The bird called again, louder now, fully awake.
“It sounds sad,” Sharon said. “Melancholy.”
“Maybe.” Fel sat listening, waiting for the next call. “Me, it don’t sound sad so much as he’s lettin’ the world know he’s here. Day’s gone. Night is his time, and he’s gonna sing his call and to hell with everyone goin’ to sleep.”
“I like that.” Sharon smiled. “I like that way of thinking about it.”
Listening to them talk, George felt quiet. Not so much peaceful, just quiet. He liked hearing Sharon and Fel talk.
Sharon looked at George, seated to her right in his own kitchen chair, the one he sat in every night. “How’d it go, with Sandy?”
“Okay, I suppose. He wouldn’t accept my resignation.”
“No?”
“No. He made me take a leave of absence. Said I would be back when everything blew over.”
“Well, maybe he’s right.” She reached out and put her hand on his arm letting it rest there, not expecting anything in return, just being there.
“Maybe.” George shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
Fel leaned forward in the chair so he could see George in the dim light coming through the window onto the porch. “What are you talkin’ about, George? What do you mean resigned? You not a deputy any more?””
“Not now, Fel.” George gave a small shrug resigning himself to the possibility. “Maybe never.”
“This about that bullshit investigation Klineman got goin’? About killin’ that man?”
George nodded. “It is.”
“And you got to resign?”
“Leave of absence,” George said.
“Same thing, goddamnit.” Fel was annoyed. “You’re sayin’ that ‘cause you killed that murderin’ son of a bitch up in the mountains that you can’t be a deputy no more?”
George was silent. The answer was too complicated. The right or wrong of it was hard for him to see or tell about. It was what happened. That was all. What seemed right then, what needed to be done then, wasn’t clear at all now, sitting on the porch listening to the whippoorwill.
Sharon spoke up. “They haven’t said that, Fel. It’s an investigation. It might lead to nothing.”
George looked at her but remained silent. Things didn’t lead to nothing. They always led to something.
“Sons of bitches,” Fel said. “God damned sons of bitches.” He spoke each word separately, giving emphasis to what he thought about the whole thing.
They sat quietly again, the full dark coming on now, listening to the whippoorwill call at the edge of the woods.
After some minutes, Fel spoke again. “Well, by God, I had thought tonight was the night to do it. Then you talk about resigning, and I think, well hell, tonight’s not the night to do it. Then I sit here with you two all quiet, and I think, yes, tonight is the night to do it.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Fel?” George looked across Sharon to the old man in the dark.
“This.” Reaching in his back pocket, Fel pulled out an envelope. It was folded in half and curved as if he had been sitting on it for days. He handed the envelope to Sharon.
“What is it?” George asked.
Opening the envelope, Sharon pulled out three pieces of paper completely filled with Fel’s crooked handwriting. She read through the first page, and began shaking her head, wiping a tear from her eye as she went to the second page.
“What is it, for heaven’s sake?” George took the first page from her lap. Squinting in the dim light from the window, he began reading.
They read all three pages while Fel sat looking out into the night. Periodically, they would raise a hand to their eyes and wipe at a tear that blurred the writing on the page.
George handed the last page back to Sharon. “Fel, we can’t…”
“Hush up, George Mackey.”
“But Fel,” Sharon tried to pick up where George had been cut off. They felt the same.
“You too, little girl. You hush up, both of you. It’s not for you to say. It’s for me to say.” Now his old weathered hand wiped at the tear in his eye. “Since Colleen was taken I have lived a lonely life. That was twenty years ago. Then you came along, George and you were…well, you were a friend and kind of like a son.” He reached out and patted Sharon’s hand with his rough old dry one. “And then you came along.” He smiled at her. “The lady GBI girl. You did somethin’ for George…and for me.” Fel took a deep breath trying to control the tremor in his voice. “I guess what I’m sayin’ is you two are my family, all the family I got. It’s the right thing to do. It’s what I want to do. If Colleen was here, she would agree.”
“But…”
“I told you once, George Mackey. Hush up. It’s done. I had my lawyer in Everett fix up the papers, and I signed ‘em. That letter there is just my way of sayin’ some things to you that I guess I’d have a hard time sayin’ out loud. Somehow it’s easier on paper. When I go the place is yours…hell, it’s yours now.” He smiled at them. “Long as I can stay that is, just ‘til I go meet up with Colleen.”
