After Saul dropped me at my house, I bolted at the speed of light to get the house a little tidier – and Beauregard a little less grumpy – before I had to go pick up Sawyer. I had thought about asking Saul if we could grab him on the way home, but then I’d hit upon an adventure for Sawyer and me that would let us get out a bit and help me with my research, too.
I’d always envied those parents whose children ran toward them when they’d been parted for a time, but I hadn’t had much experience in that particular joy. Sawyer had always been a kind who clung back, holding on to the person they’d just been with. Today, though, when Sawyer saw me, he sprinted across the schoolyard and leapt into my arms. I barely kept my balance as he scrambled up my body like a little monkey and wrapped his arms around my throat. “I love you so much, Mama.”
My breath shortened, both from tears and from the tightness of his hug, but I managed “I love you, too.”
He pulled back, put his hands on my cheeks and said, “You’re supposed to say, I love you, too, Sawyer.”
I studied his intent expression and then said, “I love you, too, Sawyer.”
Satisfied, he slid to the ground and took my hand. “Let’s go home,” he said.
“Actually, I wondered if you wanted to take an adventure,” I said as I buckled him into his carseat. “We have just enough time to get up to the Parkway for a picnic and the sunset. And I brought chocolate.” I waved an orange bag of his favorite candies in front of him. “What do you say?”
He put one finger to his cheek and tapped, considering. “Let’s do it,” he said.
I smiled, handed him a pouch of apple juice, and climbed into the front seat. “Off we go,” I said with a grin in the rearview mirror.
He gave me a thumbs up and then settled into his own quiet space. I was eager to hear about his day, but he needed the quiet, I could tell. I figured I’d hear about his day on our picnic.
But before we got to one of the picnic areas, I wanted to head south to see how the land lay, now that I’d studied the maps of the area a bit more closely. I’d learned in my months of doing this work that this kind of hands-on – or tires-on – experience was irreplaceable, and while I’d walked around this mountainside a couple of times this week, I hadn’t done so with my mind toward property lines and trade routes.
One of the older maps had shown that the logging road that now intersected the Parkway and that had, apparently, given our killer access to the O’Malley cabin had once been a wagon road over the mountain to a little community called Beldor. From there, traders would have been able to head down to Elkton and Waynesboro or further west even to Crozet. I didn’t know what good it would do me to see those old road traces with that in mind, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. And the chance to be with Sawyer on the Parkway at sunset, well, that was something I wasn’t going to miss out on.
We pulled off at the overlook where we’d found the note from Katherine Forester, and Saw and I both stepped out and carefully crossed the road. There, just visible through the ever-growing forest, I could make out what had once been a roadway. I only recognized it because it looked like what my friends in the desert states called an arroyo. If someone didn’t know better, they might think it was a former creek bed. But the evenly spaced ruts running down the middle combined with the trees a foot or so higher on either side of the roadbed told me this had once been the wagon road. I took Sawyer’s hand, and we jumped the few feet to the hillside below. He landed with ease. I thought my ankles were going to break, but we were down and walking.
“I like this adventure, Mama,” he said as he scampered ahead. “We’re bushtapping.”
I laughed. “I think you mean bushwhacking, and sort of. But we’re not going to break anything or pull up any plants. This is a national park, and we protect everything here.” I followed behind him until he got to the roadbed, and then he stopped. “Look Mama, a road,” he said and pointed down the hillside.
“That’s my boy,” I said. “Sure is. Wagons used to use this road.” I stared down the mountain to where I could just see the tops of a few houses where the elevation leveled off a little. I wouldn’t really want to walk down this roadway, much less take a wagon down it. But then, I wasn’t a frontierswoman.
Sawyer interrupted my reflection when he said, “Look, Mama, a ring,” he said and held up what I expected to be a soda tab. But sure enough, it was an actual ring with a small red stone in it. “Can I keep it?”
I started to say yes, but then I caught the glimmer of light on something a bit further down the road. “Come see what this is with me, Saw.” We jogged down the old road, and he bent to pick up a AAA battery.
