Free Blood Echoes by Thomas H. Cook Page A

looked as if they’d been snapped nearly in two and now hung perpendicular to the ground. But as he approached them, he could see a set of tire tracks that led down a narrow, rarely traveled dirt road and into the deepening woods. He pulled onto the shoulder of the road, stopped, and peered down the wooded path. It was scarcely larger than a footpath, but the tire tracks disappeared down it anyway, as if whoever had taken the route had been determined to see it to the end. All along its narrow route, he could see more broken branches, along with a scattering of weeds that looked as if they’d been pressed down into the soil as the car’s tires had moved heavily over them. Beyond that, there was only the lush green of the deepening forest, a familiar, pastoral landscape that he had never feared before but that now filled him with a sense of icy dread. He decided not to venture farther into the woods alone.
    Mary’s dog had been shut up in a barn by the time Godby got back to the trailer, and the area around the trailer seemed curiously silent without its frantic barking. There was no shortage of people, however. They were everywhere, some huddled about the various vehicles that filled the driveway and lined both sides of the road, others in small knots in the yard or out in the surrounding fields. If he wanted to assemble a party to help him search the woods, he had plenty of people to choose from. As he approached the house, he saw Espy Gray, Max Trawick, Wayne Easom, and Ray and Rudolph Spooner. He’d known them all for quite some time, and it struck him that they were exactly the kind of men he could depend on, courageous, but not reckless.
    â€œI think I may have found something,” he told them, “down a little road in the woods, not far from where I saw Mary’s car go by yesterday. I think we should go down there and check it out.”
    None of the men hesitated. Fully armed, the black barrels of their rifles weaving gently in the summer sunlight, Godby and the others immediately made their way back to the small dirt road where Godby had first noticed the tire tracks and broken undergrowth.
    â€œRight there,” he said, pointing to the strange indentation in the woods. “What do you think?”
    The men agreed that it was worth pursuing. Fanning out slightly so that they walked in a short flank rather than a column, they advanced through the thickening brush, their eyes carefully surveying the area, their ears attuned to the slightest sound from anywhere around them.
    For a time, the men saw nothing. The woods were quiet except for the summer birds and the whir of insects. Here and there slender columns of bright sunlight fell through the dense overhanging foliage. Nothing looked out of place.
    Then, at a spot about a hundred feet from the road, Godby approached a pine tree that appeared to have been recently damaged. A large section of bark had been stripped away, leaving the pale white wood fully exposed. From its height and appearance, it looked to Godby as if the tree had been raked by the bumper of a car. But where would a car have been going? And why would it have been moving so carelessly? He glanced about, his eyes searching for the car, but saw nothing further, and so he walked on.
    He’d only moved fifty feet deeper into the woods when he heard Espy Gray’s voice ring through the trees, calling tensely for the others.
    Angel let out a long sigh of relief at approximately 11:00 A.M. when he stepped out of Dr. Howard’s tiny Cessna and let his feet touch the earth again. He walked shakily to the waiting car and pulled himself in beside the trooper who sat behind the wheel. The radio was alive with traffic about a mysterious car that several local residents had located in the woods of the Cummings estate.
    â€œCummings estate?” Angel asked one of the local lawmen. “Is that anywhere near the Alday place?”
    â€œAbout six miles from