Other Titles by Nathan Everett

City Limits

Gee Evars wandered into Rosebud Falls on Independence Day just in time to rescue a toddler from the rushing torrent of the Rose River. And to lose his memory. In an attempt to make Rosebud Falls his home, Gee becomes a local hero and inadvertently leads a revolt that changes the balance of power in the town. But will he ever know who he really is?

The Gutenberg Rubric

Two rare-book librarians race across three continents to find and preserve a legendary book printed by Johannes Gutenberg. Behind them, a trail of bombed libraries draws Homeland Security to launch a worldwide search for biblio-terrorists. Keith and Maddie find love along the way, but will they survive to enjoy it?

For Money or Mayhem

Computer forensics detective Dag Hamar is pulled from behind the safety of his computer and takes to the streets when he discovers a link between an online predator and real-life kidnappings around Seattle. His fledgling romance is threatened when his girlfriend’s daughter is suddenly among the missing.

For Blood or Money

Computer forensics detectives Dag Hamar and Deb Riley discover secret files and hidden code can be as dangerous as dark alleys and flying bullets as they track a missing man and the billion-dollar fortune that went with him. Fourteen years after For Money or Mayhem.

Municipal Blondes

Deb Riley continues the chase after Dag’s untimely demise. She has a code to break, a mystery to solve, and an assassin to avoid. Disguise and deception are her only weapons.

The Volunteer

Journey inside the head of a chronically homeless man. In a less politically correct time, he might have been called a hobo. But what keeps him wandering, hitching rides, and eating handouts? Piece together the story through his memories to find what made him volunteer.

Copyright ©2019 by Elder Road Books

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be submitted via e-mail to ElderRoadBooks@outlook.com.

First print edition

ISBN 978-1-950183-08-1

Designed by Nathan Everett

Cover art licensed from Colourbox ID21746536

Printed in the United States of America

A special thank you to my editors and advisers who stuck with me through this entire project. Your help was immeasurable.

Lyndsy Fernandes

Michele Palmer

Michelle Duncan

Margie Cantlon

1
Volunteers

Identity Crisis

“IT COULD BE number one or four. The others are definitely out,” Karen said. She sipped at the coffee in her hand. It wasn’t Birdie’s and tasted foul but she needed something to do with her hands. Her heart had been in her throat ever since they opened the curtain to show her the lineup of five men.

“O-kay,” Detective Mead Oliver groaned. He pulled the curtain closed and dismissed the lineup. “Uh… Why do you say that?”

“It’s confusing! It all happened so fast. I approached Rena, I was grabbed from behind, and before I could scream, he slapped that stinking cloth around my face and I passed out,” she nearly shouted. “How am I supposed to identify the bastard? Those three are too short. That’s all I know.”

“He was tall?”

“Either that or he was on platforms taller than mine.”

“You were wearing heels?”

“Wedges. An inch and a half. I liked those shoes. Did anyone ever find them?”

“I’m afraid we’ve found none of your clothes,” Sheriff Brad Johnson said. “We’ve had some complications with the search. How do you know he was tall?”

“I don’t… He grabbed me in a choke hold.”

“How tall are you, Karen?” Mead asked.

“Five-ten.”

“Plus a couple of inches in heels,” he said. “I think I see. Brad, how tall are you?”

“Six-three.”

“Give me a hand and get behind me.” The sheriff stood behind the police detective. In a community their size, the two often worked together and since, at the time of the crime, the Wild Woods and quarry were technically outside the city limits, this required their cooperation to the fullest. The results of yesterday’s election would put the area inside the limits. “Grab me around the neck. Karen, tell him if he’s got it about right. I don’t want to traumatize you by reliving everything, but this will help us in the search.”

“I understand, Mead. That looks right.”

“Okay, switch places with me, Brad.” The sheriff moved to the front and Mead moved behind, placing his arm over Brad’s shoulder.

“I think I’m too big for you to get that hold on me,” Brad said.

“Exactly. I understand Karen’s description now. The assailant had to be significantly taller than her in order to get that kind of upward pull. Otherwise she would have been pulled down.”

“So, we’re looking for someone over six-two,” Brad nodded in agreement.

“Wow!” Karen said. “I didn’t realize. Now that I’ve seen it, I can almost feel his face up next to mine and smell his breath before the cloth covered my face. I thought it was the stuff on the cloth. Strong peppermint smell.”

“Sounds more like Tic Tac than chloroform.”

“Any other impressions?”

“The arm under my chin was… smooth. It wasn’t a rough fabric.”

“Good.”

“And I’d say older. I didn’t realize that until I was listening to you two talk. Sheriff, your voice sounds younger than Mead’s. The guy who grabbed me sounded older. And he was deadly calm like it didn’t mean a thing that he was forcing me to eat poison nuts as he recited the names of the Families. I have impressions of a face, but it isn’t even human. I was already hallucinating by then. I could hear the trees talking and prayed Gee would come to save me.”

“You’re doing fine, Karen,” Brad said. “We’re getting a lot more to go on now. I’m afraid the description the kids gave wasn’t much help either. Oh. Gloves?”

“Yes. At first. Smooth. Leather. Like driving gloves. When he shoved the first nut in my mouth, I tried to bite him. He slapped me. After the first nut, I knew I was dead, so I just kept eating them.”

“Thank you, Karen. Let’s give it a rest. I know this is hard on you. If you think of anything else, please call. Anything at all. We want your attacker in jail.”

“Thank you, Mead. You’re a sweetheart. Sheriff, I promise not to walk into that kind of situation again without backup.”

“Take care, Karen,” Brad responded. “Give our best to Gee.”

“Now what?” Mead asked as Karen disappeared down the hall.

“Now we let our number one suspect go free,” Brad sighed. “Rev. Lance Beck is only five-five. He couldn’t have gotten her in that hold without pulling her down.”

“Sheriff?” Deputy Carlisle poked his head in the room where Mead and Brad were meeting.

“What is it, Jeff?”

“Not good, sir. We just got back from the church. It’s clean. The dogs found no scent of drugs. If cleanliness is next to godliness, those people have one foot in heaven already. The place was spotless.”

“That’s great. Just great. Now we’re worse off than we were before. Is there any chance they were tipped off?”

“It all looked normal. There was a work crew of church members who said it was their annual maintenance week. They were almost finished repainting the sanctuary and it looked like a couple of days work completed. They weren’t happy about the dogs.”

“Nothing like fresh paint to hide a scent. Damn it! Write up the report. I want impressions from everyone who was on the search team. I’m going to have to take it to Judge Warren and explain that our whole investigation is in the toilet.” Brad waved his deputy out of the room and sank heavily into his chair.

“We need to search the Wild Woods,” Mead said.

“For what? We already know there are nuts out there. The dogs would never pick up a drug scent. And the underbrush is so dense we were using machetes to get through to find Karen.”

“Which means that whoever did this knows the woods a lot better than we do,” Mead insisted. “Might even still be out there. Think about it. Two kids witness the attack and we get a 911 call. You’re on the scene within fifteen minutes. From that point, there are firetrucks, ambulances, and police onsite for the next hour. That’s when we get another 911 call from Gee. We start searching the woods. It’s eight hours later that we finally find the cabin with Karen in it. During that time, we’ve got people closing in on the location from two directions. Foresters, EMTs, deputies, with firetrucks playing searchlights along the edge of the woods. This bastard has had time to drug and rape her, clean up all the evidence, including her clothes, and walk out without being detected.”

“Right past us. Could have even been a forester helping with the search,” Brad nodded.

“I don’t think we need a warrant,” Mead concluded. “Savage agreed to removing the fence. All we need is his permission to search the woods.”

After leaving the police station, Karen dragged herself into the office of The Elmont Mirror. She was immediately immersed in the excitement of getting the next day’s paper ready. Election results had been reported and the paper put to bed last night long before two hundred kids and parents gathered to tear down the fence separating the Forest from the Wild Woods. Kelly Murray had been with Karen and managed some extremely good night photos. Lanterns and flashlights painted an eerie glow over the activities. Karen had hours of recorded interviews with parents and permissions to use their kids’ names in her story. But the story still had to be written.

“What’s the story on Preacher Beck’s arrest?” Axel Hunter, the editor, demanded.

“What arrest?” Karen asked. She hadn’t followed the police scanner while she was out at the fence.

“Beck was caught in Rena Lynd’s hospital room last night and arrested. I thought that’s where you were this morning.”

“I don’t know anything about an arrest. I was out at the fence all last night. You know I can’t do any reporting on that story. I’m too closely involved.”

“Any comments from the victim?” Axel sneered. Karen scowled at him.

“Yeah. This is a time of recovery for the victim and her family. We ask that you respect her need for privacy as she continues to heal from the trauma. No further comment is available at this time,” she said while staring him in the eye.

