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Authors: Peg Kehret

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BOOK: Nightmare Mountain
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Seven

“You couldn’t mind your own business, could you, Miss Snoop?”

The man stood with his back to the doorway of the barn, glaring at her.

“I wasn’t snooping,” Molly said. “I just went for a hike. I didn’t know where you were or what you were doing.”

“Now you know,” he said. “And maybe it’s just as well. You kids can help me load the rest of those llamas.”

Glendon’s feet swung over the edge of the loft and he started down the ladder.

“He has a gun,” Molly warned.

Glendon got to the bottom and turned to face the man. “Are
you
the one who stole Merrylegs?” he asked.

Molly looked at Glendon. Did he know this man?

“I didn’t steal anything,” the man said.

“Yes, you did,” Molly said. “It was you out here last night with a flashlight, wasn’t it? You were putting Merrylegs in your truck when the ambulance came and then you went roaring out with no lights on and almost killed me.”

“Get moving,” the man said, and he motioned with the gun toward the door of the barn. “We aren’t here to discuss last night. I need help loading the rest of those animals and you’re going to give it to me.”

Molly glanced at Glendon and then started out the door.

“Move it!” the man snarled behind her and Glendon scurried out, too.

Molly headed toward the path but the man said, “Not that way. We’ll take the lift; it’s faster.”

It was designed to be a chair lift for skiers, but all of the chairs were gone. Where two of them were supposed to be, Uncle Phil had attached a metal grill, about four feet by six feet. It was suspended by chains on each corner. How did this man know about the lift?

Molly took one look at the lift and blanched. All her life, she’d been bothered by heights. Once when Molly’s fourth grade class went on a tour of an ice cream company, Molly had been unable to go with the others to the observation deck to see the ice cream put into cartons.
Partway up the open metal steps, she had to turn back and wait for her classmates down below.

Her fear of heights embarrassed and annoyed her but it was too real to be ignored. It wasn’t a matter of will power; it was a matter of getting sick with fear and she was quite sure if she had to ride that lift up the mountain, she would be sick.

“You expect me to ride on that?” she said, as she stared at the cable high overhead.

The man and Glendon got on the metal grill but Molly stayed where she was.

“Couldn’t I walk instead?” she asked.

The man’s only reply was to motion with his head toward the lift. There was no choice. Reluctantly, Molly got on, too. The man flipped the switch and the lift lurched upward.

It was like riding on a huge swing, far above the earth. The ground quickly dropped away beneath the grill and there was nothing to hang on to for support. Afraid she might faint, Molly sat down on the grill. The metal cables creaked loudly, making her even more apprehensive.

The lift moved swiftly up the side of the mountain; the ground below them seemed farther and farther away.

Molly remembered once when she rode the Ferris wheel at the county fair and was so terrified she had to close her eyes for the entire ride. This lift was far worse
than any Ferris wheel. At least the Ferris wheel went around and around, coming back toward the ground as often as it went upward. The lift went only one direction—up. She saw the tops of some fir trees far below, and she closed her eyes.

By the time they reached the llama pasture and lurched to a stop, Molly was sweating and her stomach threatened to erupt. The man and Glendon stepped off the lift and turned to look at her. She swallowed hard, trying to control her nausea, and then stood up. With shaky legs, she stepped off the lift. It felt wonderful to feel something solid, even a snowbank, under her feet again. Molly vowed never, under any circumstances, to ride that lift again. It might be perfectly safe and maybe her fear of heights was unreasonable but she could see no reason to put herself through such torture just to save a little time and effort. It would have been far easier for her to climb up the mountain on foot.

“That’s Dad’s truck,” Glendon said when they rounded the curve past arrowhead boulder. “Who gave you permission to take our truck?”

“I don’t need permission,” the man said.

As they approached the parked truck, two llamas watched them curiously. Both animals stood near the back of the truck, as if they wondered why the other llama was in it. When the humans approached, the llamas
moved away, staying close together and watching the people warily.

“It’s Pretty Girl,” Glendon said, when he saw the llama that was already tied up. “You’re taking Pretty Girl.”

“And that spotted one, too,” the man said, pointing to the brown and white llama that he’d been trying to catch when Molly found him.

“Not Soapsy!” Glendon said. “She’s my 4-H project. I’m keeping a journal about her. You can’t steal Soapsy!”

“I’m not stealing anything,” the man said. “I’m only taking what rightfully belongs to me.”

“None of these llamas belong to you!” Glendon cried. “Not anymore.”

So Glendon did know the thief. Had Uncle Phil bought some of the llamas from this man? Did Uncle Phil still owe the man money and the man was taking the llamas as a way to have his debt repaid, the way a car might be repossessed?

“You circle around the far side,” the man said, completely ignoring Glendon’s objections, “and herd the spotted one over in this direction.” He turned to Molly. “You stay by the truck and make sure she doesn’t run past it and get down the path.”

Molly stood where he pointed and tried to think how they might escape. She wished she and Glendon could talk to each other alone.

Maybe we can stall, Molly thought. Maybe we should deliberately not catch the spotted llama. If it takes too long to catch the animals, Uncle Phil will come back home and discover we’re missing and come looking for us. If the spotted llama came toward her, maybe she should let it go past.

Then she remembered the gun. The man had tucked it into the top of his jeans, with the handle sticking out. If she purposely let one of the llamas get past her, there was no telling what the man would do.

Mom had told her once that if she ever was faced by someone who was armed, to do what they said and not take a chance on getting killed.

Glendon skirted the llamas and disappeared from her sight.

