The Beginning (Whispering Pines Book 1) Read online

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  Matt Veal lifted the pickaxe over his head, aimed at an area near his feet and then let gravity do the rest of the work. The blade landed somewhere in the darkness near his feet at the bottom of the hole. He could not see where but it felt a tad too close for comfort to his left foot. "I got to get more light down there before I poke a hole in my foot," he mumbled aloud.

  He leaned the pickaxe against the sidewall of the hole, rose to his full six foot three height and wiped at the beads of sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand. The only light around him came from a pale quarter moon overhead and a battery-powered lantern on the ground. The hole he dug in a grave shape, very appropriate since he was digging into just that, an old grave, his Grandfather's burial plot.

  The cemetery, neglected and then abandoned, was dotted with white, weather aged grave markers. The inscriptions on the stones were barely readable in the daytime and impossible at night. The acre square resting place for several dozen souls was covered with waist high weeds and wild shrub bushes with the nearby tree lines getting closer as each season passed. The only way to reach where Matt now stood was by following a wild game trail through the thick woods, an arduous task not for the faint of heart by day, and a decidedly dangerous one by night. The area was miles from a roadway. Few people around West Creek County remembered the place and the ones who did, seldom spoke of it. No one had conscience or desire to take care of the grounds and so, by neglect, the Veal Cemetery remained alone to fight against Mother Nature as she edged closer reclaiming the land.

  Once Matt's breathing returned to normal, he moved the light closer to the rim of the hole. That was the moment the "feeling" that somebody was watching hit him. A man who trusted his instincts, made a show of wiping his forehead again while letting his eyes wander the shadows. The reach of the light's beam was limited, probably less than thirty feet.

  "The crickets," he realized with a twitch. "They're quiet, too quiet."

  Night creatures were a noisy bunch in Georgia but at that moment all Matt could hear, other than a distant owl and the wind rustling through the trees, was silence.

  He stretched his achy back muscles and then, for no reason he could understand, the crickets came alive again as a though a switch had been flipped.

  The warning signals faded and then were gone. The creature sounds had returned. "Maybe it was just a passing bobcat or something," he mumbled under his breath.

  He took up the pickaxe again and made three hard swings, then paused again to listen. The silence was back. "Maybe it's the digging that has them spooked" he lied to himself.

  Then he noticed something visually unusual and held the axe tip up to the light. The red clay was moist, sticking to the metal of the tool. If you dug a hole in dry Georgia dirt then the clay layers would be like concrete, not sticky and moist. The dirt coming out of the hole was wet, no doubt recently uncovered or turned.

  The realization gave him goose bumps and a sinking feeling inside. Had someone already been there? That or maybe there was an underground spring feeding the soil and keeping it moist? Stomping his boot against the bottom of the hole, the dirt indeed felt soft and moist, packed but not aged in place. There was not enough moisture to call it an underground supply either.

  Then he recalled something from his childhood, a movie scene from the Wizard of Oz. The cowardly lion was terrified in the haunted forest and crying, "I do believe in spooks. I do believe in spooks. I do... I do... I do believe in spooks." 

  The hairs on the nape of Matt's neck stood out and his blood felt icy cold. He strained to probe the darkness outside the small ring of light. Finally, when the sensation was over powering, he reached for the lantern and clicked it off, letting the darkness swallow him.

  "I do believe in spooks... I do... I do..." 

  The eerie silence grew suffocating and loud. Slowly his eyes adjusted until he could see the distant city lights above the tree line. Then it happened; a twig or limb snapped and the ensuing report reached Matt's disbelieving mind squarely. Only a human would be so careless.

  Matt placed his hand on the edge of the hole intending to swing up and out, but the darkness exploded in a beam of blinding light in his face. He felt like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck. The raging glare made him throw one hand in the air to shade his eyes.

  "I wasn't expecting any company out here."

  "There's a gun pointed at you, Mister Veal, so don’t make any stupid moves."

  The light began shaking as the hand holding it moved closer. There was also a noisy second set of footfalls following behind. Moving eyes only, Matt gauged his chances of breaking for the trees in a mad run but the odds were not good. He needed a weapon of some sort and the only thing available was the pickaxe.

  He said calmly, "Let me turn this lantern back on so I can see."

  With one hand shading, he let the other slowly reach down and turn the light back on. Before he could stand back up straight though, a second voice snapped, "Veal. What are you doing here? Stealing our stuff?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about. I am here digging up graves, you know, grave robbing. A few of them are civil war veterans, buried in uniform. Those old belt buckles they wore are worth several thousand dollars apiece these days and I intend to get them."

