Alone Again
by Klick
Conclusion
The next day Keller was just finishing his daily chores around the
cabin, doing the breakfast dishes, sweeping the porch of the fall leaves that
had cluttered it overnight and cleaning Ned’s stall. He poured himself a cup
of coffee and was walking around the clearing that served as his yard when
he heard Zeke bark and run toward the opposite side of the cabin where the
trail that was his driveway ended. For a brief moment he thought that maybe,
just maybe when he went to see who the dog was hearing, he’d see the old,
red pick-up trudging toward him. He was hopeful but also realistic. That
would be just too good to be true.
Keller walked to where he could see up the trail and was greeted with
the sight of a blue and white Ford sedan slowly approaching. On it’s roof was
the traditional light bar with it’s red and blue strobes and when it turned to
stop twenty feet from where he stood he could easily see the large word
"Police" on the door. He recognized the driver as Bob Marston, chief of the
city of Spalding’s eight-man department. Marston got out tossing his uniform
hat on the seat before closing the door. For some reason, the dog liked
Marston and ran up to meet him as the man took a moment to kneel and pet
the retriever before standing and looking across the space between them and
said. "Morning, Doc, are you alright?"
"Morning Bob, I’m fine, thanks. What brings you all the way out
here?"
Marston walked toward his friend and stuck out his hand. "The state
patrol called this mornin’. Said they found your old pick-up by the side of the
road, ‘bout ten miles this side of Hainsly. You didn’t answer your phone so I
thought I’d better drive out this way and see if you were ok."
Keller was quick on his feet and without a hint of hesitation, lied to his
friend. "Yeah, darned old pile of shit just died on me yesterday. Wouldn’t
start again for hell, so I just hitched back home. I thought maybe I’d get in
touch with Burt Dole, see if he could go out and tow it to his place, find out
what’s wrong and if it’s worth fixin’. I was probably out and around
somewhere when you called, sorry you drove all the way out here for
nothin’."
"Oh that wasn’t no problem, I needed to get out and see some of the
trees turnin’ anyway. Fall’s always so pretty out this way and I always seem
to miss it. You wouldn’t have any more of that coffee would you?"
The two men sat on a bench at the edge of the yard and talked as Zeke
explored the area. Marston didn’t pay any attention to what the dog was
doing but Keller knew full well that he was still trying to pick up Melissa’s
scent. "She’s long gone, boy, no use sniffin’ around here." He thought to
himself.
"The weather man says we’re due for a long Indian summer this year.
That is if you believe what they say." Marston said, making conversation.
‘Well, to tell you the truth Bob, that wouldn’t hurt my feelin’s any. I’m
not looking forward to the winter this year. It seems the older I get, the less I
like the cold."
‘I suppose I know what you mean Doc. Sometimes I wish I could just
crawl in a hole like old Yogi does and sleep the winter by. Yep, those bears
know how to do it, I’ll tell ya."
The two men were silent for a minute when the chief spoke again.
"Speakin’ of bears, Doc. I don’t suppose you ever saw anything of that girl
that was in that plane crash did ya?"
Keller hid his reaction, just sipped at his coffee and shook his head.
"So they never found her huh?" he asked in an off-handed way, looking out at
the reds and gold of the leaves that colored the spaces between the greens of
the pines around them.
‘Hell no, and they won’t either. If ya ask me, old Yogi came along that
night and figured he’d found himself a free meal. Hell, Doc, there ain’t no
way she survived that crash. She was dead, maybe she didn’t burn like those
other two did cause she was thrown clear of the fire, but she was dead just
the same and a bear took her, or a cat maybe, but for my money, it was a bear
that got her."
Keller smiled inwardly and thought about Melissa. ‘What did the FBI
think? Did they spend any more time looking for her?" he was fishing for
information but made it sound like casual curiosity.
Marston laughed quietly. ‘Well, I’d say that Harris woman is probably
‘bout as convinced as me that it was a bear that got her prisoner. They was
back up at that crash sight a day or two later and while they was pokin’
around, lookin’ for Lord knows what, along comes old Yogi and chases them
back to that helicopter of theirs. She came back to town and I heard her
talkin’ to one of her partners, she said that she, "was going to chalk that one
up to Mother Nature." She was pretty sure after that little scare that she
wasn’t going to find that poor girl. Oh, someday, if a man had a mind to, he
might search around up there in one of those caves and come across
something that would prove she was dead, no bones, bears eat the bones, but
maybe a rusty old pair of handcuffs. But who’s goin’ to go pokin’ around in a
bear cave I ask?" He finished by sipping at his coffee.
