Black Stump Ridge (6 page)

It sounded plausible. Still, Fred felt that Perdis knew more than he was telling. “I guess I’ll just have to be careful and not go alone. If I go, that is. I’ll probably be too busy hunting to do any exploring.”

“Prob’ly. Th’ huntin’ oughter be real good this year. We had a purty wet summer so there’s lots o’ grub in th’ woods. Not too many other folks out there, neither. Tho’ what folks is out there, well, y’might wanna be careful – ‘specially yer colored friend. Hate to see any huntin’ accidents, if y’know what I mean.”

It took Fred a moment to realize what Perdis was saying. When it finally sank in, he fought hard to hide his shock and his quickly rising outrage.

Perdis must have seen through the mask. “Now, now. Don’t git yer feathers all in an uproar. I lived out here by th’ highway all my life. I even done my two years when m’notice came durin’ the ’Nam war. I know things is different out there away from th’ hills. Hell, I got no problems with nigras. I served with some mighty fine nigra soldiers. Good fighters in spite o’ what some aroun’ here might say. But, once y’all leave the black top out front, son, it’s a different world. Folks back in the hollers, well, they ain’t changed their ideas much since th’ second independence war. If’n they see a colored man walkin’ in th’ woods carryin’ a gun, well, they’s liable t’ shoot first an’ not cry over it once they sees what they done.”

Fred turned at a sound behind him. Peete watched them from two rows away, his face an unreadable mask. Before Fred could say anything Peete turned and walked quickly out of the store. Fred turned back to Perdis.

“Listen, you red-necked sonovabitch. If you or any of those inbred cretins up there even looks like he might try to do something to my friend, there’s gonna be some shootin’ all right — and, it won’t be a hunting accident. We might be from the city but we’re not strangers in the woods. Where are the keys?”

Perdis looked at him for a long moment. “If’n I didn’t already promise yer mama, I’d keep’em an’ send y’all back to th’ city ’fore one a’y’all gets hurt. Or worse. You may be kin, an’ you may know how to hunt, but you ain’t hill folk. We don’t hold to big city ways. Some here don’t care ’bout no laws from Washington. Hell, boy, you got any idea how many revenooers is buried back in them hills? Washington might know how many’s missin’ but th’ folks ’roun’ here don’t count an’ don’t care. Y’gotta be careful back there. I ain’t tryin’ t’make ya mad. I’m jus’ tryin’ t’make sure none o’y’all gets hurt.”

“Fine.” Fred relaxed a little as he let his temper settle. “I’ll try to remember that. The keys, please.”

Perdis nodded and went behind the counter. Charlie and Dave waited in front of it, their faces devoid of emotion. A moderate pile of cans and packages covered half the surface.

“While you’re at it, figure out how much we owe you.”

Perdis pulled out a ring with two keys on it — a large brass one and a smaller, chrome plated one — and handed it to Fred. “The big’uns fer th’ house. The littl’uns fer th’ barn, though that’s mostly storage.”

He poked at the keys on the ancient cash register. He put cans, bottles, and packages into two medium-sized cardboard boxes as he did. When he finished, he hit a large key and turned a silver crank. The machine coughed and whirred. “That’ll be thirty-seven dollars an’ fifty-three cents.”

Fred handed the old man forty dollars as Charlie and Dave carried the boxes out of the store. Perdis handed Fred the change. As he slipped the money into his pocket and turned to leave, he heard Perdis’ hoarse whisper from behind him. “Remember what I said.”

“About my friend? I’m not likely to forget.”

“Not that. ’bout Black Stump Ridge. Don’t go messin’ ’roun’ up there. It’s poison.”

“There’s all kinds of poison in this world, Mr. Flowers.” Fred pushed his way through the door. “All kinds.”

 CHAPTER FIVE

Dave slumped in the passenger seat as the Jeep crept up the road like a blind man in a strange room. Awkward silence filled the truck. Something had happened in the store but no one was talking about it. All he knew was that at one moment everyone was talking and joking around, like always, and the next, Peete was storming out of the store, hitting the door like a tornado hitting a trailer park. Whatever it was, it was bad enough to generate a storm in Fred, too, which was odd because Fred never got mad at anyone for
anything.

