They turned to the left, onto another road that was paved but narrower, and drove a mile before they passed a dwelling. “Old man Deweese had a store up here,” Travis said. “I’ll bet it’s gone now. He was ninety years old when I was a kid.” They stopped at a stop sign in front of Deweese’s Country Market.
“I robbed that place once,” Travis said. “Couldn’t have been more than ten. Crawled through a window. Hated the old bastard. Keep going straight.”
Keith did as he was told and said nothing.
“This was gravel last time I was here,” Boyette said, as if recalling a pleasant boyhood memory.
“And when was that?” Keith asked.
“I don’t know, Pastor. My last visit to see Nicole.”
You sick puppy, Keith thought. The road had sharp turns, so sharp that at times Keith thought they would loop back and meet themselves. The two vans and the pickup stayed close behind. “Look for a little creek with a wooden bridge,” Boyette said. “This looks right.” A hundred yards past the bridge, Boyette said, “Slow down now.”
“We’re going ten miles an hour, Travis.”
Travis was looking to their left, where thick underbrush and weeds lined the road. “There’s a gravel road here, somewhere,” he said. “Slower.” The caravan was almost bumper-to-bumper.
In the van, Robbie said, “Come on, Travis, you sick little weasel. Don’t make liars out of us.”
Keith turned left onto a shaded gravel road with oaks and elms entangled above it. The trail was narrow and dark like a tunnel. “This is it,” Boyette said, relieved, for the moment. “This road sort of follows the creek for a while. There’s a camping area down here on the right, or at least there was.” Keith checked his odometer. They went 1.2 miles into the near darkness with the creek showing up occasionally. There was no traffic, no room for traffic, and no sign of human life anywhere in the vicinity. The camping area was just an open space with room for a few tents and cars, and it appeared to have been forgotten. The weeds were knee-high. Two wooden picnic tables were broken and turned on their sides. “We camped here when I was a kid,” Boyette said.
Keith almost felt sorry for him. He was trying to remember something pleasant and normal from his wretched childhood.
“I think we should stop here,” Boyette said. “I’ll explain.”
The four vehicles stopped and everyone gathered in front of the Subaru. Boyette used his cane as a pointer and said, “There’s a dirt trail that goes up that hill. You can’t see the trail from here, but it’s here, or it used to be. Only the truck can get up there. The other vehicles should stay here.”
“How far up there?” Robbie asked.
“I didn’t check the odometer, but I’d say a quarter of a mile.”
“And what will we find when we get there, Boyette?” Robbie asked.
Boyette leaned on his cane and studied the weeds at his feet. “That’s where the grave is, Mr. Flak. That’s where you’ll find Nicole.”
“Tell us about the grave,” Robbie pressed on.
“She’s buried in a metal box, a large toolbox I took from the construction site where I worked. The top of the box is two feet under the ground. It’s been nine years, so the ground is thick with vegetation. It will be difficult to locate. But I think I can get close. This is all coming back to me now, now that I’m here.”
They discussed the logistics and decided that Carlos, Martha Handler, Day and Buck, and one of the security guards (armed) would stay at the campsite. The rest would pile into Fred’s pickup and assault the hill with a video camera.
“One last thing,” Boyette said. “Years ago this property was known as Roop’s Mountain, owned by the Roop family, pretty tough folks. They took a dim view of trespassers and hunters, and they were notorious for running off campers. That’s one reason I picked this place. I knew there wouldn’t be much traffic.” A pause as Boyette grimaced and rubbed his temples. “Anyway, there were a lot of Roops, so I figure it’s still in the family. If we bump into someone, we better be prepared for trouble.”
“Where do they live?” Robbie asked, somewhat nervously.
Boyette waved his cane in another direction. “A good ways off. I don’t think they will hear or see us.”
“Let’s go,” Robbie said.
———
What had begun on Monday morning with a seemingly routine pastoral conference now came down to this—Keith was riding in the rear of a pickup truck, bouncing up the side of Roop’s Mountain, which was nothing more than a medium-size hill dense with kudzu and poison ivy and thick woods, facing a real chance of armed conflict with surly landowners no doubt high on meth, in the final push to determine whether Travis Boyette was, in fact, telling the truth. If they did not find Nicole’s remains, Boyette was a fraud, Keith was a fool, and Texas had just executed the right person, in all likelihood.
If, however, they found the body, then, well, Keith could not comprehend what would happen next. Certainty had become a fuzzy concept, but he was reasonably certain that he would be home sometime that night. He couldn’t begin to imagine what would happen in Texas, but he was sure he wouldn’t be there. He would watch it all on television, from a safe distance. He was fairly certain events down there would be sensational and probably historic.
Boyette was in the front seat, rubbing his head and straining to see something familiar. He pointed to his right—he was sure the grave was to the right of the trail—and said, “This might be familiar.” The area was a dense patch of weeds and saplings. They stopped, got out, and grabbed two metal detectors. For fifteen minutes, they scoured the thick undergrowth looking for clues and waiting for the detectors to make their noise. Boyette limped along, whacking weeds with his cane, followed by Keith and watched by everyone. “Look for an old tire, a tractor tire,” Boyette said more than once.
But there was no tire, and no noise from the detectors. They retook their positions in the truck and moved slowly onward, inching up the incline on a logging trail that gave no indication of having been used in decades. Strike one.
The trail disappeared, and for twenty yards Fred Pryor inched the truck forward through vegetation, flinching as it was scraped by branches and vines. Those in the rear of the truck ducked for cover as limbs whipped about. Just as Fred was about to stop, the trail appeared again, vaguely, and Boyette said, “Keep going.” Then the trail split. Fred stopped as Boyette studied the fork and shook his head. He doesn’t have a clue, Fred said to himself. In the rear, Robbie looked at Keith and shook his head.
“Over there,” Boyette said, motioning to his right, and Fred followed his direction.
The woods became thicker, the trees younger and closer together. Like a bloodhound, Boyette raised his hand and pointed, and Fred Pryor turned off the ignition. The search party fanned out, looking for an old tractor tire, looking for anything. A beer can aroused one of the metal detectors, and for a few seconds the tension spiked. A small airplane flew low overhead, and everyone froze, as if someone were watching. Robbie said, “Boyette, do you remember if the grave is under the trees or in an open area?” The question seemed reasonable. Boyette replied, “I think it was more out in the open, but the trees have grown in nine years.”
“Great,” Robbie mumbled, then continued stomping around, crushing weeds, gawking at the ground as if the perfect clue were just one step away. After half an hour, Boyette said, “This is not it. Let’s move on.”
Strike two.
Keith crouched in the back of the truck and exchanged glances with Robbie. Both seemed to say, “We should’ve known better.” But neither spoke. No one spoke because there was absolutely nothing to say. There were a thousand thoughts.