“Someone littered,” he said with a scowl.
I nodded and said, “Yes, someone did. We’ll take that home and recycle it. Why don’t you put it in your pocket with the ring?”
He grinned and carefully opened his front right pocket to slide his new treasures inside. As he did, I noticed something rising from the trees down the hill. Normally, I didn’t rely on my preschooler for his understanding of the world yet, but if I was seeing what I thought I was seeing, Sawyer would recognize it right away.
“Saw, do you see that above the trees?”
He looked where I pointed and then said, “Smoke!” He sniffed the air. “There’s a fire, Mama. We need to call the fire department.”
I pulled him to me quickly and leaned close to his ear. “It’s not a big fire,” I whispered. “But someone has lit a campfire, which is illegal. Maybe someone is hurt or lost, so let’s go see.”
“We can help,” he said far too loudly for the way my nerves were jangling.
“Maybe we can, Love Bug,” I whispered as I took his hand. “But we need to be very quiet. It’s possible these are bad guys, and we don’t want them to see us if that’s the case.”
I really hated playing into this overly simplistic idea of “good guys” and “bad guys,” but in this case, something was telling me that we may not want to be seen. And the only way I could think to communicate that clearly to my son was with that stereotype.
Given that I had enough intuition to know it might be good to stay unnoticed, it might be reasonable to think my intuition should have just told me to go back to the car and call Santiago. But my intuition wasn’t always consistent, while my curiosity usually was.
Sawyer and I literally tiptoed down the hill to the edge of the road parallel to where we’d seen the smoke. There, in the woods, I saw a green canvas tent, kind of like the one I’d once bought on Craigslist and found it took six people and two hours to put up. It was sturdy and waterproof, but not lightweight. Not, in other words, something people set up for a casual camping trip.
Given that the sun was close to setting and we were now on the western side of the mountain, the sunlight was sort of like a spotlight on the small campsite. Beside the tent, I saw a firepit made from rocks and a clothesline hung with at least two sets of clothes, one larger than the other.
Sawyer kept pointing up the mountain and trying to drag me back up the trail toward our car, but I wanted to get a closer look. I had started to step into the woods when Sawyer shouted, “Mama, Run.” He was looking down the mountain now, and it was only then that I heard what he had probably picked up much earlier than I had, given his young ears. A UTV was coming up the road toward us.
Saw and I sprinted up the road, and with a strength I didn’t have, I scooped him up and tossed him into a thick stand of ferns a few dozen yards above the campsite. I could only hope that whoever was on that UTV hadn’t seen us and that the sound of the machine had covered our noisy attempt to hide.
I looked down at Sawyer and put my finger to his lips. He nodded, and with eyes as wide as saucers, he sank down into the plants. I followed suit and said a silent prayer of thanks that we were both dressed in mostly dark blue today. If Saw had been wearing his bright orange, “Fun In the Mud” shirt we could have been in real trouble.
When the UTV cut off down the hill from us, I let out a slow sigh of relief. Surely if they had seen us, they would have come on up this way. But just because they hadn’t seen us didn’t mean they wouldn’t. After all, we couldn’t crouch in the woods all night. Santiago was due to meet us in an hour and a half, and while he knew we were on the Parkway, I hadn’t exactly told him we were coming down this way to check out this old roadbed.
As we hid, I heard the voices of one man and one woman talking, and while I didn’t think they were whispering, they certainly weren’t projecting their voices for our benefit either. A moment or two later, I heard grunting and stuck my head up just enough to see them pushing the UTV off the roadbed and into the woods. Clearly, they knew how to cover their tracks. In fact, I was surprised to think they had left a fire burning in daylight like that.
That surprise was something our UTV friends shared, apparently, because a moment later, I heard the woman yell, “Put that out. Someone will see it.” Then, the clear hiss of water on flame skirted up the mountain.