No, that wasn’t exactly true. Charlie and Johnny seemed quieter than normal. He pretended to stretch, using the motion to hide his glance to the back. Peete stared straight ahead. His cheeks were wet. Tears? Charlie’s head was turned away as if he found the setting sun fascinating. Dave could see the man’s pudgy reflection in the glass. He didn’t know if it was a trick of the light or something in the image, but to Dave it looked like fear in Charlie’s eyes.

He tried to locate Johnny but the man was sitting directly behind him. There was no way to look at him discreetly.

Dave finished his stretch and turned to look ahead. At least the drop was on the other side of the truck. The growing darkness would have made the view even worse. He settled into his seat and stared through the windshield.

•

For his part Fred tried to concentrate as he guided the Jeep up the winding and unfamiliar road in the rapidly growing night. Peete’s face, however, kept drifting to the front of his mind. He’d never seen so much pain in his friend’s eyes as he saw before Peete turned and left the store. He tried to come up with something clever to say, something to ease the hurt, but the pervasive silence in the truck dampened thought as well as sound.

This was shaping into another Fred class disaster and they hadn’t even reached the cabin. Fred glanced in the mirror at Charlie, who sat right behind him. Charlie was staring out the window. That was odd. In fact, Charlie’s behavior had been unusually restrained during the whole trip. No wisecracks. No pranks. No jokes. Only at the store had there been a glimmer of the old Charlie. Something was up.

He glanced at Peete, who sat in the middle between Charlie and Johnny with his head bowed. Fred didn’t think it was in prayer.

“Hey. You can’t let some ignorant hillbilly’s stupid remarks ruin the trip for you.”

Peete raised his head slowly. He looked at the mirror – directly into Fred’s eyes. He smiled, but the pain never left his face.

•

Charlie stared out of the window. The westering sun had all but vanished behind the mountains. The topmost trees on the far ridgeline were backlit in gold. Night ruled everywhere else.

Charlie saw none of it. His staring eyes saw only Janine as his mind churned – Janine of the raven hair, of the flashing blue eyes, of the full sensual lips. Janine with those very lips curled into a contemptuous sneer as venom spewed between her sparkling, perfectly white teeth.

“What did you expect me to do, Charlie?” Her nostrils flared. Anger rouged her cheeks. “Did you really expect me to stay home all Thanksgiving weekend while you go play macho games in the woods with your poker buddies?”

“Dammit, Janine, I’ve done this every year for the last ten or eleven. You knew that before we got married.”

“You didn’t do it last year.”

“We couldn’t. Johnny’s uncle died just a couple of weeks before. It wouldn’t have been right.”

“But it’s okay to leave your wife at home alone for four days and nights. That
is
the proper thing to do, right? Well, you go ahead with your trip. I’ve taken care of my own holiday entertainment this year. And
he
doesn’t need chemical help to please me.”

“Janine…”

“I’ll bet you don’t need your little blue pills out there in the woods, do you? Does the smell of campfire smoke and wet canvas get it up for you? I can see it all now, the five of you running around in the forest, shooting your guns, and getting harder and harder with each kill. And then, when you’re back at your cabin, flipping coins to see who rides and who drives. Do you take turns with the odd man out getting sloppy seconds? Or do you all lie on the floor in a big circle? You know, one big suck fest? Tell me truthfully: which of you has the softest, smoothest hands? Well, whoever gets you is getting the short end. I know.”

It happened so fast. Even now that moment was a blur. Suddenly, he found himself staring down at Janine, his chest heaving, and his knees on either side of her chest. In his hand he felt a heavy weight. He glanced at it, horror struck, trying to figure out just what had happened. The base of the blender was shattered. Shards of blood-covered plastic lay everywhere. He looked again at Janine. Her face was a bloody, unrecognizable mass.

Blood.

There was so much blood – on the floor, on the cabinets, on his clothes. He tried to remember what happened, but all that came to mind was a red haze. No picture. No sound. Just red.

