The Hunters Series: Volumes 1-3 Read online

  The waitress looked at the big man and said curtly, “Henry, I’m gonna visit with my niece here so you go on back over to your booth and eat your eggs and leave us be.” She just looked at him with no expression on her face at all, and that said it all. The man stood up, shrugged, and ambled over to the booth and sat down. He didn’t look in their direction again.

  When he was gone, the waitress looked at her and said simply, “I’m Kathy. Guess you heard that. You need a ride, right?”

  Lyn just looked at her and nodded. She was close to tears and trying hard not to show it. The journey, her escape, had just started. She wasn’t even out of Pickham County. How could she be in trouble already? It was too much. She felt her lip start to tremble and her shoulders start to shake.

  Kathy put her plump hand out and settled it gently and solidly on her arm. It felt cool and reassuring.

  “There now,” Kathy said softly. “You’re alright now. You don’t want to let all them see you cry. You’ll be needing them tears later maybe, but not now.

  “Trust me, you don’t want no ride with that Henry,” she continued. “He comes by here few times a month, and he gives me the creeps. He’s not good.”

  Lyn managed to squeak out through her tight throat, “You didn’t seem too worried by him.”

  “Me?” Kathy smiled. “I ain’t never met the man yet that I’m gonna let have the satisfaction of knowin’ he scared me. Just look ‘em in the eye, and they usually back down. Them big tubs like Henry don’t know what to do when you stand up to them. They ain’t used to it.”

  She chuckled in a superior way at her own knowledge about men and their ways.

  “Of course, the good ones ain’t trying to scare you. Most of them are just tryin’ to get over bein’ scared before they talk to you. Just have to learn the difference.” Kathy chuckled again.

  She continued, “Now, you’re gonna set here a bit, and I’m gonna get you a ride. Which way you headed?”

  “North, Savannah I guess. Then further. Canada if I can get there,” she replied a little embarrassed at how silly it must have sounded.

  “Canada, huh? Long ways from here.” Kathy shook her head and put her hand on Lyn’s.

  “I know,” Lyn looked her steadily in the eye. “That’s why I’m going.”

  “Okay. Good. You see them two boys over there?” Kathy nodded towards the two rough looking young men seated at the window table. They saw her nod in their direction and stared down at their plates, shoveling food into their mouths as fast as they could. Clearly, they were as intimidated by the plump waitress as was Henry.

  “Those boys are headed to just outside of Savannah,” she continued. “They can get you that far. Then you can take I-16 over to Atlanta and go north from there, or head north up the coast on I-95. Me, I’d take the Atlanta road. Goin’ up 95 takes you through all them big cities. Philadelphia, Washington, New York, Boston. Different people up there. I’d stick to the smaller places. Go up through Tennessee and Kentucky, that-a-way. ”

  “But,” Lyn started “they kind of scare me, they looked at me…”

  Kathy laughed outright this time, “Them boys? That’s Cy and Clay Purcell. They work construction in Savannah and come home for the weekends. They’re headed back to the city this morning, back to work.

  “If they looked at you it was ‘cause they ain’t seen a girl pretty as you. Trust me, they come from Pritchard, down on the Florida line. Prettiest girl there gets milked every morning before sunup.” Kathy paused to give a deep-throated laugh at her own coarse joke. “No, they’re good boys. They’ll get you that far safe and sound.”

  Before Lyn could say anything else, Kathy called out, “Cy! Clay! Come over here for a minute.”

  The two stood up and walked over to the counter. They were clearly flustered to be summoned by Kathy in the presence of a girl. Lyn didn’t know why she had felt threatened by them a few minutes ago. Maybe she wasn’t so smart and in control as she thought. Her understanding of people, at least men, seemed to be lacking.

  “Yes, ma’am,” one of the young men said as they walked up.

  Lyn could see that they were both dressed in jeans, blue work shirts, and brown work boots. Though they were a little threadbare and ragged, and their hair was a bit long and shaggy, they were clean.

