Many people want to speak to me the next day. Doctors, therapists. Nurses and
radiologists. They all have questions as they poke and prod me, as they take my blood or wheel me down to yet another test. I’m lucky, I’m told repeatedly. Only a few more inches to the left, and the bullet would have pierced my heart. So lucky, they sigh. I could have died, they say in hushed voices. It’s a miracle.
Many people want to speak with me the next day, but none more than the FBI. Turns out a man named Teddy Earle was found wandering near Old Forest Highway with some surface burns on his skin. He was dazed and slightly confused. He said that his friend had been burned to a crisp, that his boss was gone when he awoke. He was taken to a clinic in Jackson County, and when they found crystal meth in his pocket, they called the police. Police came (thankfully, I was told, not the Douglas County Sheriff’s office) and Mr. Earle was interviewed. Turns out he had quite the tale to tell, dropping names most could not believe. A psychopath named Jack Traynor. A dead arrestee named Arthur Davis. An FBI agent named Joshua Corwin. A sheriff named George Griggs. A mayor of a small town named Judd Walken. The woman in charge named Christie Fisette.
And, of course, a man named Edward Benjamin Green. Big Eddie, to his friends.
The storm cleared and four different law enforcement agencies ascended the mountain to the caves Earle had pointed them to. They found remnants of a large methamphetamine operation up there. They found the body of Mr. Earle’s associate, a man named Horatio Macias. They found the body of one Abraham Dufree, pulled away into the forest. Eventually, they found the body of George Griggs, who had drowned in the river, pinned up against a rock by a tree.
Mayor Walken fled the day of the storm. He made it as far as Glendale, forty miles down the road. His car was found overturned in the river. They thought he survived the impact, but might have drowned when the water rose too high. He must have lost control, they said.
Jack Traynor was found a day later, washed up on the banks down river five miles away.
My Aunt Christie was found the day before I woke up. Her body was deep in the woods, huddled up against a large rock. It was unclear exactly how she died, but most likely it was from exposure. It appeared she’d gotten turned around while trying to escape into the woods. Water, I was told, had filled her lungs. Like she had drowned. They didn’t know how that had happened.
I told those who asked what had happened, leaving Cal out of every part of it. I told them about Traynor trying to run us off the road. I told them how Abe had saved us by shooting Traynor in the head. I told them about how Griggs and my aunt had shown up only moments later. I told them about my meeting with Corwin, and how Griggs and Christie tried to use Abe to find out if I’d told anyone else. I’d told them, my voice breaking, how they’d shot Abe right in front of me.
I told them about my escape, the explosion, my run through the woods. I told them how Griggs had followed me, and that he shot me, only to slip and fall into the river. Did I remember who found me? No. Did I remember getting taken back into town? No. Did anyone in town remember who had brought me in?
Apparently no one did. Just some stranger, the agents were told. Some stranger who passed right on through and didn’t leave any information.
Small towns take care of their own.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” an agent named Nathan Rosado told me once the interview was done. “Most wouldn’t have gotten away like you did. You did a very brave thing, even if you had no business trying to go up there in the first place.” But his admonishment was soft, and I saw he was impressed. I knew I’d corroborated almost everything Mr. Earle had told them, and Agent Rosado told me that most likely I wouldn’t have to testify, seeing as how almost everyone involved appeared to be dead. “There will be more questions, though,” he said. “But those can