Sawyer looked at me, and while he was doing an amazing job of being quiet, I knew his nerves were getting to him by the way he was beginning to fidget. The boy couldn’t stay still on a calm, good day after a dose of Benadryl. He wasn’t going to last long in this situation. We had to get out of here.
I risked poking my head out of the ferns one more time and scanned the hillside like my head was a periscope. The ferns continued up the mountainside a good ways, almost to the overlook it seemed. If we stayed off the roadbed and were quiet, I thought we could get back to our car without being seen.
Sawyer was not yet old enough to watch movies with soldiers, but I hoped the signals I’d picked up from my own film experience might communicate well to a little boy. I put my fingers to my lips, pointed up the hill, and then walked two fingers across the air like I was tiptoeing.
He nodded, and then I took his hand and began to climb, slowly and quietly, doing my best to step over twigs and branches to avoid giving away our location. Sawyer did brilliantly, and given that he weighed a lot less than me, he made far less sound. I was very proud of him.
We were almost to the stone barrier that made up the overlook when I got careless and misplaced my foot on a slick pile of leaves. I went flailing down the hill. Only mother’s instinct allowed me to let go of Sawyer’s hand so I didn’t pull him with me. I yelled as I hit a hard limb about ten feet down the hill, and while I got very quiet very quickly, I heard the sound of shouting and footsteps coming from the camp.
“Run!” I shouted to Sawyer as I extricated myself from the branches of a fallen pine and hauled after him through the plants.
Sawyer had watched Lucille climb the cliffs of the North Mountain enough times to be a skilled rock climber, and by the time I reached the overlook wall, he was already at the top. I couldn’t climb it though, so I said, “I’ll meet you around there” and pointed north. Then, I took off running the few feet to the edge of the overlook where I scrambled up the steep slope with the help of adrenaline.
There, Saw was waiting and while he looked terrified, he was also focused. “They’re coming, Mama. Run!”
He and I both sprinted toward our car and got in just in time to see a red-headed woman and a burly white guy with a full brown beard come up the slope that I’d just crossed. As I spun the wheel and did a donut in the parking lot to get going back north on the Parkway, they watched us.
I had my hand on Sawyer in the front seat, a feeble attempt to keep him safe until I could get us out of there, but I took just enough time to look at the couple as we drove by. The woman looked familiar somehow, but in that moment, I didn’t have enough brain cells firing with anything but fear to know why.
Despite the fact that Sawyer was riding free in the car, I didn’t stop until we got all the way down the mountain. There, I pulled into the pottery shop, strapped Sawyer in, and called Santiago. He answered on the first ring, and when I told him what we’d seen, he said he’d send Savannah right up and that I needed to come to the station to give a statement. “I’ll call the rangers, too. Maybe they can get there before the couple packs up.”
I hadn’t thought of that when I decided to get pretty far away before stopping, but given that I’d put my son in danger once already, I figured it was best to get him to safety – at least the relative safety of my car without his car seat – before stopping. Now, I wondered if I’d made the right decision.
As we drove the rest of the way into town, Sawyer talked non-stop about the bad guys and the quick getaway and about how he’d been on the “big road” without his seat belt. Clearly, the fear was wearing off, and now, this was going to be a story of great adventure. I smiled as he talked and hoped that was all it would be, and not also a story of the time his mother almost got him killed.
Once I pulled into the parking lot behind the station, my own nerves had calmed, and I was able to think a bit more clearly about what we’d seen. Maybe it was just someone camping illegally in the park. Maybe they were down on their luck and making do. Maybe they had a pot operation up there, and while that wasn’t exactly safe situation to walk up on, it wasn’t something I hadn’t dealt with in the past, surprisingly enough.
Unfortunately, I didn’t think any of those things was actually the case. We had already piled up a list of events that made coincidence seem like a magical phrase. The odds that a random couple were secretly hiding in the national park just up the literal road from where a woman had been kidnapped and a body dumped were so astronomical that I couldn’t even imagine the figure.
