From a Dead Sleep (10 page)

Concealed inside the dark interior of his automobile, he switched off the headlights and quickly zipped up the olive-green rain poncho that snugly gripped his body. At one time, the garment fit. He raised both hands behind his shoulders to clasp the base of the attached, matted hood. He brought it over his head with the front seam resting at eye level. From under his seat, he retrieved a twelve-inch-long black Mag flashlight and flipped it on. Its batteries weren’t strong, but the beam was bright enough to serve its purpose.

The car door opened with a shriek of rusted hinges. Cold night air flooded in while the sound of rumbling water bellowed about twenty yards ahead. It echoed off the surrounding forest as if flowing through a concrete tunnel.

That morning, Sean had awoken at the southwest corner of the bridge. He knew that the stranger, who had met his demise just yards ahead, couldn’t have come from that direction because the man would have seen him or vice versa. That left three other directions.
Which corner to start from?

The car door slammed shut, and Sean’s neck twisted in a semicircle. He aimed his flashlight across the road. Its ray cut through the night and rain to expose thick foliage that prevented a long range of visibility. The area on that southeast corner was heavily wooded. There was little space between each tree, and branches interlaced together like the metal strands of a sewer grid.

While the stranger’s shoes had displayed a good amount of wear, the rest of the man’s clothes had appeared fairly clean and free of wrinkles and tears. If the man had come from the southeast, his outfit might have well looked like it had been run along a cheese grater.

North was the direction. The only question was which side of the river to check first.

With urging rain slapping his back and beads of water dropping from the top of his hood, Sean made his way down to the bridge. The wooden planks beneath his feet groaned as he walked to the center. The eery sound added anxiety to the ominous night air. He faced upstream, shining his flashlight into oncoming, churning water. Its intimidating, cool spray drifted up from the rapids and brushed against his chin. Panning the beam of light from side to side to expose hovering trees, he attempted to formulate which course would make the most sense, but there was no clear answer.

He went to Old Reliable to find that answer. He raised his shoulders and dug a hand down deep into his desolate, front jeans pocket. He retrieved a quarter and held the coin in front of his face.

“Heads is left. Tails is right.”

He flicked the quarter into the air and moved to catch it with his opposite hand. Forgetting those fingers were already wrapped around a flashlight, however, he gasped and quickly lunged forward to use his free hand. The quarter bounced off the side of his wrist and dropped down into the misty darkness below.

“Son of a bitch.”

He searched his pocket for another coin. Empty. He shook his head in annoyance.

Just then, déjà vu from a years-old memory unearthed itself from his conscience. He remembered committing a similar act at that very same spot as a child.

Diana and he used to spend hours playing in the woods around Meyers Bridge. Sometimes it was hide-and-seek, but it was usually Old West. Sean liked being the sheriff with his sister the loyal deputy. Tree-branch-rifles and twig-pistols. Fun, simpler times.

On one day, Diana wanted to switch roles. After some brotherly stubbornness, he said she could be the sheriff if she won a coin toss. As she eagerly watched, he flicked a penny into the air only to purposely let the spinning coin bounce off of his hand and into the river.

“Well, I guess you can’t be sheriff,” he said with a smug look on his mug.

His obvious stunt was received with an unexpected punch to the chest. Diana was never afraid to mix it up with her older brother. It was the same day that she had twisted her ankle and sliced up her knee after losing her balance along a knoll on the western slope. She had been providing backup for her brother during a fierce imaginary shootout.

Sean had carried her in his arms over a mile—all the way back home. She had cried the entire way.

Sean now smirked at the recollection. Back then, he was his sister’s hero.

Upon arriving home that night in their childhood, Sean had promptly received the full brunt of blame from their mother. Anytime her angel got hurt, it was always her older brother’s fault. Bed without dinner.

But as always, little Diana hadn’t forgotten about her big brother. She smuggled him two oatmeal cookies once their mother had fallen asleep in front of the television.

