Super Powers and Secrets

By H. Kaeppel

Piper and Jeff keep the horror of that night secret from even their closest friends, Dawson and Hez.

Piper would rather talk about other things. Her favorite subject is education, special education. Teens are her life, her volunteer work, her profession, and her research. Jeff understands teens, he and Piper have that in common, but his experience with educators is long and negative.

Dawson finds Hez annoying, always talking, always in motion, but cooking for the newly calorie-conscious annoyance could spice up the monotony of diner work. She comes into his diner nearly every day anyway and if there is one thing Dawson knows more about than food, it’s dieting.

The Four, as they've been dubbed, start to grow tight volunteering together in their church's youth ministry but Dawson has regrets going back to his and Jeff's own teen years. What if Jeff remembers it too? Stress at home and in the family business pull at Jeff while Dawson’s ever-defeating thoughts get the best of both of them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781716543982

Book preview

What he couldn’t do, it turned out, was go in.  Hez was in there with Sebastian watching TV.  She would be right to be angry at him, ashamed of him, just like he was of himself.  He couldn’t face them.  He couldn’t.  Instead he lowered himself, heavily leaning against the outside doorframe for support, to sit on the stone stoop.  He’d had bad days before.  Sometimes it felt like he had more than his share.  Chris was hard, his dad was hard, his mom was hard.  The farm was hard.  Sometimes ministry was hard.  At least with his family and the farm there was Hez’s chatter at the end of most days.  With ministry, there was the pastor to turn to, and sometimes the pastor turned to him.

Today there was none of that.

Cover Art

Laura Kaeppel

LK Photography

www.laurakaeppelphotography.com

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Where Dawson Lives

A series

Book 1

Super Powers

and

Secrets

A Year of Holidays

by H. Kaeppel

ISBN 9 781716 543982

Super Powers and Secrets

Copyright © 2020 by H. Kaeppel

All rights reserved.  Except for use in any review, the reproductions or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereinafter invented, including xerography, photocopying, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the author. H. Kaeppel, [e-mail].

This is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To

Keith Kaeppel

To

A, L, J, K, C

Special thanks to:

Jeanette Purviance

Kara Harka

Keith Kaeppel

Laura Kaeppel

Robbin Hunsberger

Susannah Cook

The Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group™

Table of Contents

0.5  The Park Office

Ironic.  The millennials stepped out of the office crowing about harkening back to simpler times, living off grid. In one hand the happy couple held a key to their rustic cottage; with the other hand they texted selfies to their city-it friends. Shep smiled, also happy.  Easy money guests.  Paid for a week.  Left when their phones’ charges ran out.  Rustic meant water from a hand pump, cooking and heating via woodstove, light from kerosene lamps, and, of course, no electricity.  The electronics-immersed generation could hardly still their brains long enough to play a board game or take a walk.  Even their chess games, for those few who knew how, were played digitally.  They knew Shep’s world through a camera lens, frequently his, rather than their own eyes.

Shep leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the desk.  Before smart phones it was cell phones, before that, land lines; before that telegraph, pony express, postal service, smoke signals.  Which is what he, at the moment, had reverted to.  He tossed a green smoke bomb into the fireplace. The all-clear signal put two things in motion.  His contacts got to work, and one of their kids, equipped with a pair of high powered binoculars, climbed a tree just outside the park office where Shep now reclined.  While enforcement officials, if there even were any in the area, kept their eyes glued to screens for all their surveillance tech and intel, the bad guys simply looked up.  Green for go, red for stop.  The kid, in addition to the binoculars, had a pocket full of pebbles.  If he saw something, he’d throw one at the window, and Shep would throw a red smoke bomb on the fire.  With Christmas on the way he could simply rationalize the action as a show of holiday spirit.