"I always have liked bears." Keller grinned again and said softly.
"What’s that Doc?" Marston asked, sounding a little surprised at
Keller’s words.
"Oh, I was just saying that I’ve always kind of liked the bear. At least I
like them a whole lot more than I liked that Harris woman." He finished with
a quiet chuckle, a private little joke that the chief did not get but had to agree
with Keller’s assessment of the FBI agent.
‘Doc, thanks for the coffee and the conversation but I’d best get back
to town. If you’d like, I’ll give Burt a call and see if he can go out there and
get that truck for you?"
‘That would be fine Bob, hell maybe I should just let it sit there and
buy me something new, maybe one of those new SUVs that everyone seems
to be so excited about these days. I wouldn’t want for that truck to act up and
leave me stranded on one of those twenty below days that we get around here
in the winter."
The men shook hands; the chief departed with a wave and Keller went
back to his quiet morning. Zeke watched a squirrel and occasionally looked at
the cabin door.
It was a little later that same day, that Keller went into his closet for a
heavier shirt when he saw the transport belt that Melissa had worn hanging on
a hook on the back of the door. He looked at it and recalled the day he cut its
lock and freed her from it. He ran his hand down the leather and then noticed
something. He took the belt down from its hook and looked closer at the two
holes punched through it near the buckle. Surrounding the perforations was a
rectangular area that looked like something had been attached there then he
remembered the Government warning tag that he’d seen when he’d first tried
to cut the belt with his knife. The metal tag was gone, missing, and leaving a
trace that looked cleaner, less worn under where it had been attached by two
rivets. Keller studied the belt and tried to figure why she had taken the tag
off. It was apparent that the rivets had been pried out with a sharp tool that
had left obvious gouges in the leather around where they had been. ‘Now
why would she have taken that off?" he asked himself. The belt and it’s
missing tag with the dire warning against tampering, was a curiosity for some
time to come but the answer did come, and in a most unexpected way.
It was late January and cold, very cold. Keller and Zeke were in
Spalding for their monthly shopping trip and enjoying the warmth of the
heater in the new Ford Expedition that had replaced the old Chevy after Burt
Dole had told him, "Doc, it ain’t worth fixin’, why don’t you jest buy you a
new one?" Keller did and with its state of the art heater, the cold was being
kept at bay. He had already made his stops at the grocery and feed store and
had gone into the post office to pick up his mail. Keller never got much mail.
There were few that knew how to contact him and those that did seldom
wrote. He had a couple of old colleagues from his research days that he kept
in sporadic touch with but other than a couple of magazine subscriptions he
rarely received much more than some junk mail that seems to find it’s way
into everyone’s mailbox, no matter how remote their lives. One of his friends
that had retired soon after Keller had walked away, spent much of his time
traveling around the world and it was not unusual for him to drop Keller a
card or letter from one of his globe trots. One of the pieces of mail was
apparently from him as Keller looked over the things he had taken from his
post office box. He backed out of the lot and onto the road for home and
looked over to where Zeke rode, watching the passing buildings and people.
"Let’s get out of here boy, it’s too crowded for me. The dog looked at him
then began sniffing at the bundle of mail that Keller had dropped in the seat
next to him. It was Zeke that first alerted Keller to the uniqueness of the
envelope. Zeke kept sniffing at one piece in particular and that prompted
Keller to pick it up and examine it. It had a strange postmark that he did not
recognize and there was no return address. He turned it over in his hand as he
drove and at the next stoplight, he tore the flap open and something dropped
out and fell in his lap, between his legs. He reached down, felt for whatever
had fallen out, and looked closer at the postmark.
"Rio de Janeiro? Brazil? I guess old Swenson is down there this time
Zeke." He said as he dug in the seat for the elusive contents of the envelope.
As he continued to search he looked in and saw there was no letter or card,
What ever the contents had been was under his butt and it took him several
moments of feeling before he got it in his fingers and brought it up to see
what had been sent to him from South America.
When he saw what he was holding he came to an abrupt stop and
turned into the lot of a store to make sure of what he was seeing. He looked
at the small, rectangular metal tag with two holes and the engraved message
that he had read so many months before. A broad grin came over his face and
he reached over and hugged Zeke. "Our girl is Ok Zeke, she’s ok..."
Keller read the tag and grinned...
Warning
Property of the United States Government....
