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AmSpecBlog
Fear and Loathing in Lower Glennbeckistan
Since returning Thursday from my trip to Kentucky -- where I went to cover the investigation of Census worker Bill Sparkman's death -- I've been catching up on sleep and working on a very long article about the trip:
So here I was alone, looking at the locked gate across Hoskins Cemetery Road. I wrote down the time in my notebook, got out of the car and took a few photos of the bridge and gate with my small Kodak digital camera. It was actually a lovely scene. The large hardwood trees lining the banks of the stream were still summer green in late September. The afternoon was cool and breezy, the sky was overcast with heavy clouds, and the only sounds were the wind in the trees and the quiet burbling of the little brook flowing east, parallel to Arnetts Fork Road.
Just then, I heard the sound of a car approaching from the direction of Big Double Creek Road. Standing by the roadside, I flagged down the blue sedan and approached the driver's side window. The driver looked to be in her early 30s, and there was a child's car seat in the back, but no child.
"Excuse me, ma'am," I said to the lady, trying to smile as friendly as I could. "I'm a reporter, covering the murder y'all had up here."
She nodded in recognition - obviously, the locals knew all about the case - and I continued.
"I'm up here to see the place where they found that fellow's body and get a few pictures and, frankly, it's kind of scary, y'know?"
She nodded again and said, "Yeah, I know."
"So what I was wondering," I said, "was whether you wouldn't mind just waiting here for a few minutes, while I walk up to the cemetery - just wait here, to make sure I get back."
She shook her head. "Well, I don't think so, but I'll tell you what. My husband's up at the house" - she gestured westward up the hill - "and I can send him back down here, if you want."
"Could you?" I asked. "About how long would it take him to get here?"
"About five minutes."
So it was agreed, and I felt much better about my situation. No doubt her husband was a stout, hearty soul who would accompany me to the graveyard and assure my safety. Unless, that is, the lady's husband was some hillbilly meth-cooker, a dangerously violent ex-con with deep hostility toward nosy outsiders and, for all I knew, the same guy who'd killed Sparkman.
Crazy fears like that crop up in a man's mind when he's short on sleep, hyped on coffee, far from home, and standing at the scene of a notorious crime in the Appalachian backwoods. But I'd wait for the lady's husband to come back. He was probably a mild-mannered, clean-cut Baptist church deacon, and I was just being paranoid.
On the other hand, these woods were reportedly crawling with marijuana growers who plant their crops in isolated forest clearings, and late September is harvest time for these outlaw agriculturalists. Maybe there was some weeder, dressed in camouflage, rifle at the ready, guarding his crop planted nearby. Maybe, even at that very moment, I was a target in the crosshairs of a scope on a high-powered rifle held by a mountaineer marksman. One squeeze on the trigger and - boom! - that would be it for me.
Honestly, you think about things like that at such a moment, in such a place.
"Be careful," my wife had told me before I left on this trip, which I'd undertaken against her advice. I reminded her I'd survived my 10-day excursion to Africa in February 2008. "If they didn't kill me in Kampala, I think I'll be all right in Clay County, Kentucky." . . .
That's about 600 words. The whole article is nearly 4,000 words -- and that's only Part One.
Comments
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linda| 10.4.09 @ 5:43PM
Robert, why would you go into a wilderness area without a handgun? Crazy.
I find this story very interesting and am looking forward to part 2.
If I were a betting woman I'd better drug dealers which is why is you go back you should be packin something better than a camera.
Salvidore Dali Parton| 10.4.09 @ 11:40PM
Dang. I'd love to read the whole thing but I just can't really go past 3,000 words or so. Maybe next time.
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Tim| 10.5.09 @ 8:32AM
Sounds like the intro to a horror movie. I take it this does not end with you trussed up inside a burning wicker man?
Crusader| 10.5.09 @ 8:50AM
Dude I gotta say I lost a little respect for you. Asking a woman to wait for you to make you feel safer? Are you a closet lib?
Next time do this:
1 - Pack a handgun, preferably something that begins with .4
2 - Pack lots of extra, fully-loaded mags
3 - Get some sleep before you venture out into hostile territory
While that's not a guarantee you'll be safe, it seems better than your decidedly left-of-center approach to your safety (leaving it in the hands of others). Not to mention depending on locals who are probably very leery of strangers and strange reporters.
Angel| 10.5.09 @ 1:53PM
LOL!
Amor de Cosmos| 10.5.09 @ 10:45AM
The biggest joke here is that Appalachia is the home of some giant right wing terrorist front. Only a foreigner like Sullivan could believe that the "revolution" is coming out of the mouth of some holler in Clay County, Kentucky. Right now, the good folks of Eastern Kentucky are being serially defamed by ignoramuses.
The narrative of the South being filled with half-civilized brutes ready to use violence at any moment is deeply ingrained in the American Liberal worldview. After all those folks believe in Jesus and are familiar with the use of firearms.
Sullivan and Co are willing this to be a murder by "right wing fanatics" despite no evidence to buttress the charge.
Ken (Old Texican)| 10.5.09 @ 11:18AM
Mr. McCain
I only have one quibble with the comments above.
You do NOT need a handgun in that situation, (well maybe you do as a backup "last ditch" piece), but rather you should be armed with a long gun...description depending upon terrain. In close woods, a shotgun is best, and open pastures a rifle is in order.
Aw heck! Carry all three in the car and choose out on arrival. Heh!
Crusader| 10.5.09 @ 8:11PM
Ken, how would my PTR91 with 10 extra mags loaded with 168gr BTHP Sierra Match Kings do?
tom k| 10.5.09 @ 11:58AM
who cares....seriously, who really cares
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