  Kathy took immediate control, “Boys, this is…” She looked at Lyn.

  “I’m…uh, my name is Lyn”. She thought of telling them she was from Judges Creek, but then thought better of it. No need to let out too much. Never knew what Daddy would do when he found her gone, and there was no sense in leaving a trail if she could avoid it.

  Kathy continued, “This is Lyn. She needs a ride up I-95 to Savannah, and I want you to take her. When you get her there, you take her to the big truck stop on the west side of the city, and you help her find another good, safe ride in the direction of wherever she’s going. North she says. Okay?”

  The ‘okay’ wasn’t really a question about whether they were going to take her. It was more a confirmation that they understood her instructions and would follow them to the letter.

  The two young men muttered simultaneously, “Yes, ma’am.” They were waiting, somewhat anxiously, to be dismissed back to their table.

  “Thanks, boys. Say hey to your uncle for me when you see him,” she said smiling flirtatiously and touching her pulled up hair a bit. “Now go back to your table and finish your coffee. Me and Lyn are gonna talk for a spell and then you go. Right?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  They turned away, bumping into each other as they tried to escape as quickly as possible to their table. The younger one caught Lyn’s eye and smiled. She couldn’t help a small smile back, but took it off her face as soon as she realized she had smiled.

  Kathy gave a short laugh, “That’s Clay, the younger one. Good lookin’ boy. Lot like his daddy was.” She laughed again and walked away calling over her shoulder, “Set right there, hon. I’m gonna bring you some breakfast.”

  “Thank you, ma’am… ‘Aunt Kathy’… but I’ll just have some coffee,” Lyn said timidly.

  “You sure? It’s on the house.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I couldn’t eat right now.”

  ‘Aunt Kathy’ nodded with understanding. “Ok, hon. Coffee it is.”

  Henry watched the exchange from the booth. He couldn’t quite hear what was going on, but he knew he would get no further chance to get close to the pretty, little thing sitting at the counter. He snorted and walked to the door. As he pushed it open, he saw Kathy walking back towards the counter.

  “Bitch,” he muttered aiming it at Kathy, but being very careful not to say it loud enough for her to hear.

  Kathy brought coffee and some toast for Lyn. When Lyn had finished it, Kathy nodded to the two young men, Cy and Clay. They stood up and waited while Lyn gathered up her few things. Then all three went outside to an old pickup in the parking lot. The younger brother, Clay, opened the door for Lyn. She climbed onto the bench seat in the old truck. The brothers sat on either side of her. Cy, the older, drove. The lights of the I-95 Diner faded as they pulled onto the empty interstate. The truck steadily picked up speed, and the painful past faded behind. An uncertain future loomed ahead.

  17. A Search

  Turning off the pavement, George followed the dirt drive up to the house and pulled beside Sandy Davies’ county issued Ford Explorer parked in front of the old frame house.

  He waited for the dust to settle and then opened the door and walked to the front porch. Sandy looked up from the small notebook he was writing in.

  “Hey, Mackey, glad you could make it.”

  “What’s up, Sandy?” George asked, nodding politely to the elderly woman on the porch.

  “Mrs. Sims here says her husband went through the woods to check out sounds at the A.M.E. Church on the other side. Never came back.”

  “Anything else on the description?” George asked.

  “Nope. Nothing,” Sandy said, and then a
dded, as an afterthought, “Oh, Mr. Sims had a gun with him.”

  “What kind?”

  “She’s not sure. Just a small handgun. Revolver she thinks.”

  The old black woman stood, hands clenched nervously in front. The veins in her thin arms pulsed with each squeeze of one hand on the other. The look on her face was one of embarrassment almost, to have troubled the sheriff with her missing husband.

  George smiled up at her from the bottom of the porch steps. “Don’t worry, ma’am. We’ll find your husband. What’s his name, by the way?”

