The Hand of Mercy (A Porter Brown Journey) (7 page)

Chapter 7

Noble Predator

November 2011

Awaiting his prey, Porter recalled how he loathed deer hunting.  However, a West Virginia child in the early 1980s was not afforded the luxury of foregoing a free meal.  From age 9, he had dutifully headed into the hills in all seasons and weather to bag a buck or a doe.  His father needed his skill and the bounty, and his sister needed the protein.  Family obligation far outweighed his disdain for killing the
Odocoileus Virginianus.  Still, those ventures into the thicket gave him perspective and an important life lesson…tracking and hunting wilderness prey is both difficult and predictable.  The same is not true when hunting humans. 

Life choices are overwhelming for the child who has known none.  When the freedom of adulthood crashes in on one who has only known poverty and the limiting factors associated with it, choosing a career path, where to live, or whom to marry is debilitating.  As Porter shivered from the cold on a dilapidated tree stand, deep in the hills along Hurricane Creek, he was freed from those multitudes of choices in place of an easy one.  Would Mitch Frazier take a bullet in the shoulder or the throat? 

Porter knew patience was key when collecting both man and deer, but more so with the evolved.  Forest animals are predictable in their daily patterns.  Eat, reproduce, avoid predators; follow well-worn trails, eat similar types of vegetation, and choose the best bluffs in which to evade captors.  Humans too, follow daily routines of work, grocer, temple, restaurant, and pub, all with their noses deeply buried in a smart phone or tablet.  Most have no concern for predators, much less one who stalks them.  When confronted with such danger, the humans’ choice of protective maneuvers should be more random than the numbered balls of the lottery.  Mitch’s inattention to his predator and his absence of protective measures would crown him the winner of today’s death jackpot.

Experience also taught Porter that disturbing a prey’s natural setting often ended in a missed kill, as the hunted notice the subtle changes in its environment and take evasive action.  The differences might only be recognized at a subconscious level but Porter neither knew, nor cared.  The kill was all that mattered.  Causing little, if any disturbance at the kill site ensured better odds for taking the game and more importantly, escaping the authorities’ detection.

The toes and fingers are always the first to succumb to nature’s effects.  Having placed himself in the tree an hour before dawn, Porter’s toes were the first extremities to feel the numbing sensation caused by this 25 degree day. 
Toes do not pull triggers, fingers do
, he reminded himself.  His primary concern was that his body not shiver when the time came for his fingers to do their work. 

Though cold, the sky was clear with the slightest breeze coming from the East, pushing to the North.  If this were a normal Thanksgiving Day hunt, Porter’s foreign odor would likely have altered a deer’s path to avoid the muzzle flash of his 300
Weatherby rifle.  Human senses, however, are far inferior to those of deer.  With eyes on the sides of their heads and satellite-like ears, deer have nearly 360 degrees of vision and hearing.  Their wet noses, with 297 million olfactory receptors as compared to five million for humans, is their first alert system allowing them to use a top speed of 30 mph to evade predators.  Mitch has none of these abilities, as he is Irish. 

He does, however, have more than two decades experience as a hunter thanks to Principal McCoy of Winfield High School, who afforded his star athletes a great deal of leniency in attendance during hunting season.  As an all-state selection in football beginning his sophomore year, Mitch used his celebrity status to skip school the entire first week of deer season.

The days of high school importance are long past as Mitch, covered from the neck down in an insulated blaze orange jumpsuit, unknowingly shared the woods with one who only regards him as a pariah.  His wool-lined camouflage hat kept his head warm, but the flaps over his ears reduced his hearing by half.  Relying almost solely on his vision and tucked behind a 200 year old oak tree at the edge of a cornfield, Mitch was certain the ten point buck he had observed for weeks would emerge from the creek bed at first light. 

