ONE
Most of the town, the real town anyway, showed up for the ground search. Kelly watched them unloading from packed truck beds in the parking lot of the fire station across from the lake-side chapel. Mainly men, but some women too, wearing police-issued reflector vests over flannel and denim. They looked more like tailgating gathering before a college football game than volunteers searching for a missing person. But there is still a home and away team.
A knot of Smoky Mountain State types cried to a bundled-up television reporter out of Knoxville—the jagged A-frame of the chapel reflected on the water behind them, balancing the shot with just the right mix of hopelessness and beauty. The perfect combination for their viewers to stay tuned-in to a story about a nowhere town like Buckeye. The locals watched them from the backs of all-terrain vehicles, sipping luke-warm coffee from Styrofoam cups provided by the search organizers. Definitely a home and an away team, and Catherine is the football.
The search would span from the parking lot at Lake in the Sky up into the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, with a volunteer every ten feet, and was set to progress through the length of Happy Valley and end at the state highway. Kelly’s aunt, Catherine Dunleavy, was the third woman to go missing from East Tennessee this month, but she was the first Buckeye local. Half the town had combed the back-roads of the Appalachian college town after a pair of hunters spotted her car abandoned near a camp ground outside of the valley the night before. Kelly organized the first search within an hour; he was still close with some of the sheriff’s deputies who had responded to the domestic calls when he was a boy. The current Sheriff Oakden—Oakie to Kelly—had even been the one to drop him off at his Aunt’s apartment for the last time at thirteen.
Oakie was there now, in front of the chapel, mustache squirming under his squashed nose as he lectured the reporter on common East Tennessee decency. Ain’t much of that around here. The college hipsters, as Kelly’s townie friends called them, turned from tearful confessions aimed at the camera to accusations thrown at the Sheriff as soon as he broke up the pity party.
“That’s censorship, Sheriff.” A blonde guy with dreadlocks stepped forward. “People have a right to know what goes on in this town.”
“Comments on local law enforcement’s censure of the media, Sheriff?”
“Just wait a dang minute, I’m not censoring anything.”
“Catherine Dunleavy was a progressive,” said a young woman wearing faded American flag leggings. “She was making waves in local Buckeye politics. Trying to bring in the music festival, parking garages for campus, pushing bathroom gender issues.”
“Yeah,” Dreadlocks said, “and now she just goes missing and the cops don’t want it on the news. Coincidence?”
Leggings said was. These people don’t even think Catherine is alive—or don’t care.
Kelly didn’t have a problem with all the outsider influx into Buckeye like a lot of the other locals did. Smoky Mountain State had been a major part of the city since the late sixties, when the Y-13 plant, established during World War II by the Manhattan Project to manufacture weapons grade uranium, closed up shop and sold its campus to the college. By the time Kelly had been born—in the late eighties—the out-of-town alternative types could already be seen mingling among the locals in the dog parks and Starbucks of downtown Buckeye. Now, 28 years later, it was starting to be hard to tell who the outsiders were any more.
Case in point: the search was getting underway with the two teams, but which really was the home team? The locals were treating the whole thing like a tailgate, sharing cigarettes and laughing—at least the Smoky Mountain Staters were worked up about Catherine. At least they cared enough to make a scene for the cameras, even if they were just taking a break from diluting the local culture and replacing it with some sort of gourmet ruralism.
And that was just fine to Kelly Rybak; he’d seen his share of Buckeye culture, East Tennessee decency as Oakie called it, from his parents. It wasn’t anything worth saving, he supposed. A tired cliché. The same as the pictures taken by the self-serious photographers who rolled through every decade or so—poverty porn. They came less and less as the town did better and better. Catherine never wanted to admit it, but everyone seemed to benefit from holding on to the idea that Appalachia somehow existed out of time from everywhere else.
Certain people need that hardship, that perceived otherness, to cultivate some semblance of a sense of identity. Take that away from them and they have to grasp the impossible concept that they are one of billions on Earth, each as interesting and uninteresting as the next.
Not so different than Leggings and Dreadlocks, matter of fact. From a distance, Kelly watched the Sheriff, the two students, and the reporter bicker—faces red and spit flying. Their argument had shifted from his Aunt to the specific targeting of students by highway patrol.
