Killing Mountain

It was still dark when Big Sol walked off the mountain, the heavy Remington rifle gripped firmly in his hands. He snaked through tall pine and tight poplars until he found the dirt road that bent toward the town and an empty mile later, passed through the gray outskirts of broken shacks, the street vacant save for a few horses tied to railings. Further down, he found the doc’s weathered shingle. The sun was aflame on the horizon and a few birds pierced the sky with their early cries when a gunshot from inside broke the morning wide open. Big Sol emerged, the Remington smoking on his hip, a satchel of elixirs, medicine bottles and bandages in hand. From across the street, the fat Marshall trotted halfway toward him, pulling at his face and suspenders with one hand and fumbling a pistol with the other and as he opened his mouth in recognition, half his head disappeared in a red mist from the erupting rifle.

Big Sol crossed to the saloon, came out a few minutes later with bottles of whisky and bourbon clinking in his satchel. As he stepped into the street, a young deputy in a long coat emerged from a building to his right, stumbled to a railing, pistol drawn, fired once… then again. The Remington’s return fire unhinged the deputy’s leg at the knee, setting it free to dangle and the man tilted and bowed as if in a difficult dance, leaned headfirst over the railing and stayed still.

Big Sol ran the cold gray light to the spot along the road a mile up, turned into the trees and began the climb. An hour later, he sat in the silent cabin, the useless elixirs and bandages strewn across the wooden table. He uncapped another bottle of whiskey from the satchel and guzzled until his throat hurt; on a corner cot, Tall Tom lay as stiff and cold as those left in town.

A lone candle dwindled down as night crept about the cabin. Big Sol succumbed quickly to the alcohol’s bite, slumped in his chair and dozed. What had happened earlier that morning in town was now a blur. Yes, he’d taken down the doctor and the lawmen. The old doc had refused to give him anything.
“Need to ‘git him down here,” he’d wheezed.
“We take care of our own… I’ll take only what I need,” Sol had replied and turned for the doctor’s medicine cabinet. The sudden click of a cocked revolver caught his ear and Big Sol had dipped, turned and fired. A reaction… self-defense… desperation? He didn’t know for sure.

His mind reeled as the liquor settled deeper and he thought briefly about the lawmen. What had they expected? The odds had been on their side. They’d bet and bought in and paid heavily for it.

Cascading images from the previous day now washed headlong to the surface. Tall Tom hadn’t stood a chance - no by god - hadn’t deserved the death he was handed. The bear had surprised them, crashed out of a thick clot of heavy bramble as they approached their cabin. Boot, their old wolf dog had raced up from the river, leapt for the bear’s throat, tore at its flank then attacked its massive bulk from all sides. But the bear had returned the damage two-fold, thrown Boot away ripped and bleeding in the fuming dirt. Tall Tom had scrambled, stumbled over his own long feet as he tried to make for the cabin but the bear, quick as lightning, took him down. Weaponless, Sol stood frozen and for a moment everything stopped and the bear had looked up, stared into his eyes.
“Don’t…” Sol thought.
But the bear - as if reading his mind – did, closed his jaws evenly around Tall Tom’s head. Big Sol ran for the cabin, for his rifle by the door. Behind him, the sound of thrashing filled his ears. He sprung from the porch, rifle cocked and ready but the bear was gone. Tall Tom lay sprawled in a twist of torn rags, a sea of blood forming in the dirt around his head.

Take care of our own. Big Sol looked at Tall Tom, his younger brother cold and still in the corner, at Boot beneath a blanket on the floor next to him. It had been the three of them for a while now and here he was, suddenly alone. He remembered their ma saying the Lord wouldn’t ever give more than one could handle, that there was a purpose and reason for everything and when the Lord took her violently and unexpectedly, he had tried hard - real hard - to understand it. He had shouted to the emptiness of the mountain, to the silence of the sky, cursed her God for an answer. Why had he allowed such terrible loss to happen? What more could he handle?

The Lord had stayed silent.

They’d moved from the town, away from the cemetery that held both parents, settled in the old cabin their grandfather had built further up the mountain toward the snow tops. There they started a simple life and it was the way it was, the solitude of the wilderness soul cleansing, the pain receding as they began to heal and rebuild. Then one day the Lord unexpectedly came calling, sent Big Sol an answer.

He sent the bear.

He sat in the dark and drained another bottle of whisky, his brain yielding fully to the dull numbness. He waited for God’s next move. The law would eventually come for him, God-fearing folk they were. He could hear the bear just outside, closing in, its growl filling the emptiness of the cabin and his heart with what sounded like garbled words. Is that you Lord? The next move would be the final one. Rifle on his lap, Big Sol tried to make out the words, listened intently for the answer. What else was a sixteen year old to do?

