Trail of Terror, page 45
“Our highest priority is to save the two women,” he replied. “But we need to watch for the serial killer. He’s no doubt already trying to hunt them down. One of the women stabbed him with her knife several times while he was attempting to rape her, the other one hosed him down good with bear spray — then they managed to escape. Stay on your toes, guys — I really mean it. This guy is big and strong as a 700-pound gorilla and makes Ted Bundy look like the tooth fairy. No telling how many people he’s killed already.”
“Bad news, huh?” Wahnetah grunted, folding his large arms across his chest. “I’ll bet he ain’t never been up against three pissed off Cherokees.”
“As near as we can figure, he’s been living in the mountains someplace around here for the last two years,” Joe said. “He’s from up in the mountains of West Virginia, grew up there and knows his way in the wilderness as well as we do.”
“I’ll bet the sonovabitch is shacked up in one of the old Indian caves around here, there’s got to be dozens of them around Fontana Dam,” Stick commented from the rear seat as he petted Otis.
Joe thought about it for a moment as the F-150 flew around Santeetlah Lake, it made sense. The huge dam cut like a giant table saw through a massive mountain range with summits reaching beyond a mile high on either side.
Stick added, “I’ve explored nearly all of them.”
“Everywhere you go in Western North Carolina there are secluded places reputed to have been used as hideaways by the 600 or so Cherokees seeking refuge during the removal era of the late 1830s,” Wahnetah scoffed. “But most of those stories are just a bunch of legends or tall-tales connected to dank holes in the ground.”
“Okay, wise ass, in point-of-fact, caves were not favored by the Cherokee as shelters even during the removal,” Stick explained. “They actually preferred overhanging rock shelters they were familiar with from centuries of upland hunting. Sure, my friend, they sought out secluded nooks away from the main routes, but they also wanted dry sites that offered good water and warming sunlight, especially during the long winter of 1838-1839. I’ll bet the dude has set himself up in one on those caves — the question is, where?”
“How do you know all this?” Wahnetah countered.
“I used to be a history teacher before I became a detective — that’s why I’m good at what I do,” he shrugged. “You probably wouldn’t understand.”
Wahnetah hiked his eyebrows, “You’re probably right, I’m more a man of action.”
“I forgot to tell you guys that we have a woman still missing. If we find Bailey, there’s a remote possibility she may still be alive someplace,” Joe told them. “That’s if he’s willing to talk to us.”
If successful capturing the killer, Joe would give the credit to his cousin and Stick; but if he failed, he alone would take the fall. It was his decision.
He drove down to the end of a long ancient hard-packed gravel road, called Yellow Creek Road, its dirt shoulder laced with dandelions and a few other common wildflowers. Few cars or trucks ever came down the road, only the occasional hunter. He glanced at the truck’s navigation display and it directed him to turn the F-150 onto another, even more isolated road designated the “Old Field Gap Road.”
Joe switched into four-wheel-drive when the road turned into two ruts with huge potholes, down a pathway surrounded by dogwood blooms, flaming azaleas and white and pink rhododendron bushes on both sides.
The path ended at the tree line after a half mile, in the middle of no place, and Joe parked the truck and shut the engine off. They were surrounded by tall poplar, hemlock, basswood, beech, red and white oak, and sycamore trees, some of them over 100 feet high.
The nearest dwelling was several miles away in every direction.
Joe had been in at least seventeen full-up gun battles during his army stint and he was mentally preparing himself. He had seen violence in all its form and was prepared to receive it and give it out in its nastiest form. His Veterans Administration PTSD counselor had told him one time she thought he had become addicted to the demands of conflict.
“You ready?” Joe asked the other two as he climbed out of the vehicle. At a smidgen over six-foot-three his body was exceptionally strong. He worked out and ran regularly with Otis, and his biceps and deltoids showed it.
His gaze swept through the surrounding landscape of dense trees and the nearby mountainside, with the practiced ease of someone accustomed to observing important details. It would be dark soon. They would need to get their eyes accustomed to the darkness as fast as possible.
“I was ready when I was born, brother,” Wahnetah replied, peering in the western sky. “We’re gonna need to move fast, that storm moving in our direction looks bad-ass.”
Joe performed a final quick check of his .40 caliber duty pistol to make sure a round was in the chamber, holstered it, put on his bullet proof vest, then placed two spare magazines and extra bottles of water and spare MREs in his emergency pack. He grabbed his shotgun, loaded it with five double-aught buckshot shells, racked it and put the safety on.
The other two also readied themselves, only they carried wicked M-4 assault rifles. Joe couldn’t help but notice his cousin had a tomahawk in a sheath strapped to his belt. Stick had two M84 stun grenades fixed to his vest, the same type he’d used in the army and that SWAT teams currently used.
These guys didn’t mess around.
He glanced up at the blackening overcast sky to the west. He could feel the breeze picking up. They saw flashes of lightning and heard rolling thunder slowly coming in their direction.
