On the Bourbon Trail – chapter seven
Tim set down his rucksack and his rifle, pulled out a water bottle and a granola bar then sat on the rock he'd stopped beside, conveniently chair height, and took a long drink. He didn't linger to enjoy the spot, two bites to finish his snack and then he tucked the wrapper and the half-full water bottle back into his bag, opened the terrain map he had slipped from his jacket pocket and studied it, counting peaks and troughs. He was almost there. Standing again and hoisting his pack, he moved easily up to the crest of the hill he was on and then down the other side without hesitating. Noting the creek at the bottom, exactly where it should be according to his map, he stepped over it and started up the next hill.
Tim was happy. Tim was on vacation, a vacation in the style and location of his choosing, hiking off-road with a rifle and his new handgun and a survival kit – two knives, a disposable lighter, terrain map, compass, GPS, rope, quick and protein-loaded snacks, water, good boots, day-old beard, and a purpose.
Even without a purpose to this walk, Tim would have enjoyed it, and though he was determined to reach his destination before lunch, and set the pace to accomplish that, he still allowed himself breaks in his focus to appreciate the woods, quiet, solitary, everything on his schedule. But the purpose of it added some sharpness, a tang of expectation, gave it energy, a literal point. Tim liked being outside, but Sunday strolls just didn't do it for him, not when you could have a Sunday stroll in the form of a Wednesday fast march with an objective.
The last incline on his route was longer and shallower than the previous few, tipping him off that he was approaching his objective. He slowed, walking now more carefully, aware of what was underfoot to shift or snap or make any sound at all that might carry through the bare branches of the season. Twenty feet from the top, he dropped his rucksack again, nestling it under a shrub. The woodland camouflage of the bag's fabric made it almost impossible to see, but he kicked a few leaves up around the sides to blur the outline anyway, disguise the shape, and continued on with just his rifle. Near the top he hunched down into a crouch, moving sideways on the backside of the slope until he found a small clump of trees to hide behind before cresting the hill. The objective was right where he expected it to be thanks to his land navigation skills, and his target, Craig Franklin, hopefully was too. Tim had it on good authority that Franklin was in his office in Lexington right about now having a chat with a psychologist about his charity organization.
Pulling binoculars from a jacket pocket, Tim made himself comfortable and became acquainted with the rough-hewn but clearly luxurious log-house style residence below him, the outbuildings and the surrounding terrain. Satisfied that he was alone, he slung his rifle over his shoulder and trotted down the hill for a closer look.
There wasn't much to see in the house, except the modern alarm system that Tim swore at through a window and thought of Wynn Duffy, wondered if his company had installed it. He walked the perimeter, peering inside wherever possible, then strode over to the separate garage, picked the lock at the small side entrance, stepped in and found a light switch. Tim was more a mechanic than a carpenter, but even he could appreciate the woodworking shop set up inside, complete enough to put the set of the New Yankee Workshop to shame. He did a tour of the space, admiring the tools, then stood at one end and scowled, frustrated – there was no secret smuggler's room anywhere, unless it was hidden in the basement of the no-go, security-infested main house. So, he'd have to go about it the hard way, a few days surveillance and hopefully something to move on. He locked the garage, and wandered a bit aimlessly around the property, stopping eventually at the front and letting just his eyes take a tour. They flicked twice over the ground in front of the garage and then came back to the area a third time, settling with interest on the fresh tire tracks leading right up to and underneath the main doors, odd because there was no room in that workshop for a vehicle. Tim checked his watch, then picked the lock of the garage a second time and went back in for a more careful inspection.
Miljana was wearing the boyfriend sweater again, but this time in full public view, out on the street. She walked up South Limestone from the university campus then west toward Triangle Park where Craig 'snipers-are-cowards' Franklin was waiting in his Lexington office, a second floor loft over a row of trendy shops, hipsterville strip as Tim called it. She felt singularly conspicuous in the hoodie, exposed, as if she'd been caught out in a lie or had bared a secret and guilty pleasure for all to mock. Walking a bit stiffly, a quick pace, she avoided making eye contact with anyone, praying she wouldn't pass someone she knew professionally because, truthfully, being an obvious hypocrite bothered her less than being the cute girlfriend, and that admission to herself bothered her more than anything else.
A noise of disgust escaped her as she read her own thoughts and she said in her mind the word hypocrite to scold herself, then tried to distract her brain with the unlikely scenario of passing a real Army Ranger, someone other than Tim. He might call her out as a fraud, which would be amusing since it was reasonably common knowledge that there were no women in the Ranger Regiment. So no angry accusations of stolen valor, more likely a condescending grin and then the question, "Which battalion does your boyfriend serve in?" And then she'd definitely be the cute girlfriend, out there for all the world to see. Hypocrite, she scolded again, and then answered the pretend question. "Third," she'd say and then try to convey something of the independent and educated woman that she was, wearing her boyfriend's hoodie only because she had a job to do this lunch hour that required it. And this make-believe Ranger would likely miss all those cues and focus only on what was on his mind, asking questions to try and figure out if he'd ever crossed paths with Tim, the boyfriend of the cute girlfriend in the boyfriend sweater, questions like what year Tim signed up, what year he left, which platoon he was assigned to, who the cadre sergeants were in RIP when he went through… She wouldn't even matter to him, the cute girlfriend.
