20
DANIEL BOONE NATIONAL FOREST
EARLY TUESDAY MORNING
Cam heard a noise, only a slight rustling sound, and instantly awoke, her Glock in her hand. She looked through the netting of her bivvy sack into the darkness and made out a man’s shadowed face inches from her nose. She almost screamed.
“Morning, Special Agent, it’s me, Jack. Time to rise and shine.”
She wanted to clock him for scaring her. “I could have shot you, idiot.” She couldn’t see his expression in the dark, he’d turned away to wake up Chief and Duke. There was an urgency, a near crackling of energy in him, and she felt herself responding to it. Jack turned on his headlight. “I’ve checked; there’s no one nearby,” he said. “Safe to use these now. There’ll be enough light in about fifteen minutes to look for their tracks.”
After an oatmeal and coffee breakfast and a quick wash in the cold creek, they moved out along Denny Branch, slowing now and then to walk upslope in search of tracks. Even close to the creek, where they believed Manta Ray’s group should have passed, they had to slow enough to study the terrain for any sign of another human’s passing. They finished off their breakfasts with power bars and drank from their canteens as the temperature slowly climbed under a brilliant morning sun. They saw deer, a fox, and three squirrels staring down on them from a dogwood branch, but no tracks.
At eight o’clock straight up, Jack peeled off one more time away from the creek and upslope into the trees. He saw a set of boot prints and a crushed shrub. He felt a surge of excitement, called out, “Come look.”
They gathered around Jack, saw the boot prints heading east. “They’ve been walking up here, parallel to the creek.”
“I wasn’t expecting that,” Duke said. “Still, I guess it makes sense. It’s an easier route, with enough cover to reduce the chance of being seen. You’re right, Jack, they’re going east, up toward the ridge. I hope they don’t hook up with a hiker trail. What made you come this far up, Jack?”
Jack never looked up from the tracks. “We should have seen their tracks by now if they’d been hiking along the creek.” He shaded his eyes, looked upward. “I can’t see them going all the way up to the ridge, though, unless they have to for some reason we don’t know.” He pointed. “See how one set of prints is weighted on the right foot. I think Manta Ray is limping in those new hiking boots. The other two tracks show an even stride, and they’re taking their time.” Jack looked over at Cam, grinned. “We’re going to catch them.”
Duke had walked ahead, studying the tracks. “My guess is they passed here before dark last night. They had to come down close to the creek to get a quicker crossing over to Indian Creek Road—that’s Highway 490. They’ll have wanted to get over it as close to dark as possible, less chance of being seen. Once they got past there, they’d be in less-populated country, and that’s where they’ll have stopped for the night.” Duke rose, wiped his hands on his pants. “If we hurry it up, we’ll get to Highway 490 in about fifteen minutes.”
“Let’s make it ten,” Jack said. “From here it’ll be easy to keep the tracks in sight.” He took the lead, jogging at a smooth, steady pace.
Ten minutes later, they reached Rockcastle River, and once across, they reached Highway 490. They saw one car cruise by but no one else, no campers, no hikers, only a lone doe leading her fawn across the road.
Jack pulled out the sat phone, handed it to Duke. “Time to contact your rangers, tell them we’ve tracked them to the highway and we’ll be picking up their trail on the other side. Chief, go ahead and check in with your deputies, tell them we’re going to be moving north from the highway. They need to focus their patrols on the roads they can get to north of here.”
After Chief and Duke took turns with the sat phone, they crossed the highway to find the trail again. It was the same kind of terrain, shrubby, with sparse trees, an occasional maple thicket. They walked along the creek, where the trees and vegetation grew thicker. Still no tracks.
Cam realized she’d stopped hearing any birds or small animals, only the rustling wind in the trees. It was as if they sensed something dangerous in their midst and were lying low.
Suddenly Jack held up his fist, stopped, went down on his haunches. Cam crouched down beside him. Duke nearly ran into her. “What? What is it?”
“Something’s not right. Breathe in the air.”
He was right. Cam breathed in deeply and smelled something dark and rancid that grabbed her by the throat. She whispered, “It’s blood.”
Duke pointed. “Over there, under that scrub oak.”
They found a young man, lying on his back, covered with oak leaves and a couple of stray small leafy branches. They knew he was dead before they pushed the leaves off his gray slack face.
“He’s not more than twenty,” Chief said. Out of habit, he touched his fingers to the pulse in the boy’s neck. There was nothing. He crossed himself, said a prayer.
Cam picked up broken sunglasses that lay near his curled left hand. She said, “They stabbed him in the heart and covered him with leaves.”
Jack said, “And left him to be scavenged by animals. Didn’t want to take the time to bury him.”
Duke found his wallet in his back pocket. “James Delinsky, twenty-one, from Richmond, Virginia. His student ID’s from Virginia Tech.”
Cam leaned down and closed his lids. “I’m sorry, James,” she whispered. “I’m so very sorry.”
Chief was already back on his sat phone. He handed it to Duke to describe the exact location. They were near enough to the highway for his deputies to come in on foot. There would be no sirens, no helicopter for Manta Ray’s group to hear.
Chief handed Jack the sat phone. “This really is sick, pisses me off. No reason to kill anyone; he was just a kid.”
Cam looked up at Jack. He was staring down at the young man. Jack’s face was expressionless, but she knew he was deeply angry. If Manta Ray had appeared at that moment, she wondered if Jack would kill him without hesitation. She wondered what she would do.
“Wrong place, wrong time,” Chief said. “My nephew, Billy, is about his age, loves to hike around here. It could have been him.” He added, “Standard procedure is to stay with him until our people arrive, but not this time. The best thing we can do for this young man is to find his killers.” He pulled out his sleeping bag and laid it over James Delinsky. He placed rocks on the sleeping bag to keep the animals away.
Chief was frowning. “Too bad we can’t plan on killing Manta Ray. I’d sure like to save the taxpayers some money.”
Cam said, “Sorry to say but this is bigger than Manta Ray, Chief. We need to find out who’s behind Manta Ray and get them all.”
They pressed on toward the northwest, crossed Park Cemetery Road up into Horse Lick Creek. There were tracks there, where the group had stopped to fill their canteens. Duke said, “Look. Manta Ray is really limping now. He took off his left boot, waded in the water to cut the pain. I don’t think they’ll be able to stay in this rough terrain for much longer. They’ll have to move back up over the hills—it’s the easiest way north.”
Duke took off his sunglasses and looked east, then spread his map on the ground. “Here we are. I think they’ll cut off where the creek bends here and climb up over Bethel Ridge to avoid the main road. That’ll eventually get them to Gravel Lick Creek. It’s tough going at first, but then it eases up.”
They moved quickly toward the ridge, over terrain that was rough and steep at first. Boulders and rock faces bordered crevices and deep gullies gouged out as if by a giant’s hand. The rising heat sapped their energy. Cam wondered if Jack was part mountain goat as she struggled to keep up, sometimes jogging, sometimes crawling, aware only of her own hard breathing and the crunch of her boots on the rocky ground.
Jack gave a low whistle and gathered them around a set of Manta Ray’s erratic tracks, showed them where he had stopped and sat down, forcing the other two to wait for him.
“We’re gaining on them every minute,” Jack said. “We’ll see if we can spot them from the top of Bethel Ridge. What’s beyond the ridge, Duke?”
Duke said quietly, “The small town of Sandy Gap, and an elementary school.”