Axel stormed away in his usual foul mood to call the police department. Karen set to work going through Kelly’s photos and putting them together with her story.

Unwarranted Search

Gee dragged himself into Jitterz for lunch after half a day at the Market. He got little sleep after the fence destruction the night before and hoped Karen would join him for lunch before he went home for a nap. His phone buzzed just before he reached the counter. “Don’t wait. I’m tied up with the story. Deadline. Chaos,” Karen’s text read. Gee sighed.

“Coffee, Gee?” Elaine asked. Everywhere Gee looked, people appeared tired. Elaine and her cousins had been at the fence last night, too.

“I had a cup earlier. Just tea. And I guess an egg salad sandwich.”

“Have a seat. I’ll get it out to you,” she said after he paid. An empty table by the window was inviting and he sank into the chair. Election results were the main topic of conversation around him. A hundred or maybe two hundred teens and parents had taken part in removing the fence between the Forest and the Wild Woods last night but it had been long after the paper was put to bed. Troy mentioned the fence in his morning broadcast but even he had focused on the election results and annexation of South Rosebud.

“Catalyst. That’s the word I’ve been looking for,” Birdie said as she set Gee’s tea and sandwich in front of him. She dropped into the seat opposite him with her own cup of tea.

“What?”

“There were a lot of volatile elements floating in the primordial sea of Rosebud Falls six months ago but nothing was coming to life. Then you arrived. The atoms began to align on both sides of the fence. Now there is no fence. You are a catalyst.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You didn’t need to. You only needed to be present. Now, though, you’ll have to take a more active role.”

“I’m just…”

“No-no, Gee. You can’t hide behind being a simple man with no memory. You’re a leader. You’re the Champion of Rosebud Falls. No one cares who or what you were before, any more than you care. But now that the elements are aligned, will we have fusion or fission?” Birdie said.

“I didn’t know you were a scientist. What should I do? I just try to be a good person. Most of the time I don’t know what the right thing is, I just hope it turns out okay. Do you know what Mead Oliver told me? I could be arrested for inciting civil disobedience last night. If they hadn’t been so orderly, he’d have run me in for inciting a riot,” Gee sighed. He just needed some sleep and he wouldn’t feel so overwhelmed.

“You know Mead wouldn’t do that—even if it was possible. You’re a hero. You control the super-majority of stockholder votes at Savage Sand and Gravel. You’re a role model. You’re the Pied Piper of the library and the Forest. You’re an equal with the Family heads, engaged to the Roth heiress. You cannot pretend to be stumbling along doing what comes naturally—even if that’s true,” Birdie lectured him.

Worry creased Gee’s brow. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do next, Birdie.”

“I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ babies, Miz Scarlett,” Birdie mocked. “I don’t think anybody is going to give you time to decide. You’ve got visitors.”

Mead Oliver, for better or worse, always seemed to show up when Gee had done something—good or bad. Beside him, Sheriff Brad Johnson cut an imposing figure in his uniform. And following along in a utility kilt was the new Chairman and CEO of Savage Sand & Gravel, Pàl Savage.

“Can we join you, Gee? I mean, if you’ve finished your lunch?” Mead asked. Gee set his teacup on his empty plate and Birdie swept it away. The men pulled up chairs to the little table.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” Gee asked. “Am I being arrested… again?”

“Never expected what a pain being City Champion would be, did you?” Mead laughed. “SSG has decided not to press charges for the vandalism of their fence.”

“And we won’t book you for inciting a riot,” Brad added. All three men laughed at Gee’s discomfiture. “Really, we’ve come for advice and to ask a favor.”

“Of me?” Gee asked. “Sure. Whatever I can do.”

“Pàl?” Mead said.

“The sheriff and police have asked for permission to search the Wild Woods,” Pàl began. “On the surface it sounds like a good idea. We should know what’s out there. I dug up the leases and discovered the Savage Family home was leased to a small group as an alternative to Flor del Día for fostering orphans and teaching. That was right after the war when my grandfather incorporated the company and took me to Scotland. There was no shortage of orphans and it seemed like a good thing. But ultimately, the shelter grew into the Calvary Tabernacle. When Mr. Beck was called as pastor a little over ten years ago, he was permitted use of the home as part of his compensation and the camp for troubled children was moved into the woods.”

“We executed a search warrant early this morning on both the church and the house,” Brad said. “It revealed no sign that children were in the residence nor had been for many years.”

“I’m not fond of Pastor Beck,” Gee said carefully. “Was there any other incriminating evidence?”

“No. We’ve eliminated Beck as a primary suspect in Ms. Weisman’s kidnapping and the attempted murder of Rena Lynd,” Brad continued. “He might still have been in collusion, but he didn’t carry it out. And we’ve found no trace of drugs in either the church or the house.”

“Still, we know the church has been bringing children into the area for deprogramming by Beck,” Pàl added. “The two cabins found in the woods during Karen’s rescue had been scrubbed clean. Are there more? Are there children out there? Another processing plant to manufacture drugs? A storage facility? Sheriff Johnson wants to search the woods for evidence of wrongdoing.”

“It sounds like a good idea,” Gee said. “Why ask me?”

“SSG’s rights to the Wild Woods are questionable. Mineral and resource leases can be interpreted in many ways. Anything found in the Wild Woods could incriminate SSG, not just the church. Our liability could bankrupt the company and possibly put present and former executives at risk,” Pàl said. “You hold the proxies for over two-thirds of the stockholder votes. If we pursue this, those shares could end up worthless.”

“And you want me to vote?”

“As CEO of the company, I would like to find a way to do this that minimizes our legal exposure. It could take a long time to do that and I don’t yet know which people in the company I can actually trust. The control was securely in the hands of the church. Right down to the lowest levels of labor.”

“In the meantime, there could be children being held or hiding in the Wild Woods,” Gee said. “Drugs might still be manufactured there. Kidnappings might still be concealed.” All three men facing him nodded as Gee contemplated the options.

Gee finally lifted his head to look them in the eyes. “Every person who gave me a proxy used the same or very similar words—almost as if they had a script,” Gee said at last. “Each one asked me to vote my conscience to the benefit of the Forest, the City, the people, and the woods. To me, it was a clear commitment to ethical responsibility rather than profit. Since the sheriff is nicely requesting a search rather than simply presenting a warrant, I assume there might be some political or financial reasons for not just breaking down the doors, so to speak.”

“Honestly, Gee, I have no idea what to request in a warrant or how to go about a search,” Brad said. “It took us hours to hack our way to those cabins we found and we had GPS coordinates. I don’t have the manpower to devote to an extended search for an unknown something.”

“How about if we send the foresters in to do an assessment of the resources in the Wild Woods? We know they want access as soon as possible anyway. We could press some urgency to determine the value and dangers of our new annex. Of course, the sheriff and police department would be welcome to observe when they can and we’d want services on alert in case we… encounter an injury or other emergency. Would that resolve our difficulties?”

The three men looked at each other and silently nodded their assent.

“There’s just one thing, Gee,” Pàl said. “I’ll authorize the foresters and volunteers to have access but someone has to convince them of the urgency to move now. That someone is you.”

Gee sighed. He’d been hoping for a nap.

Enlistment

“I knew that action in the Forest last night would come back to bite us in the ass,” David said. The head of the Lazorack Family was never one to mince words. “I have one job. It is to ensure the care and harvest of the Forest.”

“But Harvest is over,” Gee objected.

“The nut harvest is over,” Jonathan jumped in ahead of his father. “Weather is getting colder each day and there will be snow soon. Before that happens, the foresters need to check every tree, make sure all the deadwood has been cleared, and supervise the gleaners who are still picking up late-falling nuts from the Forest floor. We can spare some people after snow starts in earnest.”

“We can’t wait,” Gee stated.

“I agree,” Jessie said. She and Jonathan had been married less than two months and, to many people, the couple represented the future of the Forest. “I understand we need to finish Forest maintenance but there could be children out there. David, I saw your determination when we went into the woods to find Karen. This is just as important. We have to dedicate people to surveying and assessing the Wild Woods.”

David ran his fingers through his hair and looked at the map in front of them. The area depicting the Wild Woods was copied from maps that were over a hundred years old. They probably weren’t accurate to start with. He looked at his friend and mentor.

“Gabe?” The old forester looked up from the map as if just becoming aware of the conversation. He’d worked alongside the other foresters during Harvest but spent most of his semi-retired time in the office. He glanced at the faces of the younger foresters.

“Yep. Gotta do it, David.”

“Just stop our fall maintenance and send everyone into the Wild Woods?”

“No. But we could spare a few foresters. I’ll supervise the assessment. We might not get all the way through the Wild Woods right away but we should get a good picture of what is out there,” Gabe answered.

Gee breathed a sigh of relief, thankful for the old forester’s support. “What about volunteers?” he asked.