Stop it! she growled at her insecurities, but they jeered and slapped her back with a reality check, that the likelihood of a chance meeting with a veteran of the 75th Regiment on a street in Lexington was slim to none, and then they berated her, bringing up more insecurities in support of the attack, for being embarrassed in advance of a fictional encounter. She cursed her imagination, grumped to herself that her confidence should be able to withstand being just a girlfriend for fifteen minutes, beat herself up with the reminder that Tim, unlike her, happily wore the UK sweatshirt she'd bought him. All the while her walk became more and more aggressive until people she approached were instinctively moving out of her way, all five-feet-four threatening inches of her. When she arrived at Craig Franklin's office, she was angry at herself and ready to take it out on the asshole inside, and to top the mood, no one had taken any notice of what goddamn sweater she was wearing.
"Idiot," she breathed, then jabbed the buzzer.
"Dr. Miljana Čajić." Craig Franklin greeted her, saying her name with obsequious perfection, pissing her off more than Tim could when he purposely mispronounced it, imitating Art's car wreck version and getting right up in her face when she was grumpy. "Čajić," she'd yell back at him, putting on her inherent Serbian accent, and he'd mangle it more in response, Kentucky consonants scraping against overstated Kentucky vowels until she couldn't keep a straight face any longer and broke into giggles. "Better not say it like that around my father," she'd say, and Tim would do it on purpose next family visit and grin at her, and her father, God love him, would spend the rest of the evening indulging himself with a bizarrely Slavic version of Timothy Gutterson. "That just sounds gay," would be Tim's reaction and they'd all laugh, Miljana's gay uncle laughing with them.
She shook thoughts of Tim laughing out of her head and focused on Tim angry, revisited his face when Franklin said, "Snipers are cowards," and she forced a smile for her host. "Hello, Craig," she said. "The answer's still no."
"Aw. But you haven't let me run my spiel yet. Have a seat. Would you like something to drink? I don't often indulge in hard liquor at lunch but I understand that your husband has turned you into a whiskey drinker. I have something special here to tempt you."
He produced a bottle of Old Pappy from inside a cabinet, presented it like a prize. "Uh? Can you say no to this?"
She tried not to stare, remembering Tim's story about he and Art visiting the distillery where this bourbon was aged and barreled and stolen. Does everyone think I'm stupid? The thought zipped through her head when she caught the bottling date on the label, this very year, the stolen batch year. "No," she said, "tempting as it is. I don't drink when I'm working. I have clients this afternoon. I think, though, that Tim would love to get his hands on a bottle of that."
"I'm sure he would."
Rather than take the offered seat, she turned and walked to the large window overlooking the park, let him read the back of her boyfriend sweater.
"Do you have family in the military?"
She turned around coyly, a what-are-talking-about expression.
"Rangers?" He pointed at the sweater.
"Oh." And she smiled, twisting in a pretense of reading the logo on the back of the hoodie. "It's Tim's. I grabbed it out of the car before I came. I decided to walk but it's colder out than I thought."
"He was with the Rangers?"
"Yes. Afghanistan. He was a sniper."
She was pleased to see the effect the pronouncement had on him.
"Fuck me."
Tim laughed out loud, a full and honest and profound laugh, surprise and satisfaction and pure and simple happiness. There was a smuggler's room, a trap door well-hidden under the center work table leading to a cellar hollowed out below, and that alone was enough to bring the chuckle bubbling up from somewhere down deep where the four-year-old pirate still dwelt inside him. But it was the stack of twenty-year-old Pappy van Winkle Reserve that put the hard flint in the laugh, made it more real, and that sound came from a little closer to the surface, the rough outer layer of Ranger veteran and Deputy US Marshal. He did a quick count and it came up a few short of the sixty-five missing cases. He raised his eyebrows, grinned. There was no way in hell, even if he ended up in hell, that he was climbing out of this pit and walking out of this garage without a case of that bourbon tucked under his arm. It took him a split second to come to that decision and about five minutes to rearrange the pile so that his one case wouldn't be missed.
Mark Twain said, "There is no such thing as too much good whiskey," and Tim agreed. But he wasn't about to get greedy – three bottles would do.
He locked the garage, covered his tracks and headed back to his hill with his three bottles of ninety-point-four proof, five-star collector's bourbon, and a contented smile. This sniper would be sipping something fine this evening. While he climbed the hill, he toyed with the idea of coming clean with Art and sharing, rejected the thought after a full minute's consideration, certain that Art would make him return it. He felt badly about keeping it all to himself for another minute, and then got over it and got to work, spending the remainder of the afternoon setting up a hide. He would return home tonight, enjoy the evening and sip some whiskey with Miljana, then come back tomorrow and hunker down and see what other treasure might turn up.
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