Back when Shep started, his contacts were steps ahead of enforcement officers.  He’d been exposed to cell phone technology years before the general public.  Then there was encryption and all kinds of other tech and now there were smoke signals.  He was far too senior a park ranger to be sitting in the office doing check-in duty, but that worked to his benefit.  His once-a-month weekend gave his contacts a predictable schedule which helped keep the extra income coming.  And taking a turn at entry level duty made him well-liked and well-known by the staff.  It also gave full knowledge as to where park guests were staying and which parts of the park would be unused.  He could even have some control over that.  Nice thing about city-its, they listened raptly and obeyed fully when you told them about things like bears:  what to do, what not to do.  This obedient behavior helped him help the guys who paid him handsomely.  His kid’s education cost a lot of money and a park ranger’s income needed the supplement.

Shep believed in keeping his enemies close, so he wasn’t surprised when the Game Warden stopped by for coffee.  He’d practically invited him.  The pebble struck the window, the smoke bomb landed in the fire place, and the percolator was placed on the grate over the flames.  About three minutes later tires could be heard on the gravel parking lot.  Shep didn’t need to look up in the tree for the kid but he did want to know if the officer rode alone.  That was usually worse.  Driving by themselves, they might look at the sky and see the red smoke.  Driving with a deputy usually meant the passenger looked at a computer screen that the driver would glance at every so often, and they’d converse leaving them more oblivious to their surroundings.  Not that it mattered much.  The green and red for Christmas was pretty believable.  Even though it was only late fall, it would still be believable that the smoke bombs were left over from the previous Christmas.  The kid, however, would care.  He’d want to get a look at what was on the screen.  His associates weren’t low tech by any means.  They just knew when to use it and when not to.  Any time Shep heard someone remark about bad guys always being a step ahead, he’d chuckle to himself.  They were ten steps ahead.  Using the binoculars to spy on the computer in the car could provide intel.

He held the door open for the men, offered them seats on the hand-hewn benches, then fetched three mugs.  They chatted.  Shep employed his counseling skills.  Who knew that the counseling course he took way back in college because it fit his schedule better than the psych class would have been so invaluable over the years?  Rogerian techniques such as lots of listening and little talking except to place some very short, seemingly bland, comments in order to steer the conversation.  It was amazing how much Shep could find out about the goings on in the world of wildlife management and law enforcement.  It was also amazing how far behind government agencies were.  Shep guessed their incentives were all wrong.  They made the same amount of money no matter what they did.  Promotions were based on seniority and politics, not knowledge or effectiveness.  Although, really, how do you evaluate effectiveness when you don’t even know what to measure?  Shep’s contacts, conversely, worked on commission in a sense.  They only got paid when they produced.  What they produced was illegal.  What they got paid was astounding. 

The game warden knew about wildlife, habitats, what threatened them, proliferation of various species by geographic location.  How did he know this?  There were interns who counted things, and occasional scientists with project grants who tagged animals and placed surveillance tech around and counted things.  That same data could be accessed by others for their own use.  Not only intercepted, but also compared to their own data for discrepancies, as well as supplemented with better information. Moreover, hacked data can be changed not just merely extracted.  Deep-pocketed associates the world over were able to better fund, incentivize, and equip than federal or state agencies.  Nonetheless, collaboration had its place even if the game commission had no idea they were collaborating.

Insurance companies calculate risk.  So do casinos.  Businesses large and small the world over have their analytics.  Education is increasingly being data driven, medicine too.  Professional sports have their numbers and their analysts – movies have been made about it.  Every industry has its numbers.  Those who succeed know how to slice and dice them.  Illicit business included.

Shep listened a lot, talked a little, and perpetuated his reputation for amazingly good percolated coffee.  He saw his visitors to their car and wished them a happy Thanksgiving week.  After watching them back out and pull away, he returned to his desk to wait for the kid’s signal that they had driven off in the preferred direction and were now far enough away.  Sure enough, the pebble hit the window.  Shep tossed in the green bomb.