“People are pretty burned out after Harvest,” Jonathan said. “They’ve already spent ten days volunteering and ignoring school, work, and their families.”

“Still, if you could get volunteers, we could use them,” Gabe said. “Especially if they have an interest in becoming foresters.”

“Like advance training? An internship? I might be able to get some of those enthused high schoolers out here on weekends,” Gee said.

“We need to start tomorrow,” Gabe answered. “Not enough time to organize anything formal. We’ll just teach you as we go.”

“Me?”

“You’re our first volunteer.”

“Seeking volunteers to help foresters assess the Wild Woods of South Rosebud,” Karen read back to Gee. “Sounds like a classified ad. We’ve got the paper in layout already. Axel will throw a fit. Maybe we can squeeze in a sidebar to the story of the fence coming down. I’ll have to do some rewriting.”

“I’m sorry to cause problems for you, Karen. Thank you,” Gee said to his fiancée. He’d never been inside her office at The Elmont Mirror before and felt like he was intruding on her private domain.

“Call Cameron and alert him to what you’re doing. When Axel goes ballistic and calls his boss, I want him ready to support the delay in getting the paper to bed. Whom should volunteers contact?” she asked.

Gee finished giving Karen the details and then headed out to start recruiting.

“Hey, Gee,” Ryan said when Gee found him trimming lettuce in the vegetable display. The boy’s tone and posture showed how exhausted he was. He’d had little more sleep than Gee after leading the youth tearing down the fence last night but still had to go to school and show up for his job.

“I don’t think you should be working with a sharp knife today,” Gee laughed.

“Done with this,” Ryan said, carefully putting the trimming knife in its plastic sleeve. He pulled off his cutting glove. “I think you’re right. Wow! That was sure something last night.”

“It was. But now we have to live with the consequences.”

“You mean like being so tired I can hardly stand up?”

“That’s one,” Gee said as Ryan pushed the trimming cart to the back of the store. “The other is that we have six hundred acres of new forestland to assess and protect. I’m going to work with the foresters for the next couple of weeks but we could sure use some volunteers to help us. We’re spread pretty thin.”

“I’d love to but… I mean, there’s school. We can’t exactly cut classes to go work in the woods.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Gee said. “But there might be time on weekends. If you’re serious about learning forestry.”

“That would be cool. I bet we could get some after school help once football season is over,” Ryan said, warming to the idea.

“I’ll be at the game Friday night. Why don’t you let kids know I’d like to talk to anyone interested in volunteering?”

Ryan grinned at Gee. “We might need to reserve a section of the stands.”

“I don’t know what else to say, Nathan. This is important. It was easy for people to ignore the Wild Woods when it wasn’t part of the City. But it’s our responsibility now and I guess I walked into it.” Gee had gone directly from talking to Ryan to meeting with his boss and friend at the Market.

“Do you really think there could be people living out there?” Nathan asked.

“We found two cabins last month. The Wild Woods could hold a dozen of those and we’d never know. It’s not just that there could be people…” Gee sighed and shook his head. “I have an uneasy feeling, Nathan. We could find anything.”

“We’ll miss you in the mornings. I guess we’ve survived without you before but I hope you get back to us soon. It’s hard to get coverage for that shift,” Nathan said.

“I’ll keep an eye out for another employee. Hmm. Might even have an idea. Let me see what I can come up with.”

“Are you as tired as I am?” Karen sighed as she sank onto the sofa next to Gee. It was a struggle for Gee to stay awake until ten when she got home.

“Exhausted,” he said. “How’d it go at the office?”

“The expected big row about changing layout of the front page to accommodate your little sidebar but Cameron set Axel straight and the paper went to press. I think you might get flooded with volunteer inquiries at the foresters’ office starting about noon tomorrow.”

“Do you think that many will come out?”

“It’s hard to say. The City loves its Forest. The Wild Woods is a source of mystery. I hope you don’t want only men. There are likely to be more women available if you can accommodate school schedules.”

“I never thought of that. I don’t think there is any prejudice against women. Even I am overqualified for what we need to do,” Gee mused.

“Well if you can do the job, certainly a woman can!” Karen laughed. Gee blushed.

“I sounded like an ass, didn’t I?” he said. She kissed him.

“That doesn’t often happen with you, sweetheart. I’m sure it’s just the exhaustion.”

“Say, how’s your friend Timmy doing?”

“He was very concerned when I was in the hospital and brought me a flower. I think he’s mostly worried that I won’t take him back to the big city again. Why?”

“Nathan needs help stocking shelves and carting things at the market in the mornings. Do you think Timmy could handle it? It’s hard to get a high school student for that shift.”

“Hmm. It’s possible. He’s a very dedicated worker once he learns his job. He washes dishes at the Pub & Grub most evenings and does a good job there. If Nathan is patient in training him, he’d be able to do the work, I’m sure.” Karen breathed a long sigh. “I’ll have to talk to his mother.”

“Raven?”

“That’s their last name. Her first name is Lynda but with her black hair, everyone has called her by her last name as long as I can remember. I don’t think she really likes me but I’ve been Timmy’s friend for so long that she’s accepted me. Without her support, Timmy wouldn’t establish the routine he’d need to do the job.” Karen kissed her fiancé again. “Can we just go to bed now? My head hurts.”

“I think that’s the best idea we’ve had today.”

Recruitment

“It’s getting chilly out here for football,” Gee said as he and Karen moved into the stands.

“Only one more game next week and the season ends,” Karen said. They took their customary seats next to Wayne in the stands. The teams were warming up on the field and their breath could be seen in the lights. Gee wrapped their blanket snugly around their legs.

“I’m getting a little worried about how cold it will be this winter,” Wayne agreed. “Even Granda is thinking about going back to Florida.”

“Really?”

“I think it’s all talk. I see the look in his eyes when he’s standing at his office window and can see the Wild Woods. He’ll never leave. He’s not too happy with his accommodations at my house, though,” Wayne said. “I think he’s considering moving up to the retirement home where Dee Warren and Celia Ransom live. Nothing brings life to his eyes like spending time with them, Heinz Nussbaum, and Coretta Sims. I don’t think I’ll ever really comprehend how close they were growing up.”

“Wayne,” Karen said suddenly, “do you have any idea where your Family tree is?”

“Uh… Granda has a chart with names on it. I assume it’s packed in his things.”

“Oh. That’s not what I mean. Each Family has a rose hickory that is… I don’t know… dedicated? It’s the Family’s connection to the Forest,” Karen said. “When I… had my ordeal, I promised the Forest I would visit all the Family trees. I know how that sounds, but it’s a compulsion. Not that I’m rushing to finish the task but so far, I’ve visited Roth, Poltanys, and Nussbaum.”

“I’ll ask Granda if he knows. If I had to guess, I’d say it was on the property where Preacher Beck lives. That’s the Savage ancestral home from what I understand.”

“I didn’t know that. Could be sticky getting in there.”

“Not if Granda succeeds in evicting him. What about the other trees? There are seven, aren’t there?”

“Cavanaugh, Lazorack, and Meagher.”

“Meagher is still in touch with his tree,” Gee said. “He ate a nut from it years ago.”

“It scares me a little to visit him but I’ll get to it soon.”

“So, how was your first day in the Wild Woods?” Wayne asked, changing the subject away from Karen’s discomfiture.

“Slow. We all want to just march through the woods in all directions but Gabe insists that we have to be systematic. I understand. As thick as the undergrowth in the woods is, we could miss entire sections if we don’t take our time to do it right. You wouldn’t think six hundred acres was so big. I could see getting lost out there and never finding my way out. I’m just worried there might be someone lost in there and we’ll never find them,” Gee said.

“Can the cabins be seen from the air?”

“Gabe ordered a helicopter flight for this weekend. They’re going to photograph the whole region. In general, though, the canopy of the Wild Woods is almost as dense as the understory. And the two cabins we’ve found were camouflaged on the roof. If there is no heat source even infrared photography won’t show anything.”

“Gee’s trying to get volunteers to help make the work go faster. He’s working with ten foresters, but wants to get some high school kids involved.”

“You’ll do well with them,” Wayne agreed.

By the end of the game, snow flurries danced in the air—a potent reminder that winter was coming and time was short.

“Can we move to Jitterz or someplace warm?” Shannon asked. Ryan’s girlfriend was shivering under the bleachers with over a dozen other teens who came to meet with Gee. It was obvious she had worn far too little for the weather.

“I’m good with that,” Gee said. “Karen? Do you think they could find room for about fifteen people as a group?”

“I’ll call. Is everyone walking or driving?” Karen asked. Ryan and Shannon gratefully climbed into the back of Karen’s car for the short trip. Birdie was waiting for them and directed them to a section of the lounge she’d cleared. As soon as everyone had drinks or ice cream, they settled around Gee.

