“Roy, we’re on our way. Call Lexington an have them put a bird on standby.”
“Thought you said it was a recovery, not a rescue?”
“We don’t know what we’re gonna find up there. Jus get a bird ready for me.”
“Ten-four.”
Sheriff Binner put the radio transmitter back into its cradle and adjusted the seat belt on his massive belly.
“Your grandaddy an me go way back, you know. What you done is big.”
“I was just trying to save him.”
“Well, you certainly done that. But you also done a great service to the county. Folks here are starvin for heroes, an your grandaddy is one a the only ones we got—him an Cleo Fink.” He looked over at me. I nodded and looked out the window, unable to focus on anything but the feel of my heart rending over what awaited us on the Old Blue trail by the Blackball River.
“Not many folks can say they faced down a mountain lion with jus a bowie knife.”
“I made a spear out of it.”
“It was a brave thing, regardless.”
I looked back out the window, tried to put Buzzy out of my mind. “Pops said brave is when you have time to think and still act at risk to yourself. I was just trying to save him.”
“I don’t care what you call it… took guts.”
“I think what Mr. Paul did took guts.”
“That sounds like somethin your Pops would say.”
“Do you know who killed him?”
“I do.” He looked over at me. “So do you.”
I nodded, swallowed. “Did Tilroy confess?”
He shook his head. “Cleo come to me. Tole everthin.”
“Did you arrest Tilroy?”
“Aint been out to the holler. That’s tommora’s bidness.”
“Who do you think was shooting at us?”
“In my line a work, you learn not to specalate.”
“Buzzy thought they were shooting at him, not Pops.”
“Murder is all about motive, Kevin, an I jus don’t see one for shootin Buzzy Fink. Your grandaddy? Now, that’s a different matter.”
“You think it was the man that owns the mines, Mr. Boyd?”
“Well, he wouldn’t a pulled the trigger, but he’s got men who would. We gotta get more data fore we go too far down that path.”
We were speeding north on Highway 70 toward Lexington, lights flashing, no siren. Cars in the left lane shifted over as we came up to them, drivers checking seat belts and speedometers. After twenty miles we took a left onto Route 5, a narrow, cracked road that wound between a series of abandoned coal tipples. In a while, the sheriff slowed and pulled into a dirt track, which immediately went to an incline.
The road narrowed and we cut through a stand of white oak and sweet gum that closed in and created bark walls up the first hill. We rolled down into a clear-cut valley, then up onto a ledge that twisted deep into the sea of timber. After ten miles of bumps and turns, we cut into Harker Mountain and wound around the base, then down into a shallow dell, then up to the high valley that held Glaston Lake. The sheriff slowed as we came to the end of the road, which widened to accommodate parking for three cars. A blue Ford pickup filled one of the spots. We parked next to it and exited the patrol car. The truck looked familiar, but I couldn’t place its owner.
Sheriff Binner went to it, placed his hand on the hood, opened it, and felt the engine.
“Cold.”
“I think I recognize the truck,” I said.
“I know I recognize it. It’s Sen Budget’s.”
“You think he was the shooter?”
“Don’t know. Did he have a motive?”
“Maybe the mine guy was paying him.”
“Or maybe he’s up here fishin.”
A patrol car pulled up, followed by a state police van. Two men in tan uniforms exited the van and opened the rear door. They pulled out a collapsible aluminum stretcher and a brown backpack, red first aid cross on it. Two others climbed out of the patrol car.
“Boys, come on over,” Sherriff Binner said. He waved everyone in. “This is Kevin Gillooly, Art Peebles’ grandson. He thinks the Fink boy is shot on the other side a Old Blue by Blackball. Let’s hike up an over, then fan out along the bank. Yell if you find him.”
We started up in single file with the state police team in the lead and Sheriff Binner at the rear. The path snaked around the end of Glaston Lake, where the shooter had camped, then joined up with the Old Blue trail.
Through the trees I could see to the beach with the dugout canoe. Although it had been only two days, the idyll of Glaston Lake seemed like two lifetimes ago, the beauty of the place carried off by my thoughts of what we would find on the banks of the Blackball.
As the path ascended, Sheriff Binner fell behind. I hung back with him for a while, but the urgency I felt to find Buzzy kept pushing me forward. I stopped and waited for him a third time.
“You run on ahead, Kevin. I’ll make it quick as I can.”
I double-timed up the switchbacks and caught the others as they were starting on the steep to the summit. We reached the top and the men pulled themselves up and over the ledge. One of the sheriff’s deputies reached a hand down; I grabbed it and he lifted me over the rimrock.
We stood and rested at the top, peering down at Sheriff Binner, who was laboring up the slope.
I moved to the flat where we had watched the meteor storm and looked down at Glaston Lake, its stillness sitting in ignorant silence to the tragedy that unfolded there. The state police paramedic with the backpack sidled up to me. “Heard you took on a cougar with a knife and lived to tell the tale.”
“It was going to attack us. I just scared it away.”
“Name’s Skill. Wayson Skill.” He put his hand out and I took it.
“Are you related to Mr. Skill who runs the newspaper?”
“He’s my uncle.”
“He and my grandfather are friends.”
“I know,” he said with a slight smile. “It ain’t a large town.”
The other paramedic came over, then the deputies. “What did it feel like? Once you knew you’d beat it,” the one with the fold-up stretcher asked. His name was Kimpton Silkwater.
“I didn’t beat it. It just went away after a while.” I told them the whole story from the time of the shots to rushing at Gov Budget with the knife. When I was finished, they looked at each other, then me.
“You got balls, Kevin,” Wayson Skill said.
“I just did for him what he would’ve done for me.”
“You did a sight more than that, I think,” Kimpton replied.
Sheriff Binner was nearly at the top, taking one step, stopping to blow out a breath, then taking another.
“I think we’re gonna need to help the sheriff up over the lip,” I said.
He came to the top and put both palms on the ledge, which was at his breastbone. “How’s this gonna work?”
The two deputies, Roy Marker and Bud Jennings, jumped down and positioned on either side of his tree-trunk legs. Skill and Silkwater each grabbed a hand. The deputies laced their fingers and lowered them to knee height. Sheriff Binner stepped into Deputy Marker’s joined palms; Marker grunted and swayed on the weight. Binner put his right foot onto Deputy Jennings’ hands, and together the men slowly stood, raising the sheriff’s body above the ledge as if he was being levitated by some unseen magician. The paramedics grabbed him under the arms and pulled while the deputies pushed his feet up so they were equal to the summit. He stepped off like he was exiting an escalator, momentum taking him forward three steps. He turned to offer a hand to his deputies and easily pulled them to the summit.
We all stood while Sheriff Binner caught his breath. “Ain’t been up here in eighty pounds,” he said with a chuckle. He moved to a rock and sat down. “Boys, I go down that back side, you’ll be callin the state bird to airlift me out. I’m gonna stay up here an supervise. Y’all head down an check in time to time on the radio.”
They nodded and we dropped over the edge and slid down the embankment to the beginning of the switchbacks. In a half hour we rounded the last elbow of trail and started on the slight slope that ran through the trees to the river. I was in the lead, with the paramedics behind me and the deputies behind them.
As we came through the trees, I recognized him immediately and broke into a run. A group of black buzzards was walking his perimeter. “Get away from there,” I screamed. The men ran after me. “Don’t touch anything,” someone yelled from the back.