“What in the heck reason do we have to ticket you? We don’t have a quota, we don’t get that money in our bank accounts.”
“It’s the same as Catherine Dunleavy.” Leggings was visibly shaking from her righteous outrage. “It’s the same as Martin Luther King. Anyone who tries to make some real change—”
The Sheriff cut her off with some more—what Catherine called—bumpkin’-cussin’, then tried to list the amount of friends he had who were new in town. Wrong move Oakie, it’s argument bingo. Only a few moves to the rhetorical nuclear option...
“...Hitler, in Nazi Germany...” This from Dreadlocks. Kelly wasn’t paying enough attention to hear the context but it didn’t matter, argument over.
He stepped off toward the treeline, waiting for the whistle that would start the search party moving. The thick fog that settled in the valley most evenings had a strange, languid movement to it this afternoon—like the slow coiling and uncoiling of a snake. It wove infinity patterns overhead, through the tops of the evergreens and out over the lake before doubling back on itself above the gathered searchers. Kelly stood in the open patch of grass between the parking lot and the woods and watched it move overhead.
“Kelly.” A familiar voice called out from behind, and he turned to see a pile of plaid, denim, and bushy hair bounding towards him.
“Kelly, buddy, how are you doing? You get any sleep?”
“Hey. Ben. I was up most of the night making calls.”
“ Ah, shit, we’re finding her tonight, fucking know that.”
Ben, a bartender at one of the hipper new restaurants in town, War Tusk, closed distance fast and swept Kelly up in a pillowy bear hug. Kelly had been in a focused, dour mood all day, and was prepared to push his friend away in some sort of show of dedication to his Aunt, but found himself letting the embrace linger, comforted by the feel of heavy flannel and soft beard.
“You see those fucking hipster douche bags crying to the cameras, Kelly?” Ben said when when he placed his friend back down on the ground.
“Yeah, pretty annoying, right?” Kelly said.
He found it was often a good idea to commiserate with anyone complaining about a group of people—which in Buckeye meant either hillbillies or hipsters. It was just easier for everyone involved. He actually didn’t have anything against the Staters, most of them had their own money and knew how to have a good time on the weekends, but it was easier to go along with it.
“No shit, man.” Ben fell in to step beside Kelly as he continued towards the forest. “Making it all about them or whatever. Saw a couple taking selfies. Can you believe that, with your sister missing?”
“She’s not my sister Ben, why can’t you ever remember this? Catherine is my Aunt.”
“Ah fuck, your Aunt, my bad. You guys just look so alike. And she is like, what, a year older than you? She’s just so young looking, you know? Doesn’t look like an Aunt at all. It’s just weird.”
“Not around here it isn’t.” Kelly cut his eyes to watch Ben’s face turned red.
Ben couldn’t stand being reminded he was, essentially, just an outsider like the rest of them. He looked the part of a local now—had a better hillbilly beard than any of Kelly’s friends up in the hills even—but he’d followed his girlfriend Emma to Buckeye from Atlanta so she could attend graduate school. The first time Kelly saw Ben he had a neat, high-and-tight haircut and perfectly-trimmed beard; now Ben looked like he should be selling duck whistles in Louisiana.
Note to self: Duck Whistle, new possible nickname for Ben.
“Not weird... I mean—”
“I’m just anxious, Ben, don’t take it personally. But stop perving on my goddamn Aunt.” Ben blushed further and blew out a relieved breath.
The kid tried too hard sometimes—though who am I to talk?—but he was genuinely good people. As much as Kelly resisted becoming just another Buckeye shit-kicker like his parents, there was something charming to the way that chunky Greek bastard took to this place. Like a way to see it again fresh, or at least to see it without those grimy lenses of experience Kelly had to look through. A reminder that Buckeye was more than just what he’d seen of it—as much Ben’s as it was his. Maybe more in a way.
“Anyway,” Ben said, “I know you got a lot on your mind today, and I’m probably just, you know, worried for nothing...”
“Ben, what is it?”
“Did your sis-Aun—did Catherine mention anything about Emma yesterday before she left?”
“Catherine didn’t mention anything to me at all. I didn’t know she went hiking until Jared and Errol Mullins found her car. Probably trying to steal it.”
“Yeah, sure. No, that makes sense.”
“What’s wrong?”