1  Thanksgiving

It wasn’t the cold that awakened Jeff.  He didn’t know what did but he was alert and noticing everything.  This happened sometimes.  One moment asleep.  The next, wide-eyed awake.  Past experience had taught him to trust this inner alarm.  He went into crisis mode.  Very few vehicles at the rest stop.  Two semis, two pickup trucks.  Those four parked far from him.  He was nearest the restroom building.  Two spaces from him, a purple Jeep Wrangler.  Skis on top.  Not quite that cold, he thought.  He checked his phone.  Still no charge.  Can’t worry about that now.  Adrenaline ordered continued assessment.  A tree limb grew over the building.  Precarious at best.  He knew trees.  This one old and ill-cared for.  Won’t survive another winter.  Surprising it made it through the last.  A risk to the roof.  And anyone inside.  He opened the glove compartment, tucked the small gun into the back of his pants

His position allowed only a partial view into the building.  Shadows moving.  Several of them.  No people outside.  No people in vehicles.  Jeff turned a switch so the dome lights wouldn’t go on.  He emerged from the car.  Quietly he eased the door closed.  Wrangler definitely unoccupied.  He could see into the building better.  Four men.  One girl.  Strapped to a chair.  He dropped to the ground.  His dark clothes similar in color to the macadam.  The men circled.  Like vultures.  Wolves.  Snarling.  Her face pale.  He couldn’t hear her but eyes darted back and forth.

Assets:  His farmer strength.  The gun.  Surprise.  He’d had some experience fighting.  Back in high school.  For survival.  The scared girl’s adrenaline.  She was fight or flight ready.

Liabilities:  Four to two.  Unknown enemy.  No phone.  The girl.  Her reactions unknowable.  Her hands and feet bound.  Silver duct tape.

Jeff looked up.  Another asset:  the old tree.

Jeff aimed.  One spot.  One exact hit.  Both hands.  Elbows on the macadam.  Extra stability.  Steadying breath.  He squeezed the trigger.  The tree limb crashed.  The roof dented.  He ran in.  Startled lowlifes.  He fought.  It was mere seconds.  Seemed longer.  He knocked one gun away with his left fist that still held his own gun.  Then finished the move with a strong right into the man’s nose.  Continuing with his right hand, he grabbed the next closest man’s gun. Pulled it out of the man’s waistband. Quicker than the man could get to it himself.  A pistol in each hand.  He aimed at the remaining two heads.  They froze.  Four feet apart from each other.  He could keep both in his sight at once.  Hands! he shouted.  Hands! he screamed louder.  Their stunned hesitation.  Except one. Don’t move.  His eyes drilled on the men in front.  His peripheral vision also in use.  Your piece is under my foot, don’t even try to go for it.    He commanded the man on his left.  He steadied both guns.  Call the cops, he growled.  He spewed angry words.  Slid a foot closer to the girl.  Don’t try it!  Again, to the man on his left.  Another slide toward the girl.  Freeze!  The man hadn’t moved.  Jeff wasn’t chancing it.  To the girl, phone on you?  Did she nod?  He already had four faces to concentrate on.  Make a noise, he told her.  He couldn’t look at her.  Only hear her.  Outside, he remembered, he couldn’t.  He tried a gentle tone.  I need to hear you.  Then, Freeze!  He shouted it again.  Freeze!  Freeze! Freeze!  To his right.  To his left.  Straight ahead.

Do you have a phone?  He asked her again.  Again, gently.  He hoped.  For gently.  For a phone.

She did whimper.  He heard it.  This time he heard it.  He didn’t see it.  He raged at the men.  Raising his voice.  Pointing each gun.  He wanted them to shake.  Them to whimper.

Mmhmm, she squeaked.

He slid a set of inches closer.  Keeping that third gun under his foot.  Keeping two guns still aimed.  At heads.  He hollered again to the man on the left. 

Finally he was close enough to her.  One remaining appendage.  That had no gun.  How could he help her?  How could she get to her phone?  He held his stance strong.  If he made enough noise.  If he kept them from thinking.  If he looked lethal. If the cops actually came ….

Angry words spewed.  From his own mouth.  A sense of chaos.  Too much noise to think.  Keep them still.  Keep them from thinking.

Baby, he whispered.  Between shouting.  He maneuvered.  His back to her back.  Men still in his sights.  Guns aimed at heads.  He held the guns.  He shouted.  Commands.  Insults.  Crazy.  Chaos.  His position had changed.  He’d forced theirs to change.

Baby.  He’d never called a girl that.  Back pocket.

