A-Sides

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  Some forty volunteers had been rallied for the search. Even the high and mighty had turned out to assist their lowliest fellow man. Bob Coleman had lent his pack of bloodhounds to track the search area, his own 2400 acres. He led the effort himself, arguing that he knew every twig and pebble on his land better than anyone. Leonard Pitts had lent not only himself to brave the briars and beasts of the forest, but also ten of his workers from the chicken houses to comb the overgrowth. Lonnie Maness shut down the feed mill for two days and had his twenty employees join in the effort. This was in addition to the local police force (numbering two) that normally were called on only to take down the rabid raccoons that flourished in the high part of summer. It was an example of the best of America.

  Bob Coleman -on his daily inspection of the barbed wire fence- had been the one to find Hunter sprawled at the edge of the road. He was unconscious, dirty, battered and beaten, and apparently drugged. He had regained a sort of foggy consciousness before the paramedics arrived, but had no memory of how he had gotten the way he was, or where his brother was.

  The search party was quickly formed and Hunter’s parents notified. Diana Key had gone to the hospital with Hunter while John joined the men of the search party, agonizingly scouring the woods for his missing son. At the hospital, Hunter was treated for severe trauma. He had suffered a wicked beating, either fighting for his life, or trying to protect Jesse. Try as he might, he had no memory of the preceding several hours. Blood assays confirmed that he had been doped, but couldn’t pinpoint the actual compound. All the lab techs could determine was that it was some kind of beta blocker or histone deacetylase inhibitor, both known to hamper memory.

  Things back at the scene of the crime were little better. There had been some excitement when the dogs had caught a scent and gone haring off, their wrinkled muzzles quivering and snuffling, their full throated baying echoing through the woods. They powered their handlers along like a sled dog team, the muscles in their haunches tensing and bulging, their big paws scratching out flying chunks of dirt as they labored against their restraints. In minutes the clear smell of decay came distinctly to the searchers. The men exchanged tense glances. But their exhilaration and dread were both short lived as the hounds gathered and bustled around the rotting carcass of a deer ripped apart by coyotes.

  The searchers’ mood deflated and for the first time they thought that maybe they would fail and turn up nothing; that maybe the boy really was gone. But they kept at it, continuing to search through the day and the next week. But their numbers began to dwindle as hope faded. By the tenth day, only a few people were searching and once two weeks had passed, most people had despaired of ever finding the boy. Jesse Key had vanished as if he had been spirited off by a UFO.

  Even before Hunter was released from the hospital, the powers that be in the town had assembled, believing the worst, and decided the Key family needed a break. After a suitable period of grieving, John would be promoted to store manager and sent to management training school to take over the operations of the twelve stores in the district, a kick in pay from part-time minimum wage to seventy five thousand a year. It was well known that Diana had always had her heart set on a little boutique called Nick’s Knacks. The owners, Nick Price and Mark Gates (known as Fairy and Fairier to most), had never really been comfortable in Golgotha and would probably be happier elsewhere. They wouldn’t be missed.

  At Lonnie Maness’s request, as Deacon of the First Baptist Church, a love offering was collected in places of worship around the county and a down payment was made on the little boutique in Diana’s name. With John’s newly risen income, it was thought she might be able to make a go of it. It was just a shame, the church elders nodded to themselves, that they hadn’t done more before. It took the loss of a child to make them do the right thing.

  Not to be outdone, Leonard Pitts started a college scholarship for the remaining Key Children. It could never be said that the Cream of Golgotha were heartless.

  They took care of their own.