“We were just supposed to have dinner last night, but she canceled last minute. Point is she didn’t pick up yesterday for that late night search at the camp ground. Then she didn’t answer today neither about the door-to-doors. I mean, she doesn’t like me to check up on her or, like, be clingy or whatever. But she didn’t come home last night and I’m starting to get worried.”
“They’ve gone out before to take pictures. Or to campaign. It makes sense I guess. Does she ever stay out all night”
“Fuck, Kelly, does she? Almost every weekend, or at least she gets back so late she might as well.”
“See, she probably just went up to Knoxville or Maryville or wherever for a pub crawl. Or maybe she is just being a lazy twenty five year old. She’s in school, right? She binge-watches all those British TV shows, right? Maybe she is just checked out for the weekend with a friend.”
“Yeah, but she’s not... Emma’s just—Emma’s not like the rest of them. You know that. She really cares about the town. Or at least it seems like it. And she is real good friends with Catherine. Said she wants to grow up to be like her. I said Emma, you are twenty five and she said yeah and you’re twenty eight. But she said it like … like an insult you know, or at least like it meant something. But she says a lot of stuff like that. Shit, I dunno Kelly. That was the last thing she said to me. My age. What do I do with that?”
“Alright, calm down, Ben. Just let’s find Catherine then you can go home and she’ll be there.”
“Let me just, uh, let me just go ask some of those Staters if they know something. I think one of them is Facebook friends with her.” Ben bounded off toward a group of graduate students wearing matching over-sized army field jackets and black beanies.
Kelly smiled at his broad-shouldered back—glad that at least his out-of-town friend was taking this as seriously as he was. But the fear settled back in him when he felt the chill in the air bite through his denim jacket. Catherine is out there somewhere, since last night. And it’s getting colder.
Kelly winced as the woolly barista nearly stumbled into a strange, perfectly round sinkhole in the grass. Somewhere up ahead, a deputy blew the signal for the search to begin in earnest, which reminded Kelly of something.
“Watch where you’re going, Duck Whistle!” he called after Ben.
But he couldn’t tell if his friend heard him over the sound of the wind in the trees. It was a warbly sound, like someone playing a fiddle slowly. The rhythm inexplicably reminded Kelly of the odd motions of the roiling mist. His eyes found the hole in the Earth; it was a funny thing, but he could swear he’d seen one just like it back in Buckeye this morning near Catherine’s apartment complex. Goddamn town is just getting swallowed back up by the mountain. A horrible thought struck him: What if she fell in it? What if we all do?
“The hell is a Duck Whistle, Rybak?” Kelly turned to see a wiry, tall man in a patched leather jacket hovering over his shoulder, staring out in the same direction he had been.
“Joe.” Kelly said.
Joe Mullins, or Melungeon Joe as some of the older locals called him, was a bit of a walking stereotype. Kelly wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen him without a faded baseball cap and work boots, and he usually had some sort of pills or homemade liquor on him somewhere. Joe got his nickname from his bright blue eyes and dark olive skin—though Kelly supposed he was just half-black like so many other people in town nowadays. Shit, like Emma. Seemed like some people around the valley—people like Joe—had trouble admitting that for some reason though, something so un-Buckeye-like, so they said they were Melungeon. Didn’t seem to make much difference to Kelly, wasn’t no one, as far as he could tell, just the one thing anyway.
“Almost worse when they pretend to be from here, you know?”
“Yeah. Ben’s cool enough though. Just new here’s all.”
“Cool, huh, yeah I saw how cool you think he is. Better be careful with that shit, brother, wrong person sees you like that, might take you for a couple queers. Just saying.”
“Always nice to talk to you, Joe.” Kelly said. “But, if you forgot, I gotta get back to searching for Catherine. You remember Catherine? You stole her parents’ Toyota and dropped it in the creek ’round ninety nine.”
Joe didn’t seem to take any notice of what Kelly said, just pulled out a Marlboro from a crumpled soft pack and lit it.
“And another thing. They come out here to the valley dressed like they in a damn park service commercial. I lived up in these mountains for forty goddamn years and I don’t own no damn hiking boots, I ain’t got no damn flannel shirt.”
“You don’t own a flannel shirt, Joe?”
“Shit itches.”
“You’re mad at them because they dressed appropriately?”