The Incident

“Got two little girls missing,” Sheriff Meeks says, nodding back to the Hables standing separate on the porch. “Look for anything… everything… any clue.”

Behind the farmhouse, thin trees along the fogging distance wait on us, black scratch marks against a slate colored sky. It’s as quiet as the dead. Our formed line wobbles, each of us eight to ten feet apart like we were told, eyes on the ground over Len Hable’s furrowed field. In summer, this farmland is tall and friendly, walls of wheat that wave right back at you - so full of life - but not this autumn day.

Black crows hop about the upturned soil, sift through collateral debris in search of their own evidence of life, and warily bounce away as we approach. Kathleen Hable stumbles up behind our line, Sheriff Meeks’s hand at her elbow like she might fall. Her worn linen coat doesn’t seem enough for this brisk day but she wouldn’t wait. The wind sends wisps of thin blonde hair searching around her face, catching in the crooked ravine of her open mouth. Len Hable is down at the stationhouse, answering questions along with several men who work his farm.
“Just routine,” Sheriff Meeks tells Kathleen with a stare, the same stare he gave all of us who volunteered to search.

Stevie Fenwick who works at Burwell’s Hardware sidles along next to me, adjusts the collar of his seam-sealed fleece jacket and tucks his neck down inside like a turtle, causing his glasses to fog. “Them girls just didn’t up and disappear. Think someone took ‘em.” It doesn’t come across as a question. The Jeremy brothers flank opposite. They’ve come over from their farm three miles up wearing down hunting vests, one blue plaid, one plain red, to tell them apart I suppose but I’m not that familiar with their names anyway, only know one’s been in trouble with the law off and on and I think it’s odd he’s out here in the shadow of the sheriff.

A lot of folks turned out to help. Farming neighbors and townies alike, members of the church, several high school kids, a few from the grain exchange. There are some I don’t recognize. My gaze lingers for a second. It’s bad business this. Brings out the best and worst in everyone.

***************************************

From the trees, the missing girls watch the bobbing line of advancing adults. Missy Hable wears a petulant, six-year-old frown. It’s getting dark and the incident from earlier that morning has almost been forgotten.
“I wonder if we’re in trouble?”
“You are,” her younger sister says, eyes dead tired shooting down on the approaching specter of their mother. She wanders away, out of the woods.

Sea Monsters

The boy woke, eyes half-glued shut, cracked lips sealed in brine, his throat a painful parchment rattle. Above, the high rise pitch of gulls. The boy’s sun-baked face pillowed against a naked forearm and his eyes rested on the slow undulation of the distant dark line. Through the sleepy blur, blue met deeper blue along a horizon’s straight edge. The easy sway of the empty dinghy closed his mind down again, rocked him, cupped and cradled like a newborn. He fell back to sleep.

He dreamt he was standing on the dock. His father was already on board the Sea Giant, doodling over a map while Carol waited on a shaded bench below, dabbing at the face in a compact mirror. “For Christ’s sake Dallas,” she said, “is the kid coming or not?” “Come on Denny,” his father said. “Get your damn ass on board. Don’t keep your step-mother waiting.”

He didn’t want to go. In another dream - a real-life one - his mom had disappeared while on the water with his father. ”A devastating accident,“ Dallas had convinced the police. Her body was never found. And soon after his father was seeing Carol. In dreams, he heard his mother’s fading voice calling out his name, warning that this dream would not end well.

The open sea frightened him and what lurked along its vast bottom, in deep trenches scared him more. His sixth grade History book was full of imaginative stories and drawings, depictions of creatures grappling long cable-thick tentacles over wooden boats as terrified sailors looked to the skies… ocean-wide whirlpools boiling beneath calm seas… flat-headed serpents coiling to the surface, maws open wide. He had no trouble imagining any of it. And now in the dream, they were on the water, the Sea Giant humming straight as an arrow toward a targeted horizon. His father was drunk and arguing with Carol, a cold smirk crossing his face. And when he lowered his voice and looked Denny’s way, it was the look of an unfathomable creature and it scared him more than anything he could ever have imagined.

Carol was crying and he almost felt sorry for her until he saw it in her eyes, knew she was on board with what his father had planned. They were fish eyes, round and glossy-wet, compassionless. She looked at him, mouthed, ‘I’m not your mother… never will be… I’m not the one abandoning you,’ her words trailing as she watched Dallas approaching, one arm lingering behind his back. The sea was quiet. The sun saw with its great glowering eye. Then came the sudden boom from below water.