“We always played on the west side,” Sean whispered now, his words inaudible over the howling wind.

As children, they had always stuck to the western slope because it took in more light and was void of flat areas and trenches that maintained rainwater for days on end. The western slope was only muddy after a rain.

Prior to that night, it had barely rained in a week. If the stranger had mud on his shoes, he most likely came from the east.

The increasing wind forced Sean to tug his hood down lower as he climbed up off the road and onto a small embankment on the right side of the bridge. His flashlight traced the landscape, searching for disturbances in the moist earth. With fresh rain already eroding the dirt away with miniature streams, he knew he wouldn’t find anything right there. With his shoulders raised, he disappeared between two thick pines, the branches of which smacked stiffly against the sides of his body like a warning to stay away.

While the cover of sheltering trees partially protected him from the rain, the assortment of dead branches, intertwining roots, and plant life effectively covered the ground like a large fishing net, leaving only patches of naked dirt where footprints would be noticed. Sean lit up each patch he saw, carefully searching for any outlines or imprints.

Fifteen minutes of intense scouring went by without a sign of human misplacement. Sean was thorough, but also understood that there was a large area to cover. He lumbered deeper into the forest, occasionally changing direction and making sure he swept exposed areas from side to side. He kept aware of the sound of the river in the background, knowing it would provide him a direction back to the bridge. In the sunlight, losing one’s way wouldn’t have been as much of an issue. At night, however, in the middle of a rainstorm, one had to be a little more careful. The fairly level ground and limited visibility didn’t offer up any helpful landmarks.

Strong gusts of wind came in intervals from the north. Each time, he could hear the clamor of whistling and the disruption of tree branches about five seconds before the cold air would blast against his body.

The ache in his ankle, while simply a nuisance at first, increasingly protested as he continued to negotiate his body between trees and along shallow trenches. He persevered on.

Other than a few paw-prints and animal droppings, no signs of recent inhabitants were unveiled. Maybe he
had
chosen the wrong side of the river. Or, maybe his entire theory couldn’t hold enough water to measure up with what moisture was trapped in his soggy shoes.

The further he ventured, the stronger a sense of failure began to burrow at the pit of his stomach. Was there really anything to be found out in these woods, or was he simply the armchair detective that Lumbergh believed him to be?

Several more minutes went by. Nothing. Another cold gust, this one stronger than the others, slapped up under Sean’s hood and sent it flying backwards. With fat raindrops now smacking directly against the top of his head, he decided it was time to head back in defeat. Perhaps nothing was found because there was nothing left
to be
found. He began making his way back toward the sound of the river.

He’d nearly reached it when the wind died down, and the dull thump of what sounded like an object dropping to the ground prompted Sean’s body to spin around like an unlatched gate on freshly greased hinges. The flashlight beam snapped from side to side as his wide eyes searched for movement. With only his wrist swaying, he listened intently for a good half-minute. Nothing but the constant fall of water from the sky. Perhaps he was growing paranoid, or maybe he was simply exhausted.

He took a breath and turned his foot in the mud to start his way back. It was then that he heard what sounded like the quick, coarse scrape of dirt being shoveled from the ground. It seemed to come from the same direction as the first noise.

“Who’s there?” he shouted.

Without waiting for a response, he immediately galloped forward, leaping over a patch of low shrubs that sprawled out before him. Using his free hand to swing himself around the base of a large aspen, his flashlight dropped down low where it caught the quick glimmer of two marble-like eyes staring back at him.

Sean quickly choked up on the flashlight, ready to use it as a club, but its need as a weapon quickly diminished upon his assessment of what stood before him. Those glazed eyes were attached to nothing other than a small brown-haired creature whose appearance dropped Sean’s jaw. A long-eared jackrabbit, just like the one that had paid him a visit earlier that morning. In fact, it could have very well been the same one. Its thick fur had been matted from the rain, causing its lanky body to look smaller, but the color and markings were dead-on. Once again, a sense that he was being judged relentlessly tapped Sean’s body the same way the weather was buffeting him. However, the events that had taken place since their first meeting had placed Sean into a state that was anything but humbling.