“I ain’t mad, brother, but don’t you notice whenever you see those little fuckers, hikin’ or huntin’ or whatever, they always wearing the perfect outfit for whatever is they’re doing?”
Kelly started to dismiss him, but come to think of it Joe was right. It was kind of annoying that the Smoky Mountain Stateers seemed to wear costumes to whatever they did. They were trying to find his sister here, not make some sort of fashion statement.
“I guess they do.”
“Hell yeah they do, brother.” He eyed the back of Kelly’s head as he took another drag from his cigarette.
“One of these days when you ain’t looking I’m gonna take a pair of scissors and, snik, get rid of this damn pigtail.”
Joe pantomimed snipping Kelly’s topknot—what Emma called his man-bun. He’d grown it out since meeting her, after she’d pointed out a celebrity in a movie wearing one and said how sexy it was. Kelly figured might as well, his Dad always wore his hair short.
“Catherine hates it too.” That wasn’t exactly true. She gave him shit for it all the time, but she was always giving him shit about something.
“Smart girl, Catherine. Was anyway, I guess. Shame.” Was.
“Yep. But she likes those students, the hipsters. Likes their Yuppie parents. Likes Ben too, so watch your mouth about them and her. You hear me?” Was.
“You having quite a day, brother, so I’m gonna get going before I make it worse. But listen, you walk around, and dress and talk like you something the rest of us ain’t, but you’re not. Them tight jeans, that long hair, you ain’t fooling any of ’em like you think you are. You just their goddamn mascot and that’s the truth, brother. They know it, and damn sure all the rest of us know it, and it’s embarrassing. And Catherine did the same thing, and look what happened to her.”
“You use the words was or did again when you’re talking about Catherine and we’ll see who ends up embarrassed.”
“Just saying.” Melungeon Joe walked backwards a few paces, hands raised in abdication, before flicking the Marlboro butt out on the damp grass. He turned on his heel and headed over to some of his cousins who were sharing a bottle between them, seated side-saddle on banged-up four-wheelers.
Just saying. Is there anything more useless that can be just said than those two words? Did what was spoken before become magically meaningless? Which would be some trick considering it’s all true. Kelly had a closet full of costumes for every occasion, and it worked most of the time—or people didn’t seem to care he was wearing one—but every now and then, when they knew what to look for, they could see the poor stitching.
But what was the alternative? What did everyone else do? Just become the father, marry the mother, dress like the city, speak like the county, drive like the state, vote like the region, and pray like the nation they were born in? If someone didn’t want all of that—to be assigned by random chance of the universe their entire identity—then why was it such a betrayal to pick a role? I could be like Joe. He at least appeared, if nothing else, to know who he was. Kelly still wondered how much of even that was manufactured—how much for everyone? The only thing more exhausting than attempting to play a role you aren’t would have to be the pressure to play the one you are.
Even now, smack dab in the middle of a ground search for Catherine, Kelly was aware of how he appeared to everyone. Was he sufficiently visibly upset? How much is too much? Should he have obliterated himself at a bar last night, after the first search, or was everyone expecting some sort of stoic mountain man quietly suffering a potential loss? Did his man-bun and tight pants diminish local sympathy for his situation and the search for Catherine?
Kelly shrugged into the baggy reflector vest he’d kept from the day before. It crossed his mind that if they found Catherine today by some stroke of luck—or maybe bad luck—he didn’t know what to do with all the stuff the Sheriff’s department had given him. He supposed they would call.
Kelly joined the search party as they moved forward together. A line of men stretched out to either side of him at ten pace intervals, shuffling through the heavy ground cover with heads bowed like pot-bellied druids performing some Celtic rite. Kelly started to follow in formation, but hesitated: It felt wrong, somehow, it being Aunt Catherine, to just be one more faceless person in the jagged line.
He shrugged off to the East, climbing the slope leading up to the low foothills ringing the edge of Happy Valley. If I find her I want it to be just me. Whether it’s her body or her jacket or whatever it is. He just couldn’t imagine having to share finding her, or more likely, share the moment when they found no trace of his aunt. Kelly disappeared into the treeline alone, heading up into the mountains as the search party moved along their grid in the valley.
. . .
(Part 2 of Chapter 1 is ready to go, but I wanted to stagger the chapter a bit, let people ease into the story)