Molly walked closer to the truck and looked inside. The keys dangled from the ignition. Too bad I’m not the one who knows how to drive, she thought. The man was on the far side of the pasture now, almost to the fence and the clump of trees that stretched upward into the deeper snow. Molly could easily jump into the truck and take off. But what about Glendon? No matter how much she disliked her cousin, she couldn’t leave him behind.

Besides, she didn’t know the first thing about driving a truck. Trying to do so would be foolish, no matter how tempted she was.

Molly untied her sweater and put it back on. The sun
was lower in the sky and now that she wasn’t climbing, she was cold. They had better get the llamas loaded soon or it would be getting dark and she certainly didn’t want to try to maneuver her way down the mountain trail in the dark.

She watched as the man approached one of the llamas. The animal looked at him suspiciously, moving a few steps backward each time the man was almost close enough to touch it. The man’s jaw was clenched and his eyes were hard; he didn’t try to talk to the llama or coax it to come to him.

Molly remembered how Uncle Phil had crooned to Merrylegs and how Merrylegs hummed in return. Uncle Phil even touched noses with Merrylegs when he first entered her pen and he’d explained to Molly that llamas greet each other that way. “It’s an honor if a llama wants to touch noses with you,” he said.

She was quite sure this man would not feel honored if one of the llamas tried to touch noses with him. For someone who apparently had once owned llamas, he didn’t seem to know anything about handling the animals. Molly didn’t think he liked animals much and she suspected that the llamas could sense his feelings. Maybe that’s why they were so skittish with him. If he would be gentle and talk softly to them instead of trying to lasso them like a herd of wild horses, they might respond better.

The book Uncle Phil gave her said when llamas are attacked, they sometimes spit a vile-smelling green cud at their attacker. It sounded stinky and gooey. This man had better be careful or he’d have cud in his face.

She looked again at the keys to the truck. With the man on the far side of the pasture, and his attention on the spotted llama, she was certain she could get them. If she had the truck keys, then all she would need was an opportunity to slip them to Glendon.

Before the man could drive away, he would have to remove the wooden ramp that led from the ground to the bed of the truck. Maybe while he detached the ramp, she and Glendon could hop in the truck and drive off, leaving the thief behind.

It wasn’t the best plan in the world, but it was the only one Molly could think of.

She edged closer to the truck, keeping one eye on the man. She stood beside the cab, on the driver’s side, and slowly opened the door.

The man wasn’t paying any attention to her. His eyes were focused on Soapsy, the spotted llama. Each time he got close to her, the llama moved away from him.

Molly eased the truck door open, quickly reached inside, jerked the keys out of the ignition, and shut the door again, closing it softly just until it clicked and held.

The man had his back to her, still moving toward Soapsy. Molly put the keys in her sweater pocket and
immediately wondered what would happen if the man found them there. When he tried to leave and the keys were gone, he’d suspect her first. What if he searched her pockets and found the keys? What would he do to her?

She decided it would be wiser to hide the keys somewhere. That way, the man couldn’t prove that she took them; he might think he dropped them himself. If she and Glendon had an opportunity to escape, she would still know where the keys were.

There was a flat rock, about the size of a dinner plate, just behind her. A scrubby bush grew beside it. Molly bent down, lifted the rock, and laid the keys underneath it. She’d know which rock to look under because of the bush.

She resumed her position near the truck, trying to look nonchalant, as if she’d just been standing there all along.

She wondered what the man intended to do with her and Glendon after they got the other llama on the truck. Surely he didn’t plan to take them with him while he sold the llamas. But he couldn’t very well leave them here, either, since they knew what he was doing and Glendon apparently knew who he was.

He’d already heard her say she was going to call the sheriff. He wouldn’t want to let her do that, even if he had a big head start. He had to drive back toward town—the road didn’t go the other direction—and he surely
wouldn’t want to meet the sheriff before he got to the highway.

A new thought struck her. The man did have a gun, after all. And they were in an isolated area where no people ever came. What if he chose not to take her and Glendon along and not to leave them here, where they were free to call for help, either? What if he . . .

No. It was too horrible to think about. A body hidden here on the mountainside might not be discovered for weeks. Months! Mom might never know what happened to her.

Molly wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans.

Glendon walked slowly toward the truck, talking softly to the spotted llama. “Good Soapsy,” he said. “Nice Soapsy girl.”

The llama stayed a step or two in front of him. She seemed to be listening but she wasn’t willing to let him touch her.

Molly stood firmly in the center of the path, ready to block Soapsy, if necessary. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the man approaching, crouching low so that the truck would keep him out of Soapsy’s sight.

When Glendon had the llama almost to the ramp of the truck, the man lunged at her and slipped a rope over her head. The startled llama cried out—and Molly recognized the sound as the same kind of alarm call she’d heard coming from the barn the night before.

“You don’t have to scare her like that,” Glendon said. “She would have walked up the ramp by herself.”

The man didn’t answer. He was busy tying the rope to the slatted sides of the truck.

Molly tried to get Glendon’s attention. She wanted to whisper to him to get in the truck and she’d get the keys and they’d take off alone, but Glendon’s attention was firmly fixed on the man. Molly saw hatred in Glendon’s eyes again but this time it was not aimed at her; it was directed at the tall man.

“I think we can get one more on this load,” the man said.

“No, you can’t,” Glendon said.

“I’m giving the orders here, not you.”

“Those other two are new arrivals. They’re young and they’ve never been on a lead. It took us over an hour just to herd them up to this pasture. There’s no way we can catch them before it gets dark.”

The man looked around, as if noticing for the first time how late in the day it was. He took another length of rope out of the truck and turned to Molly and Glendon.

BOOK: Nightmare Mountain
12.98Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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