Leaning over, Sharon put her arms around the old man’s neck. “I love you, Fel Tobin. Not for this, not for the farm.” She looked around, shook her head, and then held up the wrinkled papers Fel had labored over, writing out his feelings for them. “For this, for being who you are, for what you said.” She kissed his face, her wet cheek lingering on his leathery stubble until he raised his arm and held her close.
Eyes wet, gleaming with little points of reflected light in the dark, George watched them. He could say nothing. The words wouldn’t come. They understood.
In her seat between the two men, Sharon put a hand on the arm of each. Her touch was the glue binding them together, making them whole. They sat quietly, not speaking, understanding everything that remained unspoken.
For George, something else was there too, hanging darkly over them. There on the porch, secure, anchored by Sharon’s touch and the feelings they shared, he could not fight back the dread and the heaviness that had settled in his heart. Would all of this be gone, lost just at the moment it was discovered because of one shot fired in the mountains.
Seated in the old kitchen chairs on the porch, they did what people do in the dark. They reached out to each other seeking comfort and contact, the two men holding Sharon’s hands.
The whippoorwill called again. It was answered immediately by a second from the trees on the far side of the house. The birds were unconcerned with the people on the porch. They did what whippoorwills do. They called to each other in the dark
Author’s Note - Slavery Today
Perhaps you may feel that the premise of Criminal Enterprise, human trafficking in the United States, is too farfetched, or that the word slavery is inappropriate in describing the sale of women, girls and boys into the sex trade. I assure you that human trafficking exists today and is an extremely profitable criminal enterprise. And if human trafficking exists, then slavery exists. The sale of human beings, depriving them of all rights and freedom of choice is slavery. You can try to pretty the word up, but it remains what is, slavery.
Slavery was wrong and evil when Africans were forcibly taken from their homes, shackled, sold for profit and forced into servitude with no freedom or choice. It is equally evil today. Evil does not end unless good people face it and do something to end it. As Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” We cannot do “nothing.” We must do something.
Today’s slavery primarily involves the international sex trade. International includes the United States. That is right; please do not have the idea that somehow we are exempt from the evils of modern day slavery. In addition to making sex slaves out of women, girls and boys, human trafficking takes on other forms. Laborers forced into servitude, under threat to themselves, or their families, are slaves. Children forced into the private armies of warlords are slaves. They all have one thing in common. Th
e enslaved are powerless; they have no rights, and unless good people reach out on their behalf they will remain enslaved
Some Statistics on Human Trafficking
(Source “Trafficking.org” as quoted from various government and organization reports. See their footnotes for reference sources - http://trafficking.org/learn/statistics.aspx):
· Human trafficking worldwide is a $32 billion per year enterprise
· 27,000,000 people in modern-day slavery around the world.
· 800,000 people trafficked across international borders every year. 50% are children, 80% are women and girls.
· 1,000,000 children exploited by the international sex trade.
· 70% of female victims are trafficked into the sex trade. 30% into forced labor.
· 161 countries have been identified as being affected by human trafficking, including 127 countries of origin, 98 transit countries, 137 destination countries.
Human Trafficking in the United States
· There are 100,000 to 300,000 underage girls being sold for sex in America.
· 50,000 women and children are trafficked into the United States each year.
· 1 out of every 3 teens on the street will be lured toward prostitution within 48 hours of running away from home.
· Minor victims were sold an average of 10-15 times a day, 6 days a week.
· 1 out of 5 pornographic images is of a child.
· The sale of child pornography has become a $3 billion dollar industry
· Over 100,000 websites offer child pornography.
· 55 percent of internet child pornography comes from the United States.
Many more statistics are available. One troubling aspect of the statistical analysis is that, while it is estimated that approximately fifty thousand people, mostly women are trafficked into the United States annually, there are no reliable studies about the numbers going out. Women and to some extent, men, who disappear in the United States are typically classified as missing persons. Are they voluntarily missing, victim of criminal activity or taken as part of the human trafficking industry? No one knows, but the belief is that some at least are taken and sold into various types of slavery.
For more information on Human Trafficking - Slavery you may want to review these websites:
http://www.abolishslavery.org/
http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-human-trafficking
http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/07/HumanTrafficking/LitRev/index.shtml#Trafficking
http://www.takepart.com/photos/human-trafficking-by-state-2013
http://trafficking.org/learn/statistics.aspx
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/civilrights/human_trafficking
http://www.polarisproject.org/human-trafficking/overview
About the Author and His Work
A native of the south, Glenn Trust was born in Columbus, Georgia in 1951, the first of five children.