Porter too was an experienced hunter, but the thrill of stalking the four-legged variety had long since passed.  His tr
aining regime for the last 20 years of martial arts, cardio and weights, and weekly trips to the firing range had shaped him into a lethal weapon.  Chewing on ice, however, as his assassin model Simo Hayha did when he killed 505 Russians in three months during World War II, was not a normal part of Porter's daily discipline.  Porter's hunting routine was to focus himself by listening to a Dan Carlin 'Hardcore History' podcast and have a large pinch of Skoal in between his cheek and gum.  But like all masters of their trade, Porter adjusted to his environment.  This frigid morning required him to have full function of his ears and ice in his mouth to cool his breath, lest it condense and display his position through the trees. 

Late Fall sunrises in the West Virginia hills are exquisite.  The sky softly disperses a glow of egg shell orange through the leaf barren trees, and a feeling of being enveloped by the light pervades the senses.  A calm owns Porter's soul as he is fortunate enough to enjoy Creation at this time of day.  While the calm is welcomed, the diminished visibility is not.  Adjusting his night vision to the now crisper images of early dawn only blurs Porter's eyes; and blurriness of sight or
his mission are never welcomed in Porter’s world, regardless of the prey.

Porter inhales the slightly sour smell of leaves as their decomposition has begun.  He tastes this early rot mixed with an abandoned crop, as the faintest breeze blows dust from a dried and brittle corn field.  Looking past the farmer’s field just as the early morning light crested the hill, Porter caught his first glimpse of Mitch, dead ahead at 225 yards.  “To your left,” Porter whispered as he urged Mitch in front of the oak tree.  Peering through the scope atop his bolt action rifle, Porter again quietly coached, “Come on you shit.  Move!” 

For three months, Mitch had made weekly trips on his ATV to scout this field and the game he was certain would be there.  Porter had followed him for his final two visits.  Mitch knew that the two miles from the nearest county road made it unlikely the game warden would venture this far in the backwoods to see him replenish his illegal corn feeder and salt licks.  Equally unlikely were others to hear him scream.

“Remember who you are,” were the words Porter’s father said each time a circumstance tested his or Jennifer’s character.  When others displayed poor sportsmanship during his childhood games, his father would remind him, “Remember who you are."  When his sister attended
unchaperoned school dances, “Remember who you are.”  As Porter traversed the wilderness of adolescence into manhood with no parents, those words were his guide.  And now, “Remember who you are,” was Porter’s mantra before every kill.  Peering at Mitch through his scope, he quietly uttered, “Remember who you are,” as he gently squeezed the trigger. 

Mitch’s left shoulder exploded in a violent wave of blood, bone, and muscle.  Knocked on his back by the force of the bullet’s impact, Mitch screamed with such powerful intensity he felt as if his lungs might explode. 

With the same precision of the shot he had just placed, Porter strapped his rifle on his back, descended the tree, gathered his supply bag, insured that his Glock was firmly on his hip, and ran as if the hounds of hell were chasing him.

Struggling to both understand what had just happened and to sit up with only
one useful arm, Mitch surveyed his surroundings.  Unbeknownst to him, Porter had intentionally placed the shot so that death would linger.  Rocking back and forth and tightly grasping his left bicep to alleviate some of the throbbing, Mitch focused on the pain's intensity and not Porter's approach, until there was only 30 feet between them. 

When Mitch's eyes did register the stranger, they were wild, like those of a deer immobilized by a gut shot; unable to focus or comprehend what had happened.  His agony clouded his thoughts a
nd he mistakenly presumed the stranger had both accidentally shot him and come to his aid. 

“Man, you got me in the sho
ulder!” Mitch said, spitting his words venomously at Porter as he sat up slightly to show the damage.  With blood running down his right arm, Mitch extended his left hand to Porter.  “Help me up.  My four wheeler’s right there.” 

With his head covered in total by the neoprene mask and his eyes disguised by black
Oakleys, Porter assessed the ATV for a moment and then slowly looked back at Mitch.  Twisting his head to the left, Porter’s movement communicated that he had not come to help.

Only two feet separated the men when Porter said slowly and clearly, “I know what you do to Laura.”  The ice now gone from his mouth, Porter's condensed breath poured over his victim as if Hell's vapor had begun to envelop its newest resident.