Joe snapped a leash on Otis’s collar and the dog affectionately licked his owner’s hand. He turned toward the others, “I’ll take point and watch the front, Archie you stay in the middle and watch our flanks, Stick — you bring up the rear and watch our “six” behind us…keep your eyes open, I don’t want this guy ambushing us. From here on out, we use hand signals only — got it?”
They both gave him the thumbs up.
“One last thing, the SBI is sending a Special Response Team but I have no idea when they’ll get here — could be as late as tomorrow morning depending on the weather. Be alert for them and for God’s sake, don’t get trigger happy and shoot at them. That could be bad all around — got it?”
Both men nodded affirmative and gave thumbs up.
Joe turned and took off, Otis loping a few feet ahead of him.
The three men set out on a fast jog and Joe felt like an adrenaline junkie in need of a fix. They glided noiselessly through the forest.
Within ten minutes they approached the Benton MacKaye Trail and Joe hand-signaled to stop. He had a great deal of experience spying on or attacking people in the army. Careful, quiet and methodical was the best way to proceed in the present situation.
They stopped and were silent for several minutes as Joe inspected the trail. Two sets of women’s tracks heading west, several hours old. Also, a set of man’s boot tracks, unusually large size 15-to-18 imprints in the dirt, headed in the same direction.
No doubt in Joe’s mind, the killer was following the women. Otis sniffed all three sets of tracks and let out a whine — he’d smelled them all before and recognized them.
Joe first pointed to the tracks, then pointed down the trail and raised his left arm into a fist and pumped it up and down…it was the universal soldier sign for “hurry it up.”
The men nodded they understood…the killer was ahead of them. Otis took the lead now and Joe followed.
The chase was on. They continued to jog slowly and silently down the trail, twenty feet apart, each carefully looking all around in all directions.
None of them wanted to be surprised by Daemon Bailey.
CHAPTER 72
His face was distorted. The bear spray consisted of atomized capsaicin, a red pepper derivative, which caused the membranes of his eyes, nose and lungs to swell. Daemon Bailey lay on the ground near the stream and could barely see or breathe.
Nearly a whole hour had passed and several times he thought he was going to die.
His eyes involuntarily closed and teared, his nose ran profusely, and he couldn’t stop coughing. He took short shallow breaths to avoid breathing in the spray.
“Fuck. Fuck!” the killer screamed in fury, as he willed his body to get up and he managed to sit hunched over on both knees. He’d emptied the last of his water bottle onto his face to ease the pain, as he wiped away the last of the burning pepper spray. His vision was still blurry, his eyes hurt like nothing he’d ever experienced before. The wound in his side ached like hell where the bitch had stabbed him. He’d not seen that coming. Superficial, luckily.
He crawled into the stream and immersed his entire body into the three-foot pool of water and began to wash the searing hot chemical off his body and face. He remained immersed in the water for nearly another entire hour until the searing sensation began to finally ebb.
Then he felt well enough to crawl out of the stream onto the bank and think about his next course of action. He was furious.
He inspected the three knife wounds to his body in a futile effort to ease the pain and stem the flow of bleeding from his cuts. His leg had been slashed in the calf and he had two shallow stab wounds — one on his upper thigh and one on the right side of his stomach. Neither were life threatening.
Had the damned knife cut an artery it would have been an entirely different story.
His vision had finally cleared enough to enable him to retrieve a roll of duct tape from his backpack that he would have used to subdue his victims. He taped the three knife wounds shut with strips of tape to stop the bleeding. He also applied some tape to his right hand where she’d slashed him — for some reason that cut stung the most, he had to admit.
The tape seemed to work. It was a basic first aid trick he’d learned growing up. But he still wheezed and coughed. At first, he’d had a complete loss of vision and breathing troubles — but it was only temporary. He could see pretty good again, but only out of one eye.
Minutes later, he worked his way over to where the two women had camped. He stood staring down the Appalachian Trail in the direction they’d run, he could see their tracks clearly.
He coughed up blood mixed with spittle, dropped down to one knee and spit the glob painfully onto the ground. He suspected his nose had been broken along with part of his eye socket, when the woman had smashed her head backwards into his face.
He should have expected the shorter woman would put up a fight, she was a lot more muscular and stronger than he’d figured. He’d miscalculated. It wouldn’t happen again.
He became uncontrollably incensed with rage and his body began to shake.
Bailey was practically foaming at the mouth. He screamed into the forest, “When I’m done with those two bitches, they’re going to beg me to kill them!”
Nearly two hours had passed since the women had escaped, but he would find them eventually and kill them. The forest was his, nobody knew it as well as he did. It might take him several hours to find them, but he knew he would. There was no escape.
He let out a maniacal laugh and heaved himself to his feet. The hunt begins now. His madness began to overtake him, giving him a burst of raw energy. Saliva began to dribble down the corner of his mouth. He felt bad, but he’d been through a lot worse as a child.
He shouldered his backpack and began to walk slowly down the trail, following their tracks. He sensed the impending storm but paid no attention to the weather. His sole focus was finding the two women and making them suffer for what they did to him. They no longer had that Injun and his dog to protect them.