“You all did a great job Tuesday night when it came time to tear down the fence,” Gee started. There were a few hand-slaps. “You’re leaders. The former CEO of the company threatened retaliation for vandalism, but the current CEO quashed that and announced that he’d given permission. But we’ve got another problem.”

“Is there more fence?” Barrett asked.

“No. It’s the Wild Woods itself. It hasn’t been tended for nearly a century or maybe more. The undergrowth is so thick we can hardly cut a path. But three weeks ago, we found two cabins out there that no one knew about. I think there are more. Call it a hunch if you like, but evidence says that Calvary Tabernacle used the woods for its child reprogramming camp.”

“You mean there could be kids living out there?” Alyson asked. “Like abandoned? They could starve. Or freeze.”

“Just my point, Alyson,” Gee said. He noted the tall girl’s hand rested comfortably in the hand of the varsity center, Viktor Nussbaum.

“It could be that. Or, a worst-case scenario would be someone trafficking children from a secret base. I’ve been investigating sex trafficking for fifteen years and there always seems to be a connection to this area. Just never a strong enough one to accuse anyone.”

“Holy shit!” Barrett exclaimed.

“We also saw evidence that one of the cabins had been used for processing nuts, presumably into the drug Lustre,” Gee added. “As Ryan put it Tuesday night, we need to put a stop to people using our nuts to make harmful drugs. We just don’t have the people to devote to the task.”

“What can we do?” James asked.

“We need volunteers who can help us search the Wild Woods,” Gee said. “But before you get excited about running around out there, it is going to be a long tedious job. The blisters some of you got removing the fence are nothing to what it will be like hacking through the brush and mapping the trees. The foresters are adamant that it has to be done in an orderly manner or we’ll risk getting lost ourselves and still missing what’s out there.”

“I’m in, but what about school?” Ryan asked.

“That’s a problem. I know you guys have a lot going on in your lives but I’m hoping you could volunteer a day or two of your weekends—at least till the holidays. I’m going up to Flor del Día on Monday to see if I can work something out with the kids up there, too.”

“We’ll help,” a young woman attached to Alyson’s brother Barrett said. “Oh. I’m Jeanie Davis. I live at Flor. We often have days when the whole school volunteers in the Forest. Mostly in summer, but I’ll bet some of us can get a release for volunteer work during the week.”

“Before any of you volunteer, you need to decide if you are serious about the Forest,” Gee said. “You know how organized and disciplined Harvest is. This search is going to be just as coordinated. We don’t know what’s out there. We nearly stumbled into a ravine filled with those nasty blackberry brambles a few weeks ago. We need to know where everything is. There are also hawthorn and firethorn out there. Safety gear will be mandatory.”

“It sounds like hard work but I’m in,” James said firmly. “What time do we report tomorrow morning?”

“I need to ask my parents,” Shannon said. “And arrange time off from the store I work at.” Several others needed to consult with parents, friends, and schedules but eight committed to showing up at the foresters’ office Saturday morning.

Into the Woods

Thirty kids and adult volunteers arrived at eight in the morning Saturday. Most had appropriate outdoor wear, gloves, and boots. The six foresters on duty and Gee hadn’t expected quite such a large turnout. It took nearly two hours to explain the process. Gee had not received such careful instructions when he started with the foresters.

Eventually, they split up into seven teams and each forester and Gee led a group into the Wild Woods. Gee’s team included Alyson, Jeanie, and Shannon. It wasn’t surprising since well over half the volunteers were girls and the foresters had intentionally split up couples.

“We’re recording the location of every tree greater than twelve inches DBH as we proceed. That means we’ll cut paths from tree to tree, not in a straight north/south or east/west direction,” Gee explained as he showed the young women the GPS cache system.

“What’s DBH?” Alyson asked.

“Diameter at Breast Height,” Gee responded, having only recently learned the term himself. Looking at the three teen girls, he blushed. There was a significant difference between the breast height on Alyson and on petite Shannon. “Um… Well, the term has a history in the forestry industry. For our purposes, let’s call it four-and-a-half feet.” Gee stretched out a tape measure at the height and showed that it hit him in the chest. Each of the girls wanted to measure herself. “The idea is that we get a rough measurement for trees the foresters can use to estimate productivity, lumber footage, and yield. If the tree is growing on a slope, we measure on the high side. That’s what the calipers are for. We’ll divide up the work and you can choose your tasks. One of you gets the tape measure to mark the DBH, one gets the calipers to measure the diameter, and one spray paints the tree with its cache number. I’ll record the findings in the geocache and hack a path to the next tree.”

“You mean we’re geocaching? I’ve heard of that.” Shannon still had the tape measure extended and four-and-a-half feet was closer to her chin height.

“Essentially, yes. The foresters have used various methods for mapping the Forest over the years. The newest map in the office is based on the GPS coordinates. Geocaching software provides the interface for recording locations and data. We’ll map other features besides the trees—like changes in elevation and manmade structures.”

“You mean like the cabin you found?” Jeanie asked.

“Exactly. We located the first cabin based on where Karen’s phone had been. Unfortunately, she’d been moved from that cabin by the time we got there.”

“That bothers me,” Jeanie continued. “Isn’t this an awfully long process if our purpose is to search for drug labs and lost children?”

“Yeah. It frustrates me,” Gee sighed. “I want to just plunge into the woods and look everywhere. Hopefully, we’ll get into a rhythm that lets us mark and record a tree in just a few minutes and then move on. This is our first one,” he said pointing to the tree they had hacked a path to. “Start measuring and I’ll start cutting a path to the next one, over there.”

“You look beat, Love,” Karen said when Gee dragged himself through the door. The sun had set long before he arrived home. They’d knocked off a bit after four to head back to the foresters’ office. It was disheartening that after a day at work, his team had conquered an area only about the size of a football field. He’d spent time at the office putting Band-Aids on blisters and encouraging the kids as they dragged in from the woods.

“I don’t know if the work drains me or if it’s being responsible for my team,” Gee sighed. “I had no idea teens could be so exhausting.”

“Oh? You play basketball with some of those boys,” Karen laughed.

“I guess I’m used to boys and what they talk about—mostly sports and cars. My crew was all girls.”

“You aren’t in trouble, are you?”

“No. Nothing like that. They just talk… about different things,” Gee said. Karen started laughing. “They’re lovely young women,” Gee defended himself. “But I know more about boyfriends, teachers, other boys in school, parents, boys on TV or in rock bands, and teen anxiety over whether they will ever marry, have children, a career, or a home of their own than I’d ever imagined.”

“Ten years makes such a difference,” Karen sighed. “I remember high school and college and never had a doubt about my career choice. I don’t remember feeling pressured in school to make life altering decisions. My family was rich. My great-grandmother wanted me to stay away from Rosebud Falls as long as possible and made sure my college was paid for and I had an allowance that I could survive on, even if I wasn’t working. I was the very essence of privileged and didn’t even realize it. Now, it’s even worse. We don’t occupy even a quarter of this house. I’m sure your crew are girls who are provided for but not rich. They don’t see any of the possibilities that this privileged brat had.”

“Jeanie’s an orphan who lives at Flor del Día,” Gee said. “Alyson’s father owns a furniture company and her mother is a teacher. Shannon’s great-grandfather started the Rexall drugstore in town.”

“We should adopt them. Maybe we can adopt all of them.”

“Really?”

“No. It just makes me sad. Especially the kids up at Flor.”

“As much as I feel for them, these aren’t the kids we need to help. I still believe there are children out there. Or at least there were.”

“We’ll find them, Love. And if they need to be adopted, we’ll talk about that then. Right now, I want my fiancé to take me to bed and show me how much he loves me, even when he’s been exhausted by teen girls. Go up and get showered. I’ll have food ready by the time you get back to the kitchen and then we can go to bed.”

Flight

“I’m saying you would be better off somewhere else. With that Scotsman giving the foresters access to the woods, nothing is safe.”

“I helped clean the cabin. There’s nothing there that can point back to me. Where is all my equipment?” Dr. Jones asked. He’d invested years in this town, subverting research at LaRue Labs into his private industry of distilling drugs from the nuts in the woods. Business was good and the side benefits had kept him happy for years.

“We have the equipment crated and ready to ship to you. There’s a nice place in Georgia where we have contacts. A respected doctor like you should have no difficulty getting established. No one will think twice about you having a lab.”

“If I’m that hot, what’s to stop the Feds from tracking me down?”

“You know how closed this town is. They don’t want any government interference in the operation of their little Forest. It will be bad enough with the safety investigators coming to town after Harvest this year. Local authorities won’t alert the Feds to a missing laboratory scientist. Out of sight, out of mind.”

“I hope you’re right, Deacon. What about raw materials?”

“We have enough nuts in storage for you to process for the next year. And we’ll start raising the price on the product. That will give us all a little cushion for retirement.”

“I guess I don’t have a choice. I’ll go pack.”