Puzzled and alarmed, Mitch wriggled from his seated position trying to get to his feet and over to his four-wheeler.  Like the fox that has wounded a rabbit but withholds the death strike to observe its victim, Porter placed his sunglasses on top of his head and unsheathed his hunting knife.  The blue grey steel was six inches from the wounded man’s face when Mitch pleaded, “Hey man, come on.  I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Oh, you do,” offered Porter in a low growl.  “And you know that I know.” 

Mitch froze. 

“You and Laura came into the Village Grill two weeks ago.  I remembered your face and the bully you used to be.  When I noticed that the make-up didn’t fully cover the bruises on Laura’s neck, I realized you were still a bully,” Porter calmly stated.  “So I had the bartender buy you a round; then another, and another.” 

“Bullshit,” said Mitch, clearly defensive. 

"Bullshit?” retorted Porter.  “Here you go.  Steve is the bartender at the Grill; early fifties, real nice guy with a huge smile and all business.  He had your Coors Light and Laura’s Jack
and Coke waiting on you when you sat down.  His partner behind the bar is Brandon.  He’s full of tats, and more subdued than Steve, but friendly in his own way, and he has a voice that’s a mix of Louis Armstrong and Robert Deniro.  Is that enough?” Porter defiantly asked Mitch, who offered no response.

“After you two were half in the bag, I followed you to your place and watched you beat the shit out of her; like you did it just for kicks.  And they were sick beatings too you bastard; hard enough to hurt but soft enough to not break anything.  And only body shots so no one would know.  How much practice did you have to be that accurate when you were drunk off your ass?” 

Porter breathed deeply to calm the rage building up inside of him.  “So why’d she have those bruises?  Did she do something your pride couldn’t take?  My guess is she fought back and you got pissed and tried to choke her out?”  Seeing the acknowledgment on his face, Porter continued, “That’s it.  She tried to protect herself, or was finally fed up with the abuse and stood up to you.  You cowards are all the same.  You have no control over yourselves, so if anyone challenges your illusion of control, you lose your mind.” 

To further convict Mitch, Porter offered, “From the moment I saw you, I assumed you were a wife beater and a functional drunk…and you are.  That you have two or three women on the side…and you do.  That you’ve swindled a bunch of good-hearted, trusting people in some business deals …don’t know, but I’ll bet you have.  I’ve seen a hundred guys just like you, and you all follow the same tired pattern.”  Porter paused to observe what resonated with Mitch.  “And you’re so arrogant, you think nobody knows.  But guess what dip shit?  They all know.  It's just some have fit more pieces of your immoral puzzle together than others.  But the stupid thing is, the ones who know the most, are co
wards just like you; scared their actions might harm them or their families.  Instead of pursuing action like you do with your fists, they do nothing, falsely believing it will keep their lives orderly.  Mostly they just want the problem to go away.  But it never goes away!” yelled Porter.  “It never goes away because nobody, not the families or friends, not the church, and certainly not the law is willing to get their hands dirty to fix problems like you!”  Porter lowered himself to within two inches of Mitch’s eyes and intensified his stare, then snarled, “But I'm willing.”

Having laid out his case against the guilty man, Porter paused ten seconds or so to control his anger, and asked, “How long have you been beating her?”  Mitch was silent and indignant.  Porter moved the knife directly over Mitch’s open wound and asked again with a rapid growl “How long?  If you want on that four-wheeler and out of the open grave I am about to pitch you in, answer me!” 

Mitch sighed softly, “About as long as I’ve known her.  Fifteen years I guess.” 

Struggling to control his rage at the horrors and trauma that Laura had endured, Porter stood and grabbed Mitch’s phone. “What’s Laura’s number?”  Unsure of the odd question or additional pain this man would inflict on him, Mitch stayed silent.  Scrolling through the call log, Porter began reading the female names.  “Sarah.  Dawn.  Are these your other women?”  Mitch offered no movement.
“Here's Laura,” said Porter playfully. Mitch’s refusal to make eye contact confirmed to Porter he had found the right Laura.  With a few key strokes he texted, “I’m sorry.”  “You ever said sorry to your wife?” Mitch stayed silent.  “Didn’t think so,” added Porter.  “Well, you just did.”