Within minutes the wind began to pick up and a few raindrops started to fall. As the storm moved closer it appeared like a huge ominous wall of rolling black clouds as it entered the mountains. Its wind strummed a peculiar sound. It gave the killer the strength he needed.
He firmly believed Satan was watching over him and would protect him. After all, Satan was the best friend he ever had and had kept him in business all these years.
He faced the storm and said one of his strange silent prayers to the angels that worshipped the devil, he wanted them to give him the strength to locate and sacrifice the women…in his warped mind he truly believed it took a real man to live for the devil — a lot more man than to live for God. Jesus had never helped him one time during his miserable life growing up.
+++
Joe, Wahnetah and Stick broke into a faster jog — nearly a sprint down the Benton MacKaye Trail. Joe and Otis were in the lead, the other two following close behind dodging trees and zigzagging on the trail like running backs. Joe kept his eyes looking up the trail as much as possible to stay alert for any sign of the killer up ahead, the others glancing side-to-side and behind them always considering a possible ambush.
Visibility was poor because of the late spring and summer undergrowth and the heavy greenery. None of them could see more than 20 or 30 yards in any direction and this made them especially nervous. In many places they couldn’t even see the sky or the clouds because of the dense top canopy of the huge trees.
The three Cherokee men were brought up to believe nature was a big interconnected system, therefore it was only natural that a big part of knowing how to track animals and people in the woods came from being able to read the ecosystem of interactions between different types of creatures. In order to confidently identify tracks, one simply needed to develop pattern recognition and critical thinking skills.
Clear prints weren’t always easy to find, but there were places in almost any landscape where they could be found. They easily located three sets of clear prints in mud puddles, areas of disturbed dirt and even in the forest leaf litter. Two women and a man’s set of large boot prints…they couldn’t miss them if they tried.
When walking uphill, Joe saw that the killer tended to dig his toes in a little more. He spotted several places where gravel was scraped away and some loose material was kicked back as the toe of his big boots dug in.
They had their secret weapon though — that was Otis — the well-trained animal would be able to warn them of danger long before any of them laid eyes on the killer. Joe was reasonably certain that would be the case.
Otis was in his element. It appeared that Daemon Bailey was bleeding and small droplets of blood that fell every hundred feet or so on the forest floor acted like tiny beacons for the bloodhound. The savvy canine had no problem discerning the blood pattern and his keen nose translated the scent molecules into a precise direction.
The killer might as well have left incendiary road flares for the dog to follow.
This late in the afternoon the trail meandered westward through the mountains and was quiet; except that is for a few drops of rain and the wind, when it began to pick up speed as it rushed through the branches of the tall, aged original growth trees whose roots bore down into the North Carolina pale red sandy loam soil.
Joe would hold up his fist as a signal every five minutes, then come to a complete stop to listen for important sounds. All they heard was the rumbling of the impending storm and the familiar rustling of squirrels scampering up the trees, leaping from branch to branch in their frantic hurry to escape the movement below. Occasionally there were still the familiar noises of crows, woodpeckers and crickets.
Reaching back into his Army Ranger and hunting experience, Joe knew they had to be extremely careful. Contrary to popular belief, it was hard to move quietly in the woods.
The loudest thing in the woods by far was a human being. Luck was on their side though — the ground so far was damp, enabling them to move through the forest quietly and with a decent speed while maintaining stealth. They still had to avoid snapping twigs, rocks, exposed tree roots coming up from the ground and kicking branches.
They ran largely in one direction and avoided open areas whenever possible. All three were seasoned hunters and knew sound usually traveled farther than they could see, so they kept noise to an absolute minimum.
If the raindrops turned into a drenching downpour, the trail would start to get muddy and slick and they’d have to slow down to a crawl. So far, so good. If it started raining heavily, then everything would start to look the same. Then it would even be difficult to stay on the trail.
Ironically, getting lost was the last thing Joe was concerned about. He knew from experience that getting lost in the forest was easy, because people easily became disoriented. They either: Never walked in a straight line because there were thickets and fallen trees to skirt around, ridges to cross, and game trails to follow; or, they couldn’t count on the sun or moon for direction, because they were often hard to see through the canopy or when it was cloudy.
Joe knew their exact location because he brought along his Iridium satellite phone. It served as his GPS locator and tracker, and his terrain map and he never entered the forests without it. Every five minutes he checked their progress against the last known GPS coordinates Rachel had given him.
According to the Google Map, his last readout indicated they were exactly a mile and a half from their target. No more than 15-to-20 minutes jogging time.
Nearly two full hours had passed since Rachel had called him. It might as well have been two years. He knew the killer was someplace ahead of them, but where was he, damn it!
He’d told Rachel during their hasty conversation that the best way to hide in the forest was to find a place and keep still. “Go to ground as quickly as possible and don’t move,” he’d said. He hoped the two women had the sense to realize that any movement, even swatting a mosquito (which were usually everywhere in the mountains), would give them away.
They were within a quarter of a mile from their destination when Joe raised his fist and stopped. He was suddenly very concerned: The killer should be in range, but he was still nowhere to be seen.
The three of them each dropped to a knee, huddled together on the trail facing outward and whispered quietly, discussing the situation.