Santiago met us at the front door when we walked in, and Sawyer leapt into his arms saying, “We found a secret campsite, and we evaded capture.”
I stared at my verbally precocious kid and said, “Where in the world did you hear the phrase ‘evaded capture?’” I glanced at Santi to give him a wide-eyed stare and noticed that he was bright red. “You taught him that phrase?”
“We were playing Lego people, and it just came up,” the sheriff said with a sheepish grin. “On the up side, he used it correctly.”
I sighed. “He did.” A yawn escaped my lips, and I suddenly felt the exhaustion that comes after an adrenaline rush.
“Come sit down in my office,” Santi said as he shifted Saw to one hip and came to my side to put his other arm around me. He kissed my cheek and said, “You know, it’s usually the partner of the police officer that has to worry about their safety.”
“I’ve never been one for traditional roles,” I said as I stifled another yawn. Then, I slumped into the chair in front of Santi’s desk and wrapped myself around Sawyer when he lumbered into my lap, yawning himself. “Okay, so you want an official statement.”
“I do, and I know you’re tired, but it’s important to get this down when it’s fresh in your mind.” He smiled and took out his notebook.
I narrated the tale of our time in the wood including every detail I could recall. Saw helpfully remembered that the clothes on the line were mostly green, and he also said the woman who had chased us had on hiking boots like his dad’s. That detail was very specific because his dad only wore Merrell boots. It was a key fact.
When we finished our story, Santiago looked at each of us and said, “Anything else? Anything else at all?”
Sawyer buried his face in my chest in the tell tale gesture of a child with something to hide. I lifted his face so his eyes meant mine. “You need to tell Santi what you remember, Love Bug.”
He let out a long sigh. “Okay.” It was only when he reached down and opened his front pocket that I remembered the ring and the battery he’d found. He set them both on the table and then told Santiago we’d found them on the road above the campsite.
“Thank you for telling me, Sawyer,” Santi said as he carefully used a pencil to pick up the ring. “And this was just on the roadway?” He put it close to his eye. “It looks like a ruby. Whoever lost this is probably quite upset.”
“A ruby?!” Sawyer said as if he was the world’s foremost gemologist. The boy had never seen or heard of a ruby before, of that I was sure.
“I’ll have to be sure, but it looks like it.” Santi poked the battery with his pencil. “What have you all seen AAA batteries in? I’m thinking remote controls, maybe toys.”
I shook my head. “That’s all we use them for in our house.”
“Maybe someone’s RC car or something?” Santi said as he pulled an evidence bag out of his desk. “We’ll check it out.” He looked up at Sawyer. “These could be good clues, Saw. Good work.”
I had my doubts that these objects had anything to do with this situation, but I appreciated that Santiago gave my boy a little boost.
But now, I could hear my own stomach growling, and if I was hungry, Sawyer was about three seconds from a total meltdown. “Time for us to get some food,” I said.
Santiago nodded. “I’m picking up a pizza. Meet you at the house?”
I noticed he didn’t say your house or our house. We were in that weird in-between, but I just knew we’d find our way.
Not tonight, though. Tonight I just needed food and bed... with maybe a few stitches in between.
The pizza was perfect, and the soda Santi got to go with it tasted so good. Sugar after stress was just perfect, and even with the extra jolt of sucrose, Sawyer was almost asleep in his plate. And when I took him up to bed, he was out before I even finished reading one book.
When I came down, Santi was stretched all the way across the couch and lifted his feet when he saw me, so I could slide under. He didn’t even bother turning on the TV.
I picked up my sewing and began to stitch a little of another branch of the tree while the silence of my house eased out the last of the day’s tension. Between the motion of my stitches and Santi’s deep breaths, I found myself in that space that was almost, but not quite, sleep.
When my cloth fell into my lap, I gave up and let my eyes close. I was just about asleep when I remembered the picture of Katherine Forester and the O’Malley’s. I sat bolt upright.
“That ring – it’s Katherine Forester’s,” I almost shouted.