First things first: Welcome back Ireland! And hello again UK!
That oughta sum it up. Don’t get spoiled. Might be more than a couple days before I can wrap this chapter up.
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Will dropped his pace to a walk. He watched the circles going lower and lower, struggling to imagine what could it be that would provide a decent breakfast for a half dozen vultures? He stopped entirely, trying to get a fix on the spot they were covering.
Will assessed his current surroundings. He judged the birds to be less than a quarter mile away from him on a line breaking off the road at roughly forty-five degrees. A direct route cut across several acres of untilled corn stubble. He could see the tops of power poles beyond. Looking for errant drives off the tee had taught him a few things. He focused on a tower that would lead him on a path that would bring him across the spot he calculated the vultures had targeted. He left the road, crossed the ditch and began traversing the field, all the while keeping his eyes fixed on the power pole he’d selected.
At first Will tried to resume running, but the footing proved uneven and unpredictable. In places it was solid and flat, others soft, almost boggy. Whenever Will planted a foot his ankle threatened to roll. Already ruining his shoes, he decided there was no sense in destroying his ankles as well. Things didn’t improve at the opposite boundary of the field. He found himself staring down through a snarl of brush into the pestilent waters of the Wahpekute River. He’d failed to take the likelihood of crossing the dismal creek into consideration. He paused, resetting his position. He looked up. The vultures appeared to have broken off their descent. All five birds were circling on the same plane, hovering in a tight circle less than sixty feet above the ground. Will was close enough to them now that he could make out the hooked, yellow beaks jutting out in sharp contrast to their red, naked heads. He returned to contemplating his current predicament.
Will stood no more than fifteen feet from the water, but the barrier keeping him from it could not have been more diabolical. It was a dense nest of buckthorn and raspberry canes that would give a rabbit second thoughts. Shorts and a tank shirt didn’t make for trailblazing attire. He took another glance at the vultures. He’d endured his share of physical discomfort in his life; standing on a freeway in subzero weather, trying to stay attentive while the fire department dismantled a mangled vehicle so he could remove the likewise mangled occupant; coping with the lashing rain of a thunderstorm while taking pictures of the splattered remains of a bridge jumper; and more than once he’d crossed less than hospitable terrain to assess a body who may have been dumped by a killer, or a hapless drunk who’d wandered off and died from exposure. A few of those had been discovered by air as well, though by helicopters or police planes instead of scavengers. Right now, God only knew what had attracted those airborne hyenas, but Will just couldn’t leave it at that. He’d encountered too many dump jobs in less convenient places as this. He took a final moment to set himself, then entered the briar patch.
It was worse than he could have expected. Will was to discover that while buckthorn barbs had the potential to do more damage, the raspberry brush was the true enemy. Though more of an upper body hazard, head and shoulders in particular, the buckthorn was easier to avoid. On the other hand, raspberry brush thrived with the canes growing in tight clusters, and could gouge and tear you at any level from the ground up. It grew out in every conceivable direction, and parallel to the ground at every level, trailing spiral tendrils, even giant, spiny hoops. Not only a relentless threat to one’s periphery, it also had an almost magical ability to work its way between thighs and under arms. Concentrating on protecting any one body part only left another more vulnerable. By the time he was ready to admit defeat and withdraw, Will discovered he was two thirds of the way through. No way he was going back. The brutal struggle wasn’t even over when he reached the edge of the river. The nest of thorns extended out over the banks.
His assessment of the barbed veil dangling over the turbid water was no more than a glance, and he spent no time or consideration devising a plan to get through it. He just wrapped his head with his arms and jumped. After an instant of what felt like a slide down a cheese grater, he enjoyed an instant of cool, clear air before splashing into the river. He landed in a crouch and he held it, waddling a few feet forward until he was certain of being clear of any overhanging brush. The water was scarcely knee deep. The muck enveloping his feet was probably of indeterminate depth, and he thought if he stood there much longer he might well sink until his head was underwater. He started slogging his way to the other side. The distance wasn’t more than twenty feet, but it took him a while to get there. He lurched with every step, the ooze of the creek bed threatened to keep his shoes, and he had to swing his arms wide and work his shoulders as hard as his legs to maintain any momentum. It was with no small degree of relief for him to notice that the opposite shore didn’t appear to be protected by a barrier of flesh ripping flora.