Somehow.  Miraculously, somehow.  She understood.  Knuckles nudged his jeans.  Then dug out his knife.

He smirked.  Sinister.  Relief.  Does she know how to use a knife?  Does it matter?  Even if she cuts herself.  Does it really matter?

He shouted.  He insulted.  He waved guns.  At heads.  He bided time.

The sirens.  The lights.  They came.  She did it.  She’d managed the call.  Somehow. 

Jeff held his ground while officers shouted commands.  While they determined who was a threat to whom.  When the right weapons were drawn and the others confiscated, Jeff slowly lowered his pistol.  The de-escalation of the scene and all that followed blurred in Jeff’s consciousness.  The immediate crisis averted, his nerves still fired quickly.  He answered questions.  They took pictures and measurements.  The girl.  After a long time, they freed her to go.  She had more to tell in a statement.  She’d been there longer.  Finally, things began to wrap up.

Jeff introduced himself.  Piper, she answered, giving her name.

Where you headed? he asked.

Um …

He nodded to the Wrangler that was reminiscent of the Barbie car his sister had played with when she was little.  Purple and all.  He took notice then that this girl sort of dressed like his sister’s Barbie too.  Trendy ski coat, furry boots, tight pants, straight highlighted hair sticking out from a name brand hat.  Going skiing? he asked.

She looked in the direction of her little SUV.  Oh.  Jeff could tell she was still rattled.  Yeah, skiing.

Not really quite that cold yet, he said.

Vermont is.  The words had barely been said when her hands flew to cover her mouth.  She looked at Jeff, wide-eyed.

He didn’t know the best way to assure her he was safe.  Was it even possible for her to be assured, given what she’d just been through?  He himself still felt jittery, unwanted pictures and sounds of guns, a cracking tree limb, a pock-face man, screaming – his own, a man missing some teeth, … He shook his head to clear away the horror.  He touched her forearm lightly.  It’s okay, he said.  Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.  He tried to think of some evidence to give her to support that claim and make her feel better.  I’m a tree farmer and I volunteer with the teens at my church.

She said nothing for a moment.  She had taken her hands away from her face.  She now twined her fingers together then apart then together.  A farmer and youth worker, she said, who carries a gun?

A small one, he started.  Youth worker was a buzz phrase he’d deliberately avoided.  Typically only people who did that kind of work referred to it that way.  This is rural Pennsylvania, he said, getting back to her concern.  He shrugged, I suspect most of us carry.  He was grateful he’d had it this night.  He chose not to remind her of that.  If her mind was anything like his, it was full of images, he’d rather not relive just then.  Such a comment would not be helpful. Look, he faced her.  Our farm is in eastern PA right by the highway you’ll need to take north. We’re headed into our busiest week of the year.  Our farm hand cooks for our crews.  You’d be welcome to have some breakfast.  He thought of his own dilemma, no navigation.  Was it only mere hours ago that he’d pulled into the rest stop to try to get his phone to charge?  I could follow you, make sure no one else follows.  He began to reach into an inside pocket of his coat.  She flinched and backed away even father than she already stood.  Jeff froze his movements.  He tried to give her what he hoped was an understanding look.  I’m just getting a business card for you. 

She appeared to make an effort to relax and nodded to him to continue.  She kept her gaze on his hand though.  She didn’t trust him and he didn’t blame her.

Here.  He handed his card to her.

She read it.  Eisen Tree Farm.  She turned it over.  There was nothing on the back. 

He took a pen from his pocket and handed it to her, then recited his cell phone number so she could write it on the back.  Letting her know how blindly dependent he was on navigation would do little to help her feel confident in him.  He decided that it would likewise be true if she knew his phone wasn’t working.  Hopefully, she wouldn’t try to call him while driving.  He was relieved when she accepted his offer.