  “Harry…his name is Harold Sims. We all just call him Harry. Told him to just call the sheriff and let ya’ll check it out. The old fool, he just had to go his self.”

  Deputy Davies reached out and patted her arm. “Well, don’t worry. We’ll go see if we can find him. He couldn’t have gone far. It’s a dark night and in the woods, it’s even darker. He probably got lost or confused a little. We’ll bring him home.”

  “He’s awful scared of snakes and gators. Not like him to stay out in the woods in the dark like this,” Mrs. Sims, said, more to herself than to the deputies.

  Sandy turned and walked down the steps, realizing that he wasn’t all that fond of snakes and gators himself. Before he could say anything, George spoke, “Guess, I’ll head back out to the main road and come around the front of the church. Why don’t you go through the woods and check it out from that direction. I’ll pick you up at the church.”

  George climbed into the F-150, grinning at the look from Deputy Davies that simply said, ‘gee thanks, asshole.’

  Pulling down the drive, he could see in the mirror of the truck that Mrs. Sims was pointing across the yard to a dark patch of woods where, presumably, there was a path leading to the church. Sandy nodded and plodded across the yard towards the woods. It was clear he didn’t relish traipsing through the underbrush in the dark.

  As George turned onto Power Line Road, unimaginatively named for the high voltage power transmission lines that ran alongside the road, Sandy stood at the entrance to the path as if he were trying to negotiate his entrance into the dark, closed world of the woods.

  While Sandy took his first tentative step into the black woods, George raced down Power Line Road to the main highway about half a mile away. It was called the Jax Highway, short for Jacksonville Highway. It was a two lane country road here, but as it crossed the state line and neared the Florida urban areas, it increased to four lanes.

  Turning right onto the Jax Highway, it was about another half mile to the A.M.E. Church. George slowed rapidly as he approached the entrance to the graveled parking lot. Pulling slowly off the highway, he stopped the vehicle for a moment in the entrance and scanned the church and parking lot. There was no movement and no other vehicle was visible.

  After getting the lay of the land, he turned on the spotlight mounted to the truck, pointed it at the church, and slowly made a pass from front to back, tires crunching softly in the gravel. The bright light glared harshly off the white painted wooden clapboard siding of the church.

  Nothing. No old man. No sign of any disturbance at the church. All was quiet.

  George turned the truck and pointed it at the woods directly behind the church, guessing where the path through the woods might come out. The bright illumination made the green canopy appear almost white.

  A few minutes later, Sandy Davies stumbled into view, the light from his flashlight canceled out by the bright lights of the truck. He brushed something off his shoulder and waved his arm around his head as if trying to clear a clinging spider web.

  Looking into the lights of George’s truck, he shaded his eyes and walked towards it.

  “How’s that workin’ out for you there, Sandy?” he called from his seat in the truck.

  Deputy Davies bent over, brushed at something on his pant leg, and then squinted into the bright light and flipped George the bird. He walked around to the passenger side of the truck and got in.

  “Anything?” he asked George.

  “Nope. All quiet here, and I didn’t see anyone walking on the highway.”

  “Yeah, I was wondering about that about half way through the woods. He might have decided to go back along the road instead of fighting his way through the woods.” Sandy added as a theory, “Maybe someone picked him up.”

  “Yeah,” George replied, “or ran him over and knocked him into the ditch. I couldn’t see that on the way over, but I wasn’t looking too close.”

  “Well, I guess you better take me back to my car, and we can spotlight both sides of the road. Look for any signs of an impact…or a body.”

  “Yeah. Just tell Mrs. Sims we are going to look around some, and we will get back to her. Don’t want to frighten her for no reason if old Harry turns up after being lost in the woods.”

  Sandy nodded. “Right,” he said in agreement, “Let’s get to it I reckon.”

  The two deputies clearly did not relish the task before them. The possibility of finding old Harry Sims lying in a mangled, bloody heap in the roadside ditch was a distinctly unpleasant one.