“Don’t take too much. The more it looks like you were just called away, the better.”

“My whole career. Just leave it all behind. You’re a cruel man, Deacon.”

“I’m helping you Dr. Jones. Don’t make me regret it.”

Dark Secret

“Your team was as productive as any other,” Jessie said when Gee complained about how slow the work had gone. It was seven-thirty Sunday morning and their crews were scheduled to arrive at eight. “Will they all be back today?”

“I think so. There were a few blisters but they were enthusiastic when they left. It was smart to split up known boyfriend/girlfriend pairs. I think we got more work done that way.”

“Jonathan and I talked and have decided to increase your crew by one. I don’t want to upset a good thing, but I’ve got a guy who just doesn’t fit in with the other crews. I think he’ll do better on yours.”

“It might be nice to have another male. Is he capable?” Gee asked. “Please, not one of their boyfriends.”

“Oh, no! We’re going to keep that policy in place until we’re at least confident everyone has been trained. The boy’s name is Jason Dove. He’s sixteen and from Flor del Día. He’s… a little small for his age. I think the other guys intimidate him and he responds with a lot of bravado—pretty caustic. He’ll get along better with the girls.”

“Alyson can be pretty intimidating when she wants to be,” Gee chuckled.

As soon as Jason was introduced to Gee’s team, it looked like words might fly. Jeanie didn’t look happy to see him. They stared at each other defiantly for almost a minute while Gee checked out equipment. Then Jeanie drew a deep breath and turned to the girls.

“Alyson and Shannon, Jason goes to Flor with me. He sometimes gets teased because he’s sort of small. You guys won’t do anything mean to him, will you?”

“Of course not,” Alyson said. “Any friend of yours is welcome, Jeanie.”

“We’re not friends,” Jason snapped. “I don’t need to be protected, JD.”

“Right, JD,” Jeanie snapped back. “And I didn’t say friend.”

Gee looked at the crew uncertainly as they shouldered their packs and headed toward the Wild Woods.

Even with the rough start, the team gelled almost immediately. Gee showed Jason how to enter data into the GPS. That freed him to hack a path to the next tree instead of waiting for the entire crew to be finished before they moved on. He crosschecked the data on the first few trees Jason recorded and then simply started hacking through the underbrush. He had the fleeting thought that Jessie could have given him a football player to do the hard physical work instead of a computer operator.

“Gee?” There’s something over here,” JD called. Jason and Jeanie called each other JD but by lunch had settled that Jason would have the initials since Jeanie was already known to the girls. It was after three and the crew was winding down. Gee retraced his steps to find the four kids kneeling a few feet from the other side of the tree.

“What is it?”

“Um… the ground was soft here,” Alyson said. “I was going to slip out of sight so I could tinkle and twisted my ankle a little when I stepped here. It looks like…”

“Somebody dug here,” Shannon said. “You can see the shovel marks around the soft earth.”

“I think something has been buried here,” Alyson continued.

“Or someone,” Jeanie said as she started to scrape away dirt with her hands.

“Stop!” Gee commanded. The kids looked up at him. “Step over on this side of the tree. We could be contaminating a crime scene. Police will want to investigate to see if they can find tracks nearby and the more we trample things down, the harder it will be for them.”

“But there could be…”

“All the more reason to stay away. We have a procedure for this.”

The sheriff’s office couldn’t monitor all the crews charting trees so had established a hotline for the foresters in case of emergency. Gee tapped his phone and reached Sheriff Johnson directly. He took the GPS from JD.

“Sheriff, we’ve found dirt that has been turned recently and is soft. It looks suspicious enough I thought I’d better call,” Gee said. “Yes, sir. We have the GPS coordinates and there is a path cut.— I’d suggest shovels and maybe some light. We’re losing daylight out here. We’ve moved away so we don’t contaminate the area more than we already have. I’m afraid some was trampled down before the kids discovered it.” Gee read off the coordinates and listened to the sheriff. “That’s a good idea. I’ll see you there.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Head back to the office and call it quits for the day,” Gee said. “This quadrant is now quarantined.”

“But we should stay here to help.”

“Guys, listen,” Gee said. “You’re doing a great job out here. We covered a lot more area today than yesterday. But there are people who know what to do in this kind of situation and we aren’t them.”

“What do you think it is?”

“Well, it’s always possible that pirates came out and buried treasure. If that’s the case, I’ll see to it that you all get your share,” Gee said, trying to lighten things up. He moved his crew back the way they’d come from the Forest.

“Yeah, right,” JD sneered.

“Well, that’s the best outcome I can think of,” Gee responded. “There are all kinds of other, more sinister options.”

“Like a body?”

“That would be bad. But look at some of the other alternatives, too. There are definitely people in the area who don’t want us out here. What if they planted a boobytrap, figuring we’d start digging in to see what was there? You could all be injured.”

“I never thought about that,” Alyson said. “We should be more careful about where we’re walking.” She looked down at the path they’d cut.

“Good idea. But there are also more benign things it could be. Maybe someone just wants to delay us. We have to stop and investigate something like this every time. It could be nothing more than a pile of dirt turned over. Someone might have been hunting and buried offal. There are many things but we need to investigate all of them.

At the edge of the Forest, Gee sent the kids on ahead while he made another call.

“Sweetheart, I’m not going to get home right away,” he said when Karen answered the phone. Neither had to work Monday morning, so both were looking forward to a long loving Sunday night.

“Oh. What’s going on?”

“We found something and I need to wait for the sheriff and guide him out to the location.”

“Another cabin?” Gee could hear shuffling and the rattle of Karen’s keys. “I’m on my way. You can tell me about it when I get there.” She ended the call abruptly before Gee could explain what they’d found. He continued to the foresters’ office and found Sheriff Johnson and Detective Oliver arriving.

David and Jonathan geared up to join the group with shovels, lanterns, and an assortment of pruning gear and machetes. No one objected to her presence when Karen arrived and joined the group.

It was fully dark beneath the dense overstory of the woods by the time they arrived at the tree. Sheriff Johnson stretched yellow tape across the path and held everyone else back while he and Mead Oliver went to investigate the turned dirt.

“David, we need lights but try to step carefully. We’ll need to move dirt, so let’s spread the tarp over here. Jonathan, Gee, and Karen, you need to stay back until we see what we’re dealing with. It looks like there might be a broken trail that’s been partially hidden. If we find something significant, we’ll need to bring a search team out in the morning.”

They watched the three older men as they carefully cleared a space around the turned dirt and photographed the area. The flash of Mead’s camera created instant images, after-burned onto their retinas in the dark. Eventually, the two police officers waved David back behind the tape and began digging shallow scoops. Karen continued to snap photos on her cell phone.

“Might know it would be Gee’s team that would be the first to find something,” Jonathan laughed.

“I wish I could see the humor in that,” his father snapped. “Gee, the trails you’ve been cutting with your team aren’t clean. You need to cut closer to the ground and make them wide enough for an ATV.”

“I’ll try to do better.”

“We can’t just leave brush piled on top of the undergrowth beside the paths,” David continued. “As it dries it will multiply the risk of fire. Jonathan, if we’re going to work out here, we need crews devoted to removing and chipping the cuttings.”

“Yes, Dad. We could use volunteer teams to do that without a forester to lead them.” David turned away and watched the digging as it progressed. Jonathan whispered to Gee. “Don’t mind Dad too much. The Wild Woods have pained him for years. He wants to see this area maintained like the Forest. We’ve been having some pretty intense discussions about proper management of the new area over dinners in the evening.”

“Finding something suspicious out here won’t help,” Karen agreed. “And knowing we’ll have to report to the other Families.”

“I’m going to leave that to you,” David barked. “You’re officially the Family reporter.”

It took about thirty minutes of carefully digging in the soft dirt before Johnson called a halt. Everyone was moving restlessly, trying to stay warm.

“Mead, bring that lantern down here closer,” he said. The hole was about two feet deep. Johnson leaned over the edge and continued to pull dirt out with his hands.

“Ah, shit!” Mead said as he fell to his knees beside Johnson.

“Better call Dr. Gaston. We’ll need the coroner for the rest of this.”

2
Mourning After

Breaking News

KAREN AND GEE stumbled into Jitterz at eight-thirty. They hadn’t been home and weren’t headed there yet. It had been a long night, dealing first with the discovery of the body, then the police, and finally, the Family heads.

“Oh, my. You two look wrung out. Double Birdie’s Special coming right up. What would you like to eat?” Violet asked as they reached the counter. The contrast of her ginger hair with her caramel skin never ceased to intrigue Gee. He forgot to answer.

“Thank you, Violet. Two of the bacon and egg breakfast wraps, please,” Karen answered. “Sorry we’re so out of it this morning.”

“I’ll bet you aren’t going to sleep now, either,” Violet said.

“We have work to do,” Gee answered.

