Page 11 of The Night Vision
“He’ll have pale blue eyes,” Nox said and looked pleased as he crossed his arms over his chest and nodded at the drawing. “They’ll want to know if we have any suggestions for hair and eyes and we know for certain that they’re light blue. Got any guesses about his hair?” Nox asked Silas. “It’s probably dark like mine or he’s fair with blond or ginger hair.”
“He’s fair,” Silas answered immediately. Their guy didn’t have darker body hair in Silas’s dreams but it was another thing that he instinctively knew about the man from the vision. “That reminds me,” he said as he turned to Nelson. “This man is an experienced outdoorsman, possibly a survivalist. We didn’t see a lot of gear or a weapon in the vision so he could have been hiking or tracking. That part of Mount Rogers is off the main trail and hard to get to. He’ll be used to navigating steep terrain.”
For a moment, Silas was a child again, small and lost in the forest. Frasers and red spruce towered over him, making Silas dizzy as he tried to remember which way was north and where they were headed on the trail before he had to pee. He heard asnap!and saw something move to his left and started to run,only to realize it was a hare or a toad. Scared, Silas remembered that the best thing to do when lost was to get to the closest landmark or major feature and wait.
He spotted a stream in the woods, a good distance below him and headed for it. Silas trekked down a steep embankment, sliding and snagging his shirt and pants on branches. There were large boulders near the shore and he stumbled on the loose rocks and sand as he ran to the stream. If no one found him, Silas could follow it downhill and hopefully find a station or the welcome center.
Nelson whistled in approval as he nodded, snapping Silas back to the present. “That gives us a lot more to work with. I’ll get this to our forensics artists first thing tomorrow, then see if there are any known survivalists or outdoorsmen on the FBI’s radar who could fit.”
“That area’s too rough for recreational hikers and campers,” Silas said weakly.
“Even if there isn’t an exact fit, we might find someone who’s met our guy and we might have a face soon,” Nox said helpfully and grinned at Silas like a Cheshire cat. “I had a feeling you’d find something useful and it looks like you just cracked the case. All you needed was a change of scenery.”
“Maybe…” Silas narrowed his eyes at Nox. “Let’s not count our chickens before they hatch,” he said and wondered if he’d just fallen for a soft intervention. They had new leads to follow and Silas could finally move on from the vision.
Putting his obsession to paper had freed it from Silas’s psyche and he had something truly tangible to hold and look at. But now, Silas was anxiously waiting to see what the FBI’s forensic artists would make with the sketch and if they were closer to finding a name.
They were one step closer but they weren’t moving fast enough for Silas. He couldn’t rest until they foundhimand Silasknew he was safe. If anyone had told Silas a few weeks earlier that he’d be chasing visions and ready to fistfight a warlock, he would have scoffed. Now, Silas would do anything to save the unnamed man in the stream and put a stop to Dùbhghlas’s evil schemes.
Although, Silas had no ideahowhe’d fight a warlock, if he managed to track him down. He had no idea how much of this was actually real and if he even had a chance, being a simple human with no magickal training.
Have faith in Nox and keep looking.
That was all Silas could do but it would have to be enough until they found him.
Chapter Six
The mechanical growl of an ATV sent Tighe scurrying up a hillside and behind trees. It was rare to encounter any kind of vehicle on the Trail, especially the parts Tighe preferred, but the few times he saw them were terrifying. Cars and trucks were loud and dangerous and the ATVs tore up the forest and scared off its inhabitants. The outside world’s destructive obsession with vehicles was one of the biggest reasons Tighe had remained on the Trail and had no desire to leave it.
Tighe recalled his first encounter with a man and an automobile from the outside world. There weren’t many men in their mother’s small village, aside from the few Ossor men who had come back from the forest. They took jobs as laborers on the nearby farms and within the village, seeking shelter and a bed wherever they were needed. It wasn’t uncommon for an Ossor child to only know their mothers because the father rarely stayed under any one roof for more than a few weeks.
To the Ossors, a man’s place was in the woods, hunting, or in battle. Being idle was just about the only sin known to the Ossors and they had no concept of retirement. Men simply died in thewoods or while swinging a sword, an ax, or a hammer. Dying of old age and in a bed would be a shameful end for an Ossor.
Scars and mangled or missing limbs were badges of honor and men rarely cut their hair or trimmed their beards. They wore simple clothes, made by Ossor women. Shoes and basic fabrics were just about the only things Ossor women ventured out of their small communities for.
But one day, a stranger came to Tighe’s mother’s village and brought the evils of the outside world with him. He drove a big white truck with three sets of wheels, right through the center of town, over gardens and graves. Several of their late fall crops and their ancestors’ memorials were destroyed and the water pump was knocked over.
When the outsider stepped out of his truck, three pissed-off Ossor men were waiting to greet him. Unaware of the damage he’d already caused or the tenuousness of his welcome, the outsider declared that he was from the government and was conducting a survey to see how many people lived in their isolated community and if they had adequate access to medical care and other services.
He was fortunate that there were only three men in town at the time because he was quickly surrounded and beaten to the ground for trespassing. There were signs warning outsiders to stay away and that went for government outsiders as well. One of the more learned women warned the stranger that he’d crossed onto private land and that how they cared for their children and their sick was nobody else’s business, according to the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Threats were made before the man stumbled back to his truck. He promised that they hadn’t heard the last of him and that they couldn’t treat a representative of the government like that. His claims were met with laughter because it waswell known that local law enforcement gave the Ossors a wide berth, believing them to be a breed of wild mountain Amish or Mennonites.
But it was what happened after he started the truck’s engine that turned the odd episode into a tragedy. One of the grandmothers was leaving, having had her fill of the drama. She was small and slow and her back was bent, making her invisible to the outsider inside the colossal truck. The engine let out a loud rumble and the wheels spun, sending dirt and gravel flying as the truck flew back, slamming into the elderly woman and killing her instantly.
Her lifeless, broken body was taken away to be cleaned and prepared for burial while men came from the other Ossor communities to protect their people when more outsiders arrived to take statements and investigate. In the aftermath, Tighe and Eoin took it upon themselves to repair what they could and remove any trace of the outsiders. They did their best to replant anything that could be salvaged and smoothed over the earth, erasing tire tracks and strange shoe prints.
In the midst of the chaos, one of the investigators dropped a glossy brochure from one of the nearby parks. Instead of sending it to be burned with the rest of the debris, Tighe slipped it inside his back pocket and waited until he was alone with Eoin to take it out.
“Ye shouldna kept that!” Eoin snatched it away and crumpled it but Tighe snatched it back.
“I’m keepin’ it! It says there’s a trail that goes for thousands of miles, all the way to a place called Georgia.”
Eoin drew back, eyeing the brochure warily. “So? What’s it got to do with us? We’re goin’ to camp soon.”
Unlike Tighe, Eoin couldn’t read and didn’t want to. He didn’t understand why Tighe kept anything he found with wordson it and instinctively distrusted any information gleaned from reading things written by outsiders.
“It says ye can hike the entire thing in six months…” Tighe had never been more than six miles from his mother’s cabin at the time but he was fascinated by how far he could walk in six months and all the wonderful things he could see along the way.