  George turned the truck to the right so that it was parallel to the tree line along the edge of the woods. The bright lights picked up a small dark hump in the gravel about a hundred feet away.

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t know,” Sandy replied squinting through the windshield. “Get closer.”

  The truck rolled slowly forward with no additional pressure on the accelerator. The dark hump on the gravel slowly grew in size. Its shape shifted in the glaring light and moving shadows cast by the truck’s lights on the surrounding trees until it finally changed from a shadowy mound and took on an identifiable form.

  “Shit,” the two deputies muttered, almost in unison.

  18. Roydon

  Roydon was considered a small town. Actually, it was no town at all and not much more than an interstate crossroad. It was a settlement, a clustering of people for convenience. There was no elected mayor or town council, but it did have a hierarchy, its own system of governing. It was the unofficial center of criminal activity for fifty miles in every direction, and the leaders of this activity were the unelected leaders of the community. The only discernible reason for its current existence was the interstate and the community’s various criminal enterprises.

  In addition to a very busy bar, frequented predominantly by people seeking goods and services unobtainable elsewhere in rural Georgia, there were two run down gas stations pretending to be truck stops, a couple of dirty motels and a few scattered trailers and shacks where the locals resided. These made up the entire settlement.

  At one time, it had been a center of commerce for the surrounding farming community, as many of these rural, small towns were at inception. But the farmers had long since moved away or found other markets and means of transport. Pickham County was generally considered a moderately low crime area. Except for Roydon. In Roydon, big-time, major felony type criminal activity was the standard, and the settlement continued to exist mostly for the sake of the illegal activities that took place at and around the bar, ‘Pete’s Place’.

  The new Sheriff of Pickham County had said he was going to clean the place up and had even briefly involved the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI). But finding witnesses in Roydon was problematic. Talking in Roydon about Roydon or its business enterprises was a dangerous proposition. The occasional small-time dope case that law enforcement was able to make had no effect on the extensive illegal trafficking that took place. And the locals knew it was better to do time quietly than to speak to sheriff’s deputies or the state patrol. Besides, they didn’t want to speak. People who lived in Roydon, or who profited from Pete’s Place, liked things the way they were.

  Like the reason for the town, ‘Pete’ had long since disappeared. In fact, no one even knew who he had been or where he had gone. But his bar remained and thrived.

  Roydon, and Pete’s Place in particular, were known along the I-95 corrid
or as being the gathering point and base of operations for various distributors who fulfilled the specialized needs of their clientele. These entrepreneurs provided the select inventory items and services not readily available elsewhere. Fifty years earlier, it had mostly been moonshine liquor. That was still available, but the inventory of goods and services had grown. Drugs of every description and type were available. Homemade meth to prescription painkillers, amphetamines, marijuana, crack cocaine, heroin and every narcotic derivation known to man could be obtained from the several suppliers who called Roydon home.

  Then there were the girls. Georgia was not Nevada. Prostitution was illegal, but in a place like Roydon, it was just another item on the menu of goods and services. Girls were available for the use of the truck drivers and bikers who frequented the area. You had to know who to ask, and especially, how to ask, but they were available.

  Some were there by choice because they could find no other way to survive, if you could call their existence in Roydon survival. Abusive men, fathers, brothers, husbands, or boyfriends had forced others into the trade. The stories were all a little different. The result was the same. They lived a life underground. They were invisible. The oldest profession, and their only means of survival was illegal. They were hidden and forgotten, and being forgotten, they were in even more peril and subject to more abuse. To the families on their way to Florida vacations, truckers, business people, and military convoys passing by Roydon on the interstate, they were nonexistent. The world preferred it that way, not wanting to know them or the dark emptiness of their lives or Roydon’s other secrets.

  The faded, old car pulled from I-95 onto the exit ramp to Roydon. The brake lights flashed as the car stopped at the stop sign at the top of the ramp. He looked both ways and then turned left, crossing over the interstate.