“Go find a seat. I’ll bring everything out to you.”

The two sat at their accustomed table and simply looked into each other’s eyes. Tears were not far from either after the exhausting night.

“In our woods,” Gee said. They’d repeated the words in disbelief throughout the night.

“There’s a darkness hanging over you,” Violet said, approaching the table with their coffees. “And when there is darkness over you, there is darkness over Rosebud Falls.”

“Are you following in your mother’s steps as a psychic?” Gee said, trying to lighten the mood.

“Maybe. But some things are too obvious to miss. High school kids come in for coffee on their way to school most days. I listen. Whatever it is that happened last night, I’d guess it’s all over the school by now.”

“Rumors,” Gee said. “We need to dispel rumors with news. There’s no paper this morning.”

“Is there anything you need from us?” Violet asked.

“Actually, there is,” Karen said. “I need to talk to Collin Meagher. Can you tell me how to reach him?”

“You’ll have to visit. He doesn’t have a phone.”

“I was afraid of that. I hate going down to that neighborhood.”

“I’ll go with you,” Violet said. “I seem to be in his good graces. I’ll fix breakfast for him.”

“Thank you.”

“How are things with you and Troy?” Gee asked. Over the past two weeks it seemed that Troy was with Violet whenever he saw her.

“Oh. He’s like a sandbur. Gets stuck in your clothes and you can’t get rid of it. You know, he’s only trying to date me because Wayne Savage got to Jo Ransom first. Troy gravitates to opportunity. As the new Meagher Family heir, I’m opportunity with a capital O. You know how that goes, Karen. I saw you suffer through it.”

“Try not to let my experience shadow yours,” Karen sighed. “But be careful.”

“I’m a big girl,” Violet answered. A bell rang and she went to get their breakfast wraps.

“I think I should go to the high school and set the rumors straight,” Gee said.

“I agree. Collin is the only Family head I haven’t spoken to and he’ll get the story in a little bit. It should be fine to talk to the kids. I’ll get the story in tomorrow’s paper but by then the rumor mill will have invented an entire graveyard,” Karen said. Violet returned with their breakfast wraps.

“Violet, you should know…” Gee began.

“Don’t say anything here,” she interrupted him. “I’ll find out when we talk to Uncle Collin. I’ll go make his breakfast and be ready in fifteen minutes. I need to let Mother know we are going over. She’ll probably meet us there.”

“Is there anyone I should take with me to the high school?” Gee asked when Violet had returned to the kitchen.

“I’m sure they’d let you in with no difficulty,” Karen said. “You are the City Champion. But just in case, why don’t you see if Mead or Judge Warren would go with you?”

Gee had seen the judge just two hours ago at the foresters’ office, so called him. While Karen and David debriefed the Family heads, Johnson and Mead had talked to the judge, coroner, and district attorney. The men had all been shocked silent.

Disbelief. “In our woods,” was all they’d said, over and over. Pàl took it especially hard. His company should have been stewards of the Wild Woods.

Not just a body, but a child.

“One of our worst fears,” Gee told the twenty students who had been volunteers over the weekend. Judge Warren, Principal O’Reilly, and the school’s counselor, Susan Parris, sat with them in a classroom. “You all worked this weekend in the Wild Woods. You know now why we’re concerned. But we have more questions than answers right now. What we don’t need is wild speculation. People will wonder what else the Wild Woods hides. I want to make sure you have the facts so you can reassure your classmates. Unfortunately, we don’t have any suspects, we don’t know who the victim was, we don’t know what else we might find. We’re depending on you to help control the rumors.”

“There could be others,” Ryan said softly. “There could be kids who aren’t dead… yet. Mr. O’Reilly, can we get extended time in the woods for charting and searching? I’ll… cut classes if I need to.”

“Don’t be too hasty, Ryan,” the principal said. “That’s what Gee is trying to warn us against.”

“There’s a delicate balance between moving quickly and potentially missing important clues. With more people, we are just as likely to destroy evidence as to find it. If Alyson hadn’t stepped back into the soft dirt, we’d have missed the grave.”

“Susan, don’t you think this merits an assembly?” Principal O’Reilly said. The counselor nodded.

“It would be best if the students hear the story directly from you, Gee. That way they’ll know that the source is as accurate as possible and that you’re using these kids as your information channel to the rest of the student body,” Susan said. Gee shrugged his shoulders.

“Okay.”

“The end of third period bell will ring in ten minutes. I can preempt the class schedule with an announcement. We’ll assemble in the gym.” The principal and counselor left. Gee and Judge Warren followed the kids to the gym. The judge laid a hand on Gee’s shoulder.

“I’m truly sorry, Gee. I gave you the role of City Champion thinking it was simply an honorary title that would give you an ID. But ever since, we’ve heaped more and more responsibility on you. I had no idea how important it would become to our citizens. And more than anyone, to our youth and children. I’ll stand with you, but the hard work in this assembly is yours.” Gee sighed heavily and entered the gym.

“Was it…? Was it my Renee?” Collin asked when Karen told him about the body they discovered.

“No, Mr. Meagher. The body was of a boy, not more than ten, according to Dr. Gaston. Preliminary analysis of the site indicated the grave was less than two months old.” Karen said. Tears lurked behind her eyes, waiting for her to loosen control. Collin looked at her as if he were burning into her guilty soul. She dropped her eyes. “I’ve never stopped looking, Mr. Meagher. I never will. I won’t lose hope that I’ll find her.”

Collin struggled up out of his wooden porch chair and laid a hand gently on Karen’s shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault. You were just a child yourself,” he said softly. “I understand you want to visit the Family trees. Come with me.” He led Karen, Violet, and Birdie around the old house and stopped before a very old hickory tree.

“You ate a nut from here?” Karen asked. Collin nodded.

“Back in the beginning, the Forest made a pact with the Families. You can say I’m anthropomorphizing plants, but there is a pact inherent in our position. The Forest gives us its bounty in exchange for our protection. We all assume we’re supposed to protect the trees, but I’m sure there was more to it than that. We’ve forgotten more about our mission than we remember. Perhaps you will learn by talking to our Family tree. He’s waiting for you.” Collin led his nephew’s wife and daughter away from the yard, leaving Karen alone.

“What am I supposed to do?” she pled, looking at the old tree. She felt like such a fool wandering around talking to trees as if they could answer her. Most hickory lost production at about a hundred years old but no one actually knew how long they would live if undisturbed. If Collin was right, this tree was over two hundred years old, started as a seedling from the Patriarch tree. It seemed impossible.

In the Forest, when a tree lost its production value, it was marked for harvest for lumber. The foresters made sure that old growth trees were only cut when it was determined that their natural lives were ending. But who knew?

Karen leaned against the old tree and closed her eyes. Even standing up, she drifted into sleep. It had been such a long night and she still had so much to do. The story and photos of the discovery needed to be ready by the three o’clock deadline. Axel had already sent half a dozen texts demanding to know how soon he would have something to read.

In her brief sleep, leaning against the tree, she dreamed of the Wild Woods. She had been in it only twice—once when she was kidnapped and poisoned, and again last night. The area beyond the reach of the lanterns was dense and mysterious. She was certain the Wild Woods could not be as primeval as she imagined it. In her mind, all manner of sinister twisted forms rose out of its shadows.

Karen jolted away from the Meagher tree as if she had been physically thrust from it, a solid image of a tree in her mind.

I need to talk to Gee!

It had taken Gee all morning at the high school and he joined the students at Flor del Día for lunch. He was invited to a podium in the multipurpose room.

“Students and teachers of Flor del Día,” Gee said. “You live in the Forest. Well, the Forest borders three sides of the school. From conversations I’ve had with volunteers, I know you think of yourselves as part of the Forest. That relationship is so close that I’ve discovered over half of our foresters are former students from Flor. So, no doubt you’ve already heard that we found a grave in the Wild Woods last night. Maybe you didn’t hear that word, but that is what it was. We uncovered the body of a child, dead about two months.”

A few gasps, several sniffles, and a low buzz of angry whispers greeted the news. Gee continued once a minute had passed.

“I’ve met and worked with several students here, both in mapping the Wild Woods and during Harvest. I think you’re a lot like me. I don’t have any family other than those I’ve come to love in Rosebud Falls. Like you, I feel a deep connection to the Forest. We are hurt, not only by the loss of the child, but by the violation of our Forest. While the trees and nuts are of the same species, though, the Wild Woods are exactly that—wild. It is dense, untamed. And scary. I fear the secrets we’ll discover there. And I’m filled with hope and trust that we’ll be able, together, to rescue the Wild Woods and anyone who might be trapped there.”

“Mr. Gee, can we all work in the woods?” Jason asked. The small boy had been with Gee’s crew at the discovery of the grave.