“Janine?” His voice was weak, a faint whisper, a desperate prayer. “Janine? Oh my god! Janine!”

•

“Help me watch for a blown down barn.” Fred gripped the steering wheel so tightly his hands hurt as he leaned forward and stared through the windshield.

They had left the gravel road and were driving on a narrow, somewhat asphalt road. The center of the road was black topped, but the edges were broken and jagged creating a one-and-a-half lane strip. There was no centerline that Fred could see so he held to the middle of the road by hunch, praying that everyone who lived around here was already down for the night. At every tight, right-hand turn he visualized running head on into some farmer’s battered pick up truck.

Suddenly, the trees on the right pulled back from the edge of the road. The land flattened into a gently rising grassy dell. Fence poles leaned forward and back as they followed the road at a distance of about three feet. Sections of barbed wire glittered from the passing headlights.

“Is that it?” Dave pointed at a pile of broken wood. One corner of the structure still stood. The remnants of a roof sloped downward like a ski slope into the ruins.

“Probably. There should be a gravel road just a little bit farther down.”

“There it is.”

Fred slowed and then turned to the right. The gravel track was barely wider than the Jeep. With no moon in the sky he could barely make out the road. He felt like he was driving in a tunnel.

Johnny spoke up from the back seat. “How far do we have to go on this one?”

“’Til the end. Don’t tell me you have to pee again.”

“No, I was just wonderin’, that’s all. My ass is going numb from all this sittin’. It’ll be good to be able to just walk around some, y’know?”

“Well, we’re almost there.”

“I see we have neighbors,” Dave said. “There’s lights back in the trees.”

“I think there might be three houses, but they’re down here closer to the road. I didn’t see any up by my uncle’s place on Purdie’s map. Does it matter?”

“Depends. If they’re all down here and we’re hunting farther up the mountain, probably not. Otherwise, well, I don’t want to have to worry about somebody’s cow.”

Dave snickered. “All you have to remember is deer are smaller than cows and propane tanks are silver or white.”

Fred frowned. Dave and Johnny’s cutting up seemed normal, but neither Peete nor Charlie joined in. He understood Peete’s mood. Charlie’s silence, however, was totally uncharacteristic. He glanced in the rearview mirror. Charlie stared out the side window as if completely absorbed with the passing scenery – or deep in thought on things far from where he sat. He made a mental note to get with Charlie away from the others. He returned his attention to his driving as they approached the end of the road. He turned the Jeep into the driveway.

The gate stood open. Ahead, a single light - blue-white in the near total darkness – illuminated the front of the house and the garage doors. A single window glowed with yellow warmth from the second floor. His mother had already come, made the place ready, and left. He smiled.

“Well, we’re here.” Fred stopped the Jeep in front of the house and shut off the motor. Silence, broken only by the ticking of the cooling engine, filled the truck as the others stared at the house.

“Jeez,” Dave finally whispered. “This ain’t a cabin. It’s bigger than my split-level back home.”

“You got that right,” Johnny said from in back. “Hell, the pictures you showed us don’t do it justice. Not at all.”

“Wait ’til you see the inside.” Fred turned off the headlights and opened the door. “Let’s go inside and I’ll show you around. We can unpack afterwards.”

•

Dave stood on the porch looking up at the clear night sky. He loved these trips to the mountains — Ozarks or Smokies didn’t matter — because the night air was so clear it seemed he could just reach up and pluck the stars from the sky. An amateur stargazer, he often tried to find the constellations but usually succeeded in finding only the most common – the dippers, Orion, Cassiopeia, the scorpion.

From inside the house came thumps and clatters and laughter – the sounds of the others putting away their gear and getting ready to enjoy the weekend. His things were in his room; he’d put them away tomorrow. Tonight, he just wanted to relax and enjoy the celestial show.

A faint but steadily growing silvery-blue glow caught his eye. He looked to the left at a low circular wall of stone. It looked like an old well. The rim seemed to have some sort of phosphorescence just inside the outer edge and tracing all the way around. Curious, he went down the steps. As he drew closer the glow seemed to brighten. He stopped beside the wall and squatted down for a closer look.