Will was gasping as he took his last flailing steps out of the water. At no point in the traverse did the river get above his waist, but when he was fully on dry land he was sporting a glossy pair of gray-green jackboots that appeared to be melting around his ankles. Will tried to remove them by pounding his feet and kicking his toes into the ground, but the silty goo wouldn’t let go. He gave up and took a few minutes to collect himself and regain his bearings. He was leaking blood from a lattice work of scratches. From his waist up, pinkish welts were rising at the edges of the crisscrossing rents in his skin. A burning itch was developing along with them, adding a fresh dimension of misery to the wounds. The part of him that had been underwater didn’t show the same, as equally shredded as it was, but he had faith it’d catch up once they dried. He had no doubt every carcinogen ever spawned for the sake of agricultural progress was seeping into his bloodstream, and God only knew what septic threat dwelled in the fabric of his brand new sludge stockings. Not the worry of the moment.
Looking around, it appeared he’d not only forded the toxic Wahpekute, but had crossed into a different ecosystem. The bank on this side was higher and eroded to a sharp slope of bare earth, gouged by the flow from the times the river was in flood. The land above the bank was not a tangle of cruel thorns. From where he stood it almost looked as if it had been manicured. He scrambled up the slope. He was again confronted by spines, but this time they were man-made, three rows of barbed wire. It was not a typical sight in this region. The landscape beyond it wasn’t typical, either. He wasn’t looking out over acres of land disciplined by generations under the plow. It was just grass. And there were trees, not aligned in a row with the set purpose slowing down the wind, but just standing singly and apart, cottonwoods and red oaks, allowed to grow from wherever a seed or acorn had taken hold. Not very Limburg County, not very southwest Minnesota at all. Will looked up. The sky wasn’t any different. But the vultures were nowhere in sight. Either they’d landed, or his earthbound thrashing had been detected and they scattered. He caught sight of his power pole. Picking through the fence, mindful of adding the threat of tetanus to whatever malady he may have invited in the last five minutes, he renewed his determination to discover what had attracted the scavengers. He’d just cleared the wire when his senses were alerted and his suspicions confirmed.
There were smells that were vaguely familiar, that carried a faint promise of rekindling a memory, and others that were indelible, unmistakable and impossible to forget. Will could conjure the odor of decomposition in his mind while standing in a flower shop. Carried on a gasp of breeze no stronger than a child’s sigh, what struck his olfactory sense was no trick of memory. Rotting meat, and not far from where he stood. There was no longer a need for a landmark to guide him. His nose was all he needed from now on. He moved in a loose serpentine, adjusting his progress whenever the stink was refreshed by a new puff of wind. Soon he came upon a track, two bare strips of earth divided by a strip of matted grass. Instinct goaded him to follow it and no more than a minute later he found what he was after.
Will had been right, suspicions confirmed, for what lay before him was, as he would have described in a report, an apparent gunshot wound victim. A closer look revealed a ligature as well, though there was little question that it had nothing to do with cause of death. What he’d found was not a corpse, but a carcass.
The degree of decomposition was about right with the stink, which Will had put at about four days at the first whiff. The buzzards may have left, but the flies were going about their business as if Will wasn’t there. Will had shredded his skin and exposed himself to the potential hazards of the Wahpekute in the pursuit of a dead calf. It looked to be about full term, but one of its forelegs was withered and barely the size of Will’s forearm. The bullet wound was a neat hole between the shriveled eyes sunken into the broad skull. The ligature was a worn stretch of nylon rope, almost certain to have been placed post mortem. That wasn’t hard to deduce. The dead cow lay between a pair of tractor tire tracks. The loose end of the rope was neatly cut. He didn’t doubt for a second that this poor creature had been left here for the vultures intentionally.
Will also had no doubt—at least at this moment—that he was the dumbest man on Earth. He didn’t take any time to ponder the point any further. It was clear the property owner had a firearm handy, and he didn’t believe this was the best circumstance to find out whether he was a jovial sort.
Will was angry at himself, but his self disdain was nothing compared to the fury he felt for the person who’d opened the portal in his head to invite such foolishness. He set off back toward the river deciding to skirt the bank until he came to a crossing point that wouldn’t cut him to pieces. With every step he took back in the direction of the house, he cursed that stupid sheriff.
Not what I expected! Lol
Of course not.