“Yes, but probably not like you imagine. We have to be careful not to trample and destroy any clues. But there are tasks we need help with. They aren’t easy tasks. They aren’t glorious tasks. They’re hard labor. We need to have people following behind the foresters and mapping volunteers to remove the underbrush that we’ve cut. I got bawled out last night for cutting a path too narrow and leaving too much stalk in the middle of it.” There was a smattering of giggles before Gee continued.

“Seriously, we need to have the cut underbrush removed and fed into a chipper. Some of that cut brush includes berry vines, firethorn, hawthorn, and about anything else you can name that has a thorn on it. It’s going to be nasty. But if you are willing to spend a couple of hours hauling that stuff off the paths we’ve cut, widening them to accommodate the ATVs with trailers, and chipping the cuttings, we could use you even for an hour after school. All I’m asking is that you not try to search the Wild Woods yourselves. Leave that to the foresters and sheriff. They know what they’re doing.”

Jeanie and Jason joined Gee at a table after the assembly, much as Viktor, Alyson, and Shannon had at Rosebud High earlier. They had a sign-up sheet and several students volunteered. Flor del Día was a residence as well as a school, and their proximity to the Forest was a benefit. Gee discovered several students already volunteered a few hours a week to help the foresters in getting the Forest ready for winter.

It was late afternoon before Gee left the orphanage school.

A Cabin in the Woods

After the meetings at the schools, Gee made his way to the foresters’ office to sit down with David Lazorack and Gabe Truman. Now that he had volunteers, they needed a strategy for using them. It was clear that Gee would be central in that strategy.

“We don’t have another resource we can apply to this,” David said. “I’m shuffling things around to get as much done as possible. Gabe and I have talked. He’s going to switch from the Wild Woods to the Forest in hopes we can get the work done there before we’re bogged down in snow. That’s going to be a problem in the Wild Woods as well but it’s the best we can do. You’re going to be in charge of the Wild Woods but I’m moving Jessie and Jonathan over there full time as your support.”

“The snow falls on the just and the unjust,” Gabe chuckled from his chair in a corner of the office.

“It could be tricky in the Wild Woods,” David continued. “I was out there today and I’m not sure how that thick canopy is going to affect things. Most of the trails we’ve cleared are just getting into the thick part of the woods. The canopy could keep snow off the ground but that means it could be a hazard when it breaks free of the branches and falls in frozen clumps instead.”

“Is there additional safety gear we should be wearing?” Gee asked.

“Hard hats, goggles, and gloves are the best we can do. Just make sure everyone on your crew is wearing them,” David said. “Jonathan and Jessie will take charge of the mapping and searching out there. You and I will use our volunteers to clear and widen the trails. Those cuttings need to be hauled out and chipped or we’ll have a terrible time in the spring. It’s not likely that we’ll catch up with the mapping as it is. I hope a few of our volunteers are eighteen because we’ll need them to run the chippers. It’s a big damned job.”

“You know I’ll do whatever you need me to,” Gee sighed. “I need to call Nathan and tell him I won’t be able to come back to the Market.”

“I know I come off as harsh, Gee. I apologize in advance. You’ve proven you’ll do whatever is needed,” David said. “You’ll probably be able to go back a couple of days a week after we get heavy snowfall. No matter how willing we are to work, if we go out to cut trails after that, we risk missing things. We just won’t be able to see them.” He looked at Gee hard for a second as if trying to see what the man was made of. “You should consider joining us as a full-time forester.”

“Without training and schooling?” Gee asked.

“There are other ways to learn.”

“Dad! Jonathan said as he and the other foresters working in the Wild Woods that day came in from their tasks. “We found another cabin!”

The foresters all shed their coats in the warmth of the office and shook their heads when Gee, David, and Gabe started to reach for theirs.

“Too dark,” one said. “And the sheriff has it blocked off.”

“So, is this good news or bad news?” David asked. “Tell us.”

“We think we found the place where that guy Reef was living. We cut a path from there out to the quarry and Sheriff Johnson is out there with a forensics team from Palmyra. They sent us away so we couldn’t contaminate any evidence they found.”

“Nobody in the cabin?” Gee asked.

“No, but this cabin hasn’t been cleaned out like the two we found earlier. It’s rustic but looks fairly comfortable,” Jonathan said.

“Is this going to slow us down in getting the rest of the mapping done?” David asked.

“No. If anything, it’s going to give us a path to follow. We found a camouflaged trail from the cabin but the light was going and the sheriff asked us not to follow it until morning. He’ll send a deputy with a dog along with us. If we’re right, the trail will connect to the other cabins. It definitely doesn’t lead back to the quarry.”

“That’s good news. If there is still anyone living in a cabin, we should be able to find them,” David said. “Well done, son. Crew.”

“If it weren’t for the risks of missing something completely, we’d have gone out tonight,” Jessie said. “It gets dark out there a lot sooner than where it’s clear. Not to mention it’s extremely spooky. Since they found the grave, the sheriff wants to make sure we are alert to manmade dangers along the trail.”

Both Gee and Karen were exhausted by the time they got home. It was nearly ten and they fell into each other’s arms.

“How long has this day been?” Karen moaned. “Can we just go to bed now?”

“My estimate is somewhere around forty hours,” Gee answered, kissing her forehead. “We both need a shower and some food. If you want to get started on a shower, I’ll fix something to eat.”

“Can’t we do both together? I need you, Gee.”

Special Delivery

“Hello,” Larry Syres said when his phone rang. He popped another beer. Work had been light lately and all he had to do was drink. Roxanne was getting tired of him hanging around and if he didn’t get out of the house soon, he was going to smack her.

“We’ll have the usual flatbed ready to go early Saturday morning. Pick it up and get out before dawn. The new management out here has been breathing down our necks,” his contact at Savage Sand & Gravel said. Stone to go, Larry sighed.

“Where to?”

“The usual place southwest of Atlanta.”

“I hate those mountain roads.”

“You get paid to hate them. Drop the trailer at the loading ramp and deadhead home. We won’t be using that one again.”

“No return delivery? I could pick up a contract on the way back.”

“You’ll get a bonus as big as the fee if you’re back in bed and asleep by eight o’clock Monday morning.”

“Forty-eight hours to make sixteen hundred miles? Yeah. I can do it.” It would be pushing regulations on how long he could drive without a rest but Larry had made the run enough times to know where to be careful.

“And Larry, try to keep your mouth shut about this. They’ve been poking into everything since that bar incident a couple of months ago.”

“I’m still going to dig that bastard’s grave.”

“I’m sure you will, Larry. I’m sure you will.”

Coming Up Empty

The story of the shallow grave ran in Tuesday morning’s newspaper. Of course, Troy had broken the story on the radio Monday morning but had only sketchy details. His normal process was to read stories out of the newspaper and he didn’t have a news staff to support his air time. He grumbled all morning, commenting that the town really needed a daily newspaper that didn’t skip Sunday and Monday. He was none too subtle in his request that the publisher get with it.

“This is Troy. I’ve got one eye on Main,” he said as he answered the blinking light of his phone.

“And I’ve got an eye on you. What’s with taking digs at the paper? We’ve always worked together,” Axel said.

“Nothing wrong with the paper that two more days of publication wouldn’t cure,” Troy growled back. “I’ve had phones ringing off the hook with nothing to put on the air.”

“I’d send Karen over but she’s a Family head now and I can’t order her around. Cameron warned me already.”

“Just give me a buzz if anything comes around before I get off the air.” Troy hung up the phone.

Tuesday morning, when the lines lit up, Troy had the newspaper in front of him, complete with photos of the grave. It turned his stomach.

“While there is no news on the identity of the body, police do not want to hold the case open longer than necessary. I’ve talked to Rev. Reinhold Nussbaum at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church and he says he has been asked to conduct a funeral on Thursday this week. The body will not be interred at that time, but will be stored ‘in a peaceful setting’ until such time that identification and contact of the nearest relatives can be made,” Troy said, looking at the paper. “I’ll try to get Rev. Nussbaum in for an interview later this week to find out what his take is on the whole affair. Reinhold, if you are listening, stop by sometime for a chat.”

Overall, the newspaper and radio coverage left more questions unanswered than answered.

Most of the trails that had been cut into the Wild Woods were not wide enough to drive one of the forestry tractor and trailers down. Gee and David’s crews discovered the benefits of their long sleeves and gloves quickly. There were now half a dozen access points into the Wild Woods from the Forest and quarry. They led to an estimated mile and a half of trails that had been cut from tree to tree.

“What’s going to happen to all the trees that are too small to be marked, Gee?” asked Trevor Graves, an eleventh-grade student at Flor. He was too young to operate the chippers but was strong and capable when it came to loading and hauling the brush wagon out of the woods. The crew of eight students grabbed their water bottles to take a break before Gee answered.