Nearly three hours later, sun fully risen, at the private entrance to the farm, Jeff flashed his headlights and gestured for Piper to pull over.  He hoped she’d see.  She did and he led the way down the long lane to the family parking area.  Jeff had never lived anywhere else.  He tried to imagine how it might look if he were seeing it for the very first time, if he were coming from a classy lifestyle where everything is neat and clean.  Piper was probably accustomed to a paved and sealed drive, vinyl siding, manicured lawn, and neighbors.  The farm had none of these.  The house and grouping of buildings sat far back from the road.  The lane was dirt, the farmhouse was plaster on the outside walls, his house was built with logs, and Hez lived in an old trailer.  The other smaller buildings, though functional, probably looked dilapidated by the upscale subdivision standards of the suburbs, or wherever this chic girl came from.

The family house and Hez’s place were off to the left of a roundish and large parking area, his house was built into the steep rocky embankment to the right.  He parked nose in and Piper parked in what would have been the space next to him if there were spaces.

He watched her get out and stretch.  She looked as tired as he felt.  He’d hit the 24 hour mark some hours ago.  She looked like she had too.  Breakfast, coffee, even a shower, might help.  He could offer his couch for a nap but he wasn’t sure she’d accept that from a stranger.  Drive time thinking had him second guessing his actions at the rest stop.  More than once, and very emphatically, the officers had criticized his vigilante behavior.  He had never ever done anything like that before.  His adrenaline had surged, bringing out a person he didn’t even know was inside him.  What did this girl think of him?  What could this girl possibly think of him?

He wasn’t sure he could keep the weariness from his voice, much less the growing dark doubt. Come on in, he gestured to the rock steps that curved up from the parking area to his door.  See if we can get some breakfast.  Bring your stuff, you can use the bathroom.  Hez keeps it super clean.  He watched Piper duck back into her vehicle to pull out a small duffle.  He recognized the brand name on it.  A high-end outdoor adventure supplier.  Everything about this girl struck him as expensive and trendy.  Again, he worried what she’d think of his place.  Watch the steps, they’re not even.  He’d retained the natural formation of the rocks that his house nestled into.  What led to his front door, he now considered, was really a short, rugged trail.

She glanced down at the path.  Then, while she stepped up it, she looked away from her feet to see the house.  Jeff rushed in to catch her, certain she’d lose her footing.  She didn’t.  She scampered up to the door with just her one glance of assessment, not having to look down again.  She’d moved too fast for him to have caught up to her.  Beautiful, she said.  She looked back at him.  This is your house?

You like it?

It’s wonderful.  I can’t wait to see inside.

He held the door open for her.  I’ll give you a tour.  A tour of his house, more a cabin, could be done in less than a minute while standing in one place.  The front windows, extending floor to vaulted ceiling, looked over the parking area a bit, but the house was angled more toward the drive they’d come in on and the meadow that stretched next to the drive from the main farm house to the highway.  Behind the living room area where they stood was the kitchen, behind that the bathroom.  Above the kitchen was a loft sleeping area accessed by a hand-hewn latter.  All was heated by a simple wood stove. 

He pointed her toward the bathroom and noticed a note folded up and sticking out from a magnet on the refrigerator next to the calendar that hung there, usually all by itself.  What’s that say?  He asked as she passed it.

Piper paused to remove it from the magnet.  She unfolded it.  Just a picture.  She held it up.

Ahh, he nodded.  The picture was of the inside of his fridge.  That must be breakfast.  Two containers in the front center were circled in red.  He remembered then that his cell hadn’t been working.  Hez must have printed this when she couldn’t get through to him.  She was such a techno geek that printing probably took her little longer than texting him the picture which is the sort of thing she would usually do, since, of course, a picture is worth a thousand words, as she would say.  Who has time for a thousand words?  Even as fast and as talkative as Hez was.  She also liked to leave voice mail messages.  He often didn’t listen to them in full which she knew.  Her messages were just too long.  Which she also knew.  He glanced to his desk area at the far side of the kitchen area.  It was as tidy as ever, printer handily accessible.  He gave a slight shake of his head.  He should be used to it by now but Hez still amazed him.  She cleaned, she cooked – three meals a day for the whole crew and family this time of year, she handled all the farm’s IT needs, and chipped in on the physical labor as well.  This on top of managing her own small business and raising a kid.  He also suspected that she still took on some remote IT jobs once in a while.

Jeff heard the water run in the bathroom.  He took the containers out of the