chapter 110
THE MYSTERIOUS TRUCK driving by their dig unnerved the grave robbers. They discussed options for a few minutes and decided that one of them would resume work while the other stood guard, listening and watching for anything else unusual.
Several minutes passed, when Trance heard unintelligible shouting. He listened intently but could not figure out where it was coming from. He called for his partner to discuss the situation. But because sound travels great distances over water and through winter woods—coupled with their promising site and impending bad weather—they decided to resume digging.
The same truck sped back by twenty minutes later. The robbers again discussed what to do. They were in the middle of several thousands of acres of public-hunting property owned by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Every access point had large metal gates to prevent vehicle entry, as the area was to be strictly walk-in. A pickup truck racing up and down a logging road was puzzling but possibly explainable as joyriding teenagers, something they both had done as kids. They wrote off the strange events and went back to work.
An hour later, while taking a smoke break, Yancey heard a man’s scream in the distance. A chill went down his spine. When he clearly heard the scream for help, he tossed his cigarette and called to his partner.
“Shhhh. Listen!” Yancey said.
Silence filled the swamp until the distant sound of a barred owl interrupted the eerie quiet.
“I don’t hear shit…’sides that owl. And there’s that campground just down the river. If someone was callin’ for help, it coulda been someone down there.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Man, we don’t need this shit,” Trance said nervously.
“We gotta go check it out.”
“Are you a hundred percent sure you heard, ‘Help me’?”
“Absolutely,” Yancey said, obviously unnerved.
“Man, I don’t know. We’ll be in serious shit for being here. It’s federal property.”
“Look, I know, but somebody needs help. It came from that direction,” Yancey explained, pointing northwest. “But I couldn’t judge how far.”
The two men weren’t known for making good decisions, and for obvious reasons they didn’t want anyone to know about their activities; but the thought that somebody needed help stirred something in both of them.
After a long moment, Trance spoke. “Shit! Okay, iffin’ somebody’s in trouble, they can’t be too far away. Mark the direction on your GPS, and we’ll ease that way and see what’s goin’ on.”