When Denny opened his eyes again, the light was gone. He looked up to the dark beauty of a berry blue ceiling; there seemed to be more stars than sky. It was quiet but for the lap of black water, the cool wind whispering over the contoured surface of the dinghy. He rolled onto his side, leaned up on one elbow, his thoughts wrapped in cotton, his face sore from sunburn and dehydration. Rubbing a swollen eye, he tried to focus on the shape draped over the bow - a flotation device or some sort of gear he thought. Blinking, he focused again and caught his breath; it was the shape of a man’s face and a whimper of ‘Da’ escaped him; when he saw its white teeth flash in the blue moonlight, he lost all consciousness.

In the dream, Denny sat in the dinghy, the cold aluminum seat biting into his bare legs. His father stood on the deck of the Sea Giant. He was reeling and yelling at Carol, screaming for her to get into the dinghy, screaming at Denny to get back on board. Carol sat terrified, unmovable. The dingy swayed as the boat rumbled, pushed away. A deep breaking sound from below the water shook the vessel, rolled it quickly, Dallas’s eyes widening, big as Texas and he grabbed for Carol as the Sea Giant went under, suctioned down, quicker than lightning to ground.

It was still dark when Denny woke. His eyes were slits, puffy, and it was difficult to see in the shadowy moonlight. He was lying on his back on the bottom of the dinghy. His body ached, his muscles wrapped in deep heat and he tried to sit up, found he was unable to move. The sensation of a small hand - a woman’s hand he thought - cradled the back of his head, tilting it forward and another hand was bringing a vial of liquid to his mouth. “Mom?” he croaked and a soft garbled voice sang in his ear, ‘drink this.’

As he tilted his head he made out the shape of someone saddled on the edge of the bow. It was a man, the face from earlier, body in silhouette, a black arm extended pointing a long forked staff straight out to sea, toward the brightest star in the southern constellation. There was splashing about in the water, what sounded like fish jumping, tails smacking and he sensed the dinghy moving quickly through the water. There was music - or what sounded of music - though none that he had ever heard before and the more he listened, the more it sounded like a tubular call coming not from a shore but from far below. And he wanted to go down. Eyes heavy, he wanted to go deep.

The fishing boat found him at daylight. The boy was cocooned, wrapped in dry kelp up to his neck, a nest of seaweed sprouting and coiled Medusa-like behind his head. His face was covered with small iridescent scales that flaked and dropped from his skin leaving it smooth and brown. The puffiness was gone from his eyes; they were now clear and smiling. Dolphins cut through the surface around the dinghy, watched, talked. The fishermen marveled at the sight, at the breathing boy, at the turbulent water receding far below.

This Cab Goes Out To The Styx

The big guy drops into my cab midway up Acheron. I’m thinking he’s drunk ‘cause he don’t look so good, his body ripped like a North-End bus seat, all nooks and crannies in oiled leather, babbling on and on with a full mouth of grumble, explaining how he just whacked some dude, how it’s part of the job, you know - mob-work – all shameful-bravado - but he’s holding his guts like something’s going to spill out - looks wet and shiny back there in the dark.

He says his name is Gregor but his friends call him by his nickname, ‘The Fuse’ and I want to say, “why, you got a short one” but he looks the type that might take it the wrong way, though it don’t matter to me ‘cause I’m just driving and doing my part here.

And he goes on and on - as do the dark streets - telling the tales that I know so well, the ones I listen to every day as they pay and play with twists and turns, shortcuts and back roads, the sorrow and the bluster endlessly swirling around like garbage in the street.

“Hey, Buddy,” he says finally, “you were supposed to make a right back there”, and I can see his eyes flash as he reads my ID card on the dash and then he’s mouthing, “ya you, Boatman… you missed my stop” but I know better, don’t say nothing.

All I hope is, he’s got the fare when we get to the river.

Inside Outside In

We stay beneath the wood behind the man and woman’s house, Bella by my side, his black fur sleek and shiny. We wait patiently while the man and woman leave food and milk, slip away a distance to watch, their eyes warm like the sun.

The sky is metal gray when two are born beneath the wood; there is not enough room when the rain falls hard and cold, water runs in narrow muddy rivers around us, the two embedded in my thick fur, Bella embedded in a curl, his fur thin and matted, falling away.

The man’s eyes are red. He looks down when he tells the woman he has taken Bella across the river to a place where he will have a chance.

Now a stranger with cold eyes has come and taken the two, telling the man with red eyes a similar lie.

Everyday, I look for Bella and the two, searching the familiar places, searching until the sun has gone and when the sun has gone again, the man takes me.

They watch from another room in the warm house. I sleep on a dry blanket and dream of Bella and the two who are here with me now, not by my side but finally inside.