  "Huh? What did he say, Bobby?"

  "Shut up Mike. Just be quiet. The boss is going to love this. That's the boy scout of West Creek County and we just caught him grave robbing."

  Matt's mind put the pieces and names together easy enough. "So you work for the big guy, huh? I have seen you both around town recently," Matt lied because he honestly could not make out their faces with the flashlight pointed in his face.

  "I didn't realize your boss needed to bring in outside muscle to get the job done."

  "That shows how much you know, Veal. Our boss is not a local yokel like you."

  Ackerman moved to within a few feet of the hole where Matt stood waist deep and said, "Well by all means, Mister Veal, don't let our arrival stop you. Keep digging. It saves us a lot of work and I'm sure Mike appreciates not having to get his shoes all dirty."

  Matt slowly pointed at his lantern. I'll need to move this thing closer to the hole so I can see what I'm doing."

  "Go ahead but don't try anything stupid. The trigger on my gun is a tad sensitive."

  As he reached for the lantern, Matt said, "I imagine your boss wants me alive, not dead. So I don't think you are going to shoot me without his okay."

  "I'm sure my boss does not care whether I bring you in alive or dead."

  By moving he light, it brought the two faces into better view and he recognized the one called Bobby. The other he had never seen before but noticed he was not holding a gun.

  "So what is it I'm digging up for you guys? You looking for civil war stuff too?"

  "You'll find out soon enough because from the looks of it you are close to reaching it. Now get to digging."

  Matt raised the pickaxe but Bobby's sharp voice stopped him. "No, put that thing down. You are too close and it will bust a hole in the box."

  "What box, the casket? That thing probably rotted away years ago."

  "Just do what I said, Veal. Use the shovel. If you ain't got one then you can use ours. It's hidden back in the edge of the trees."

  Matt propped the pickaxe back to one side and picked up a nearby shovel. He sighed, looked up at the men and started digging.

  It took less than ten minutes until the tip of the blade hit something solid and metallic. The sound brought a sneering smile to Bobby's face. He raised the gun level at the Matt's chest but just as he was about to cock the hammer, Veal bent over and disappeared out of the line of fire just below the surface of the hole. The pile of shoveled dirt gave extra cover. He had been intentionally stacking it between him and the two men for just that reason.

  When Matt suddenly dropped from view, Bobby pulled the firing hammer back ready to kill him. Down in the hole, the “click” of the gun's m
echanism sounded like an explosion in Matt's ears. He knew his time was short yet still he wondered at the box beneath his feet. What had these two characters hidden there?

  Matt knew that Bobby would have to step closer to shoot. In fact, he was counting on it. He grabbed a handful of the loose dirt at his feet, which partially exposed the top of the box, and he recognized the type. It was an air sealed military shipping crate. Uncovered, it should be about three feet long and two wide.

  Clenching a fist full of dirt, Matt rose to his feet intentionally facing away from Bobby and his partner. "Just tell me this," he said straightening up and trying to buy a few precious seconds. "What's in the cargo box?"

  "You don't need to know, Veal. Now turn around real slow and face me."

  "Why? I figured you for a back shooter. You mean to tell me you like to see a man's face before you kill him?"

  "Turn around or you'll never find out."

  Matt turned slowly expecting a bullet to the back any moment. The light hit Ackerman's gun hand perfectly and Matt noticed his one chance to get out of this alive. Ackerman, in all his caution and puff, had not set the trigger safety on the side of the gun to fire position. Until he did so, it gave Matt a few precious seconds to react.

  Slowly Matt let his left hand move toward the pickaxe and with a tone of assurance, he said sternly, “Son, why don't you put that gun away and go home, take your little buddy there with you. I don't want to kill both of you.”

  The barrel of the handgun trembled slightly at the words but Ackerman's tone also showed no fear. He had never killed a man before but the excitement of doing so enthralled him. Had he known the truth behind Veal, an old military man with experience and the nightmares that accompany it, he would not have been so brave.

  With finality, Bobby stepped closer and said, “Good-bye Mr. Veal.”

  His finger tightened on the trigger but the safety lock held rather than the gun jumping in his hand as expected. When nothing happened, Ackerman's eyes flew open in surprise and shock. He tilted the gun sideways to check the problem, which was Matt's cue to act or die.

