If You Go Down In the Woods Today, Beware of a Big Surprise

Hick went down in the woods Monday, and it was NO PICNIC!

Remember how we've been having some unwanted activity around our enclave? Like the white Dodge sedan that parked overnight on our Other 10 Acres, then was seen elsewhere on our gravel roads? And the guy breaking into a neighbor's house, caught on camera? There's MORE!

Wednesday evening, the guy whose kids vandalized Hick's Creekside Cabin called Hick to say that he'd just run off some people in a side-by-side who were riding around by a house that's for sale. He asked if they lived here, and they said no, they lived out on one of the nearby county blacktop roads. So he told them they were trespassing, and to get on out of here, and not come back. I find a certain satisfaction in that irony, he himself the parent of trespassers...

Sunday evening, Hick was called by a guy who said there was somebody burning stuff on our Other 10 Acres. He went up there, but only saw two small piles of sticks, which the lady living next door likes to burn. Sure, it was on our side of the property line, but Hick didn't even stop. He said maybe she'll rake up some sticks from OUR side and burn them.

Monday, Hick decided to go up to our Other 10 Acres and look around. He drove the tractor, planning to move a few more logs along the frontage, to keep people from driving in. A car won't make it, but currently a 4-wheeler or 4WD truck could. He'd been gone about an hour when he texted me.

"Just found an abandoned truck down in the woods at our Other 10 Acres."

"Are you calling the police? Might be stolen."

"Yes. Waiting on them to call me back."

"Did you ask HOS if he knows anything about it?" [Hick's Oldest Son, who used to live up there until last summer, when he moved into the $5000 House he and Hick renovated.]

"Yes. He said he saw it a while back, and sent me pictures. I never got them.

"Huh. Seems pretty random for a stranger to leave it. And when was HOS out here, and why didn't he call you? Last I remember, he texted you he was up there getting some of his stuff. That was before you put the log across the driveway."

"He said since I didn't text him back, he figured I didn't care. He's re-sending the picture. Somebody has been cutting wood. Looks like trees on the ground. Maybe to make a fire."

"Might be something with the neighbors or people they know."

"No. I asked them. They saw a couple trucks up here a few weeks ago, but said they left pretty quick. I'm still waiting on the deputies. It must be shift change for them. It's 3:00."

WELL!

The county sheriff's deputy arrived, and ran the VIN. As he called it in on the radio, he said, "It looks like it could be the truck the Backroads police chased out here a few weeks ago. They lost it on [county blacktop road where are mailboxes are]."

Hick got more information, by eavesdropping, and by making conversation while waiting for the county to send a tow truck.

The Backroads police know who was driving the truck when they chased it. They know the truck was reported stolen from a little town over by Bill-Paying town, about three weeks ago. At the time, it had a motorcycle in the back. Gone now. 

Hick showed the deputy the picture of the house-breaker-inner, INSIDE the house, that the owner had put on the enclave's Facebook page. And said people out here think he lives in the house by our Other 10 Acres, where the stick-burning lady lives. The deputy said they are acquainted with that guy, and he has been involved in a lot of stuff, and they are investigating.

Oh, and such a coincidence... the guy who the truck belonged to just happened to call the dispatcher while Hick and the deputy were waiting for the tow truck, asking if they had any information lately on his stolen truck. Maybe he was listening to a scanner, and heard about a truck found on someone's property.

Something is pretty fishy here. Not pointing any fingers. I'm not a big believer in coincidences. Somebody knows somebody who knows something.

Here's the truck:

 

It looks like a little one, but it's a Ford F-150. Took two tow trucks to get it out. A 4WD wrecker to hook up to it and pull it to the gravel road, and a flat-bed tilting car-hauler to take it to town. Hick volunteered to use his tractor if they couldn't get it. The deputy said, "This is going to cost that guy more than the truck is worth! He's already said he doesn't have insurance on it." 

Hick said there was also a BBQ grill and a vaccum cleaner sitting down by the creek, which is in the direction behind the truck. Heh, heh. Were they going to have a cookout and clean up? Hick thinks those items were probably in the back of the truck (with the motorcycle?) when it was stolen. I am wondering it that's a truck, or a clown car! 

 

Hick says it looked like that truck had made several trips in and out, accessing our Other 10 Acres by a pig-trail of an entrance off the gravel road, and not by the driveway at the top of the hill by the neighbors. It's stuck there in the picture. Hick said it drove over a downed tree, which slammed the other side into an upright tree, denting the other side, and pinning it so they couldn't drive out.

Hick spent the rest of the afternoon pulling tree trunks across the front of the property.