“I’m concerned about that, too, Trevor. The foresters have a standard approach to thinning the trees and maximizing production. But part of the agreement with SSG in giving over management to the foresters was that no hickory would be cut unless it threatened the life of another. And then, other alternatives have to be assessed first,” Gee answered.

“Like what?” asked Rebecca, a twelfth-grader on an afternoon release from Flor.

“Well, in the case of trees under five inches DBH, the first option is to transplant. The problem will be finding a place to transplant to. There is room for a few in the Forest as part of the continuing nursery plan but space in the Wild Woods is at a premium.”

“And if they’re over five inches across?” asked Trevor.

“It’s a risky proposition to attempt transplanting a tree that size. As I understand it—and remember, I’m not a forester—it’s difficult to capture enough root ball on a tree that size to keep it healthy. If it is very close to larger trees, the root system of its neighbors could be compromised. The scenario most frequently proposed for a tree between five and twelve inches is that it will be harvested for lumber. But none of us want to do that.”

“Why?”

“First, we committed to saving every tree in the Wild Woods that we can. We’re discovering a unique ecosystem here—much different than the Forest. I’m not even in favor of removing all the understory like the foresters want to. There’s something special about this. And second, there’s a pragmatic reason that slows down even the foresters. If too many trees are cut, we could flood the market with Rose Hickory and reduce its value. Trees below eight inches don’t produce that many board feet of usable lumber, so the most likely scenario would be to dry them and create briquettes out of them.”

“You mean like charcoal?”

“Yes. Or straight wood for smoking and such.”

“We need more land,” Leslie, a freshman, said.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a lot of land around the quarry that’s just empty—like sometime in the past it must have been cleared,” she continued. “We should get that land from SSG and transplant the trees we can to it. Rosebud Falls doesn’t need another housing development. It needs more trees. If the Families were serious about how important the trees are, they’d start acquiring more land bordering the edge of the Forest that’s outside the city limits. I sometimes go running out along the roads east of town and there’s plenty of land. All the Rose Hickory was cut from it a hundred or more years ago. We could extend the total acreage of the Forest by five hundred acres or more if the Families got off their fat asses and did something.”

“Yeah. That whole parcel east of Silver Lake was cleared for a luxury housing development and only has a dozen houses. No one wants to live in a barren area. Surrounding it with more Forest would increase the property values of the homes that are there,” said another of the kids. Gee tried to remember the names of all his crew but would have eight new faces tomorrow.

“Hmm. Not a bad idea but I’m not one of the Families and I don’t personally have the funds to buy a stamp, let alone an acre of tillable land,” Gee said.

“But you are the City Champion. You could tell them.”

“I’ll definitely mention it.”

“We think we found what used to be the lab,” Jessie said as the foresters gathered back at the office when it became too dark in the Wild Woods to continue work. “Each time we find a cabin, we have to vacate the area so the sheriff’s deputies can perform forensics. This place had been stripped and cleaned, but apparently, whoever was operating out there didn’t have time to take apart the workbenches or unbolt them from the floor. It definitely was not set up as a residence.”

“And that’s the only place the trail led?” David asked. Gee was glad David was asking the questions. He challenged every forester’s assumption and was good at managing the investigation.

“There’s a definite exit route from the lab out to a pickup point that showed recent use. It had been poorly camouflaged,” Jonathan answered his father. “Tomorrow, we’ll be able to take a crew from Reef’s cabin to the lab and carefully look for side trails. What I’m wondering now is whether these trails were so carefully hidden to keep people out or to keep people in.”

“That’s a sobering thought,” Gee said. “I hate to think there is anyone abandoned out there who can’t find a way out.”

“We’re hampered by the short hours of daylight,” Jonathan said. “We’ve got people who are anxious to find more trails but we just can’t work in the dark.”

“Pull anyone out of the mapping process you can use and focus on finding those cabins,” David said.

“Assuming there are any others,” Jessie said. The other foresters agreed. There were still too many unanswered questions about what lay in the Wild Woods. It was easy to walk past a clue in the dense undergrowth and several were speculating there was nothing else to find. It was a drug lair and nothing else.

Gee was hesitant to admit they might be right.

Forensics

The following two days were tedious and disappointing to everyone. Two more cabins were found on side trails farther south. Every cabin had been emptied and scrubbed down.

“One thing we know from all this is that someone has been active over the past few weeks,” Sheriff Johnson said to the gathered Family heads. “We’ve been lucky to have Forensics Detective Pete Remington on loan from Palmyra to handle the evidence. Pete? Do you have anything to add?”

All seven Families were represented. Meagher had asked Gee to represent him at the gathering and Karen represented the Roth Family in the stead of Ben Roth.

“This is kind of unusual to expose investigations to non-police. Are you sure this is okay, Brad?” Pete asked. He was younger than most of those gathered in the room. He wore light blue scrubs and carried a box of latex gloves under one arm. The meeting was held in the first cabin discovered during the search for Karen nearly four weeks previous. It had long-since been cleared as a scene of interest and the foresters had established it as their field office in the Wild Woods. The late-night gathering was shielded by the dark.

“It’s the way we do things here in Rosebud Falls, Pete,” Mead said. “These people can shake loose whatever resources we need for the investigation. It’s okay.”

“All right,” the forensics geek said. “I’ll tell you this. Whoever scrubbed these cabins is a hell of a housekeeper.” The comment got a light chuckle from the gathering but they were intent on what had been uncovered. “The removal of all signs of human habitation is, in itself, a sign of human habitation. I’ve even been able to identify the cleansing agents that were used. To some extent, I can tell the order in which the cabins were cleaned and how long ago. This cabin and the other one we found four weeks ago had been cleaned out and sterilized over a year ago. The layers of accumulated dust showed no sign of disturbance until the activities of that night. Cabin three, the apparent residence of the man known as Reef, bore no sign of having been disturbed since that man’s death. There were still dirty dishes, for example.”

“How did these people live?” Heinz demanded. “There are no windows in this cabin. There’s no heat. How did they stay warm? What did they eat? Where did they get water?”

“All good questions. If we use Reef’s cabin as an indicator, propane gas was used for cooking and heating. There are connections in each of the cabins, but no tanks were found. There are also kerosene stains that indicate lighting, at least at one time, was kerosene lanterns. Reef’s cabin had battery powered lanterns and a stock of new batteries. I’d guess waste disposal was done on a periodic basis. Reef had a composting toilet inside.”

“Completely off the grid,” Heinz mumbled.

“The most recently cleaned cabin may have been done this week, perhaps while foresters were working to find the place. The cabin identified as the lab was cleaned out within the past week, according to what I’ve been able to gather. Definitely since you opened the woods a week ago Tuesday,” Pete concluded.

“And beyond that there’s nothing?” Pàl asked. “Even after we took over the company, they were so confident they kept their operation going until we moved into the woods!”

“This all seems to indicate a big business,” Loren Cavanaugh said. “I mean they even have housekeepers? How the hell can they keep an operation that size quiet?”

“Illegal immigrants,” Mead suggested.

“This isn’t Texas,” David scoffed.

“And we’re not talking about Latin Americans,” Mead agreed. “Almost a quarter of our ‘undocumented immigrants’ are from Asia, Europe, Africa, and Canada. Sorry, Gee. That’s all information I dug up when I was trying to find out who you are and where you’re from.”

“No problem.”

“Here in the Northeastern part of the US, we’re far more likely to draw from that twenty-five percent than from Latin America.”

“So, a Chinese laundry worker comes in and scrubs down a bunch of cabins in the middle of the night and then disappears?” Heinz barked.

“Could be Canadian, Heinz,” Brad said. “The likelihood, however is that they don’t speak English, are not familiar with US laws or customs, have lived a life where silent servitude is the norm, and may be scared for their lives. If they don’t actually see a dead body, they aren’t likely to remember it as anything other than housecleaning.”

“So, what is the minimum number of people it would take to run this operation?” Jan Poltanys asked. “Assuming a cabin like this could hold six kids and we’ve found four that could be residences, that’s twenty-four kids. How big a staff would they need?”

“We’re talking about Reef and at least one and probably as many as three working in the lab. Figure each house has a resident to watch over the captives. Make it eight on-site. Then someone is transporting drugs and maybe trafficking children, managing the operation, housekeeping, cracking the whip. Maybe a dozen or more who are probably residing somewhere in our jurisdiction,” Brad said.

“We got a call from LaRue Chemical this afternoon,” Mead said. “One of their star researchers hasn’t shown up to work this week. Since the guy lives alone, we went over to investigate.”

“What did you find?” Gee asked.

“It reminds me of Reef’s cabin. The only thing that would make me believe he wasn’t just at work was there were no clean clothes. At all.”

“Lived like a slob?”

“Very few dirty clothes. It’s more like he packed a suitcase with everything clean and left.” The group sat in silence for a moment until Jan finally voiced a concern on all their minds.

That was a preview of Wild Woods. To read the rest purchase the book.

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