“Get out of here!” he snarled before launching his body forward and kicking a large granite stone from the ground.

The rock slammed into the broadside of a thick, nearby aspen, sailing just a few inches above the rabbit’s head. The frightened creature quickly high-tailed it into the darkness, leaving behind a recognizable thumping sound with each stride.

Sean had nearly knocked his shoe from his foot when he kicked the stone. With his shoulders low and the ache in his ankle now worse, he swore beneath his breath and lowered down to one knee. After setting his flashlight down on the ground, he latched onto his shoestrings, but his fingers quickly came to a halt, as did all movement from his body.

Just inches ahead on the ground, a flat white object lay directly in the Mag’s light path. Its contrast with the earthy tones below, it was standing out like a burning bush.

He snatched the flashlight as he scrambled forward on his knees. He aimed it downward and lit up the small patch of ground that had been previously covered by the large stone he had sent flying with his foot.

His temper had unearthed the torn-off front page of a newspaper. He immediately recognized the title up top—
The Lakeland Tribune
.

The town of Lakeland sat about seven miles north of Winston. Years ago, the towns mirrored each other in population, culture, and seclusion. But today, Lakeland and Winston were polar opposites. Copper mining had put Lakeland on the map back in the late 1800s, but the town hadn’t enjoyed any form of prosperity in decades. Its historical significance wasn’t enough to keep a twentieth century economy sustainable. Thus, in the late 1990s, Lakeland found itself, with a handful of other small Colorado towns, on a petition to the state that requested the self-preservation measure of legalized gambling. Voters statewide eagerly made that request a reality, despite much opposition from many of the resident townsfolk—a handful of whom had actually ended up moving to Winston because of the decision.

Considering the trademark strong winds that routinely visited the region, it wasn’t odd to find such an item in the woods outside of Winston: merely a piece of light trash carried through the air and eventually coming to rest. Only, it hadn’t simply come to a rest. It had been lying directly underneath that rock, among freshly disheveled dirt. When Sean flattened out the paper, he noticed that the printed date was from only two days ago. He knew the find had some significance. With raindrops snapping against the newsprint and round water imprints forming, he quickly shoved the page into the front pocket of his parka for protection.

Lowering his gaze back to the loose, disordered earth in front of him, a tight knot formed in his stomach. There had to be something buried there. As his knees sank deeper into the cold, drenched mud beneath him, his hopes rose.

As if a starter pistol had just been fired off, he found his hands quickly sifting through the soil, probing for anything that could bolster the basis for him being in the middle of the forest by himself, in the midst of a frigid, late night rainstorm. If the trees had eyes, they’d witness a man desperately searching for his own vindication.

It didn’t take long to find something. Sean’s fingers hooked an object that felt at first to be a thick, smooth cord. He used his opposite hand to train the flashlight on what was quickly revealed to be a leather strap, each end still buried.

Like a pirate hoisting up buried treasure from below, he uprooted the attached object with a stern tug. It was some sort of rectangular satchel, about a foot and a half wide and three inches thick. The clearing of the filth and grime that clung to it revealed first a handle and then a strap with notches and a thin metal buckle that secured it shut. It didn’t look all that different from the document brief bags that TV lawyers carried into court with them.

Sean found himself short of breath as he held the bag up in the air and illuminated it for a closer look. Inside it, there had to be some answers to his questions. He nearly yanked it open right then and there but paused for a moment to weigh the consequences of doing so. He worried about the concept of tainted evidence and feared that breaking open the bag would somehow diminish its legitimacy if he offered it up as proof to Lumbergh of what he’d seen transpire at the bridge.

He didn’t ponder the dilemma for very long. He believed that going back to Lumbergh would only complicate things, and he didn’t feel like being accused by the chief of planting the bag to further prolong a story that wasn’t believed in the first place.