bags of food and drinks. While he kept a full year’s supply of prepackaged freeze-dried food stored in a locked pantry in the cabin, he didn’t like to use his food cache for anything less than a true emergency. With a shelf life of at least thirty years, the food would very possibly outlive him.
Once Mason situated the food in the cupboards and refrigerator, he checked the water supply. The spigot in the kitchen sputtered and spat, but eventually ran clear, clean water. The generator powered a submersible pump, which in turn kept the cabin’s thousand-gallon water tank full. He had changed the pump just last year, and had also installed a cast iron hand crank in case the electric unit should ever fail. The water table wasn’t particularly deep, and if needed, he could refill the tank by hand with a hard day’s work.
Having taken care of food, water, and electricity, Mason turned his attention to what really mattered—fishing. He pulled out a painted green tackle box that had once been his father’s and began sorting through brightly colored lures and jigs. Beautiful cutthroat trout could be pulled all day long from a stream not more than a ten-minute hike away. For three weeks, there would be no phone, no television, no internet, and most important, no excuses from students who couldn’t place their shots in a target shaped like a large bowling pin. Just fresh fish, a little target practice in the backyard, and a chance to catch up on a pile of books he had put off reading. Mason was determined that these were going to be the best three weeks of his life.
Mason sat up, covered in a heavy sweat. He struggled to recall the dream that had left his heart racing and hands trembling. Nothing specific came to mind. As with most dreams, it was gone as quickly as the wisp of a passing perfume. He considered lying back down but knew that sleep would elude him until he managed to clear any remnants of the dream from the corners of his mind. Seeing no other choice, he crawled out of bed, relieved himself in the adjacent bathroom, and
brewed a cup of fresh decaf coffee.
Grabbing a large double-barreled shotgun that had once been his father’s, he stepped out onto the front porch and sat in a rocking chair. With the heavy weapon resting across his lap like a ballplayer’s favorite bat, he stared out at the dark, listening to the sounds of life all around him. Owls chimed to one another. Raccoons scrambled about, causing trouble everywhere they went. Bats flicked across the sky, enjoying a feast of nocturnal insects. Crickets and countless other bugs chirped and flitted, filling the air with an endless cacophony of noises. Mason sipped his coffee for a few minutes, enjoying his fragile place in the complex world around him.
A gunshot sounded. Then a second, and a third. They were far enough away that Mason didn’t even stop rocking in his chair. It could easily have been a mile, maybe even a little farther. Probably hunters out chasing raccoons, he thought. While Mason had no particular love for the critters, he didn’t like the thought of a pack of dogs running down the animals until their masters could finally catch up and finish the job with a shotgun.
In his seven years with the Marshal Service, he had been forced to fire his weapon on six different occasions, an unusually high number to be sure. In each of those cases, however, his opponent had been armed, either with a rifle, handgun, or, in one case, a machete. Taking a life under those circumstances seemed distinctly different than butchering an animal in the middle of the night for nothing more than its pelt.
Despite his indignation, he made no move to question the illegal hunting. Not only was it unacceptably dangerous to do so, it was also a fight that he was unwilling to enter. The world had its predators and prey. Man was fortunate enough to be at the top of the food chain in most environments, and when he wasn’t, he felt the sharp bite of whatever it was that held authority over him. Such was the way of the world. Mason wondered if one day that same world might decide that man had held the top post for long enough.
Chapter 3