His father’s work as a salesman filled his early years with moves from the banks of the Chattahoochee River in Georgia to Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Petersburg, Virginia and Baltimore, until finally returning to the Atlanta area in 1965. From then on, he remained a Georgian, going to school and growing up in the Atlanta area.
Varied work and life experiences have given him an appreciation for the virtues and faults of people at all levels of society.
He says about his work, “For the record, I love people, the humanity that populates the world. People are infinitely interesting, all of them. I may not like certain individuals and I may hate the things they do, but as a group, I am fascinated by people.
“I do work at trying to understand human strengths and frailties, and try above all else in writing to bring life and reality to the characters in my stories. The white hats the heroes wear are intentionally spotted and grayed by their own demons and struggles. The bad guys are not always misunderstood Robin Hoods. Sometimes they are just truly bad with no possibility of social redemption.
“In the end, the stories are fiction, about fictional people. I believe that through fiction, some of the greatest truths may be discussed and discovered about our humanity, or the lack of it.
“Finally, like real people, the characters I try to paint are not completely good and rarely completely evil. Like most of us, they lie somewhere in between.”
To date, Glenn Trust has authored seven novels including The Hunters series of mystery/suspense thrillers and the Alice Trent - Blue Eyes series of crime adventure novels.
The work he considers his most important is Dying Embers, a novel about friendship and coming of age that depicts the turbulent days of the 1960’s in the south during desegregation, a time that he personally experienced.
A volume of short stories is also scheduled for release in the next year.
Contact Glenn Trust
Please be patient, as Mr. Trust responds personally to everyone who takes the time to contact him. He will respond to all messages as time and workload permit.
Visit his Amazon Author Page- Glenn Trust, Author Page at Amazon where you can find all of his books and leave a post or comment. A review is always welcome and appreciated.
Or
Email at gtrust@glenntrust.com
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Visit his website at http://glenntrust.com and leave a post
You may also want to Follow Mr. Trust at:
Twitter - @GlennTrust
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Thanks once more for reading my work and sharing your time with me. I am truly grateful.
Glenn Trust
Table of Contents
Eyes of the Predator
1. The Predator
2. The Girl
3. The Stalk
4. The Hunter
5. He Hated Them
6. He Just Was
7. The Closest Bug Lost
8. She Didn’t Go Home
9. Just Away
10. He Was Hungry
11. Rocking on the Porch
12. Appetizer
13. A Walk in the Woods
14. Ambush
15. Backup
16. Goddammit
17. A Search
18. Roydon
19. Driving Miss Lyn
20. Crime Scene
21. Way to Go George
22. Blank Eyes
23. Canada, Really
24. A Thud
25. A Sense of Well-being
26. The Crack
27. Lylee
28. Too Complicated
29. Things Less Clear
30. Gassing Up
31. Plenty of time.
32. Runaround
33. “Son of a bitch and Goddammit”
34. Crime Wave
35. Awakening George
36. Other Plans
37. “Jesus, Mary and all the Saints”
38. Ride This
39. Confession
40. Lions and Jackals
41. Orders
42. The Brothers
43. Clever Tommy
44. “Don’t do it son.”
45. Beth
46. No Place for the Girl
47. A Visit to Roydon
48. Coming of Age
49. Evidence and Guilt
50. Alone
51. Vernon’s Dilemma
52. Regrouping
53. “I’ll call you later”
54. Delicious
55. A Chance in Hell
56. Meeting of the Minds
57. Just His Day
58. The Hunt Begins
59. Pit Stop
60. Limit to a Brother’s Patience
61. Day’s End
62. Traffic Stop
63. Another Wake Up
64. Uncertain Status
65. California or Bust
66. Waiting
67. Someplace, Away
68. Taste of the Kill
69. Cy Would be Pissed
70. Soon
71. Getting Lucky
72. “Honey, we’re home.”
73. A Plan Materializes
74. Away In the Pines
75. The Plan Worked
76. Lunch Break
77. The Break
78. No Need to Complicate it
79. Not Yet
80. What the Hell
81. Confronting the Beast
82. To Hurt or Not to Hurt
83. Silence in the Woods
84. Done
Sanctioned Murder
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Five - Conclusion
Criminal Enterprise
1. A Red-Orange Glow