  Matt tossed the handful of dirt while taking up the axe with the other. Using both hands, he pivoted his body around on the tip of his left foot using the weight of the tool to add momentum in the turn. He spun around in a 360-degree circuit taking the axe blade speed up to deadly velocity. Before Bobby could get the gun ready to fire, the pointed end of the axe struck him inches above the belt line and sank deep into his body.

  The force of the blow staggered him sideways and he almost fell. His grip on the gun loosened allowing it to spin freely on the trigger finger and then drop to the ground at his feet. Matt grabbed the weapon, unlocked the safety, and checked for the second man who was nowhere in sight.

  Bobby, body frozen, eyes wide in disbelief, managed to cry, “I have to kill you, Mr. Veal. I have to…”

  Blood spurted out of his side pooling at his feet on the ground. Matt, assured that the second man had broke and run, asked, “Who sent you to do this and why? What’s in the cargo crate that’s worth killing over?”

  When there was no response, Matt reached up, yanked the axe out of the body and dropped it. He released the trigger safety on the gun and aimed at Bobby's stomach. The man was still standing but obviously unable to move or react. "What's in the box, son? Who's behind it?"

  Bobby Ackerman's body folded at the knees then crumpled downward into a heap on the ground. With his free hand, Matt swung himself out of the hole and kneeled. “Why Ackerman, why were you going to kill me?

  Bobby started talking, at first rather strong for a man with a hole in his side the size of a baseball, but as he talked, his voice grew weaker, fading lower and lower until in one last spurt of words he whispered the final answer Matt sought, and then he died, face down in the cemetery dirt.

  Matt rose to his feet and looked around, trying to hear more than see through the darkness to determine if Ackerman's partner had truly fallen back or was making a run for it. The question answered itself when he heard a distant creaking from the old wire fence just inside the trees. The second man was obviously bumbling his way back through the woods in the dark.

  Matt clicked the gun’s safety back on and stuck the weapon in his belt. Glancing around once more just to be sure, he looked down at Ackerman and said, “I hope it was worth it, son.”

  He would have to explain all this to the law eventually but calling the law also meant having to explain why he was digging in Cemetery in the first place.

  “That’s a lot of explaining,” he said to the dead body at his feet. "And I'm not ready to do that just yet."

  There was already negative blood between him and the Pary Family who owned just about anything that moved in West Creek County including Sheriff Walt Brooks and his crew of deputized crooks. They would never believe he had taken down a man holding a gun on him, using nothing but a pickaxe. They would turn this killing into a murder to put him away for good, for obvious reasons.

  “I’ll call Frank and get some help,” he thought. “But not until I confirm what Ackerman just said. The problem is, that second man that got away will tell them what happened, but not that I'm coming after them.”

  Jumping back into the hole, Matt opened the cargo box and stared for a long time at the content, confirming what Ackerman had whispered to him. Shaking his head in disgust, he closed and resealed it, then crawled back out and stood staring at the body. His mind was constantly processing the sounds around him in alert mode but all was in balance again with the night creatures. Finally, using the tip of a boot, he rolled the body of Bobby Ackerman into the hole and said, “I’ll come back and get you and that box later so don't run off anywhere.”

  With a deep breath of the night air, Matt picked up the shovel and starting pushing dirt into the grave. "I probably should leave you out here for the wild animals to chew on but you and that cargo box are my evidence."

  It took him half an hour to cover the hole and another ten minutes to work his way back through the woods to his parked car. He knew time was important because Ackerman's partner was, by now, back in town setting off the alarm about everything that happened at the cemetery. They, of course, would have no idea that the dying man had given him a few names and one location.

  It was discomforting as to why Ackerman so readily spilled the beans to him. Maybe he was trying to absolve some sin before meeting his maker. Who knows but he gave Matt enough to work with on his next stop, a meeting at a makeshift airstrip. A planeload of illegal drugs was coming in at sunup but Ackerman had died before telling him where the strip was located.

  Matt knew the geography of West Creek County better than anyone did and he could think of only one place large and flat enough to build an airstrip that would go unnoticed. "I'll start there," he mumbled and cranked the car engine.

  Ackerman's gun lay on the seat next to him, unfired with a full clip of ammunition. If his hunch were correct then the runway would be located in the woods west of town in an area owned by the Pary family. They were developing it into a lake area community including a hydroelectric power center from a dam under construction on Beaver Creek.

  Matt had not seen the place in several years but kept track of the progress from talk around town. Had someone cut a landing zone out of the trees there? If so, the heavy equipment needed could have come from the construction project close by and nobody would have been the wiser. "That's the most logical place to build it," Matt said aloud, "They are looking for me by now and I bet that is the last place they would expect to find me."