The car that pulled into his front yard that morning was one that was becoming annoyingly familiar to him. For three days now, the pale blue rental car had made its daily sojourn from Tucker’s Mill, past the steep foothills, and up the western face of Pale Dove Mountain to Fletcher’s cabin. Every day the man who drove that car would stand before the old man and voice his polite, if well-rehearsed, sales pitch, varying each time only by degree of urgency and monetary amount. And every day, like some new chore he had taken on, Fletcher Brice would flatly turn down his generous offer.
Fletcher was nearly finished with his business when he heard the car door slam and the faint drum of the man’s expensive Italian shoes on the dusty boards of the cabin’s front porch. “Mr. Brice?” called that thin, reedy voice that had come to grate on Fletcher’s nerves. “Mr. Brice…are you here, sir?”
“Dadblamed weasel!” grumbled Fletcher. He said that because that was exactly the sort of mammal the man reminded him of. A wiry, shifty-eyed weasel. The fellow had both the look and mannerisms of a chicken-hungry shoat. His expensive clothing seemed to be ill-fitted for his lanky frame, as though no amount of custom tailoring could accommodate his slightness. And he had a twitchy way about him that Fletcher didn’t like. The guy used all the professionalism of a seasoned businessman, but somehow the act didn’t seem to suit him well. It seemed just as uncomplimentary to the man as his fancy duds. It was like someone had taken a common thug off the street, dressed him up in a three-piece suit, and put him in the hierarchy of one of the most powerful corporations in the world. And from what Fletcher had gathered during their brief association, that was precisely what had happened with this shady gentleman.
Fletcher heard him call out again, this time coming around the side of the house. Cussing beneath his breath, the old man reached for the roll of White Cloud that hung from a spool on the wall. He had stopped using corn cobs and pages from the Sears Roebuck catalog long ago. That was one of the few luxuries of progress that Fletcher Brice had allowed himself. Besides, it saved wear and tear on the old hemorrhoids.
He was buttoning the trapdoor on his long underwear and hitching up the straps of his denim overalls when the fellow’s voice came again, this time directly outside. “Mr. Brice…are you in there?” He was so close that Fletcher swore the man could have peeked through the half-moon in the outhouse door if he had approached another step or so.
“Hell, yeah, I’m in here!” said Fletcher. He left the privy in a huff, hoping the door might accidently hit the man as he made his exit. Unfortunately, it missed him by mere inches. “Do you always show up and interrupt a man’s bowel movements?”
“Not if I can help it, sir,” said the fellow apologetically. “You do remember me, don’t you, Mr. Brice? Vincent Russ from the Eco-Plenty Corporation?”
Fletcher frowned sourly. “Reckon I remember you well enough, Mr. Russ. After all, you’ve been showing up around here like a bad penny for half a week now. Whatdya think? I have a touch of that there Alzheimer’s disease or something?”
Vincent Russ smiled patronizingly. “No, sir, I never intended to imply such a thing. I was merely refreshing your memory and wondering if you’ve had sufficient time to consider my last offer.”
Fletcher eyed the man carefully. No small talk this time, strictly down to business. The fellow was getting cagey at striking out three times in a row. He was ready to play financial hardball now. But Fletcher wasn’t one to be bullied by smooth-talking city slickers. “Like I told you before, Mr. Russ. I made up my mind a split second after the first time you asked me. And the answer now is the same as it was then. I just ain’t interested in selling you my land.”
“But you haven’t allowed me time to give you a new set of figures. The company I represent has considered your reluctance and are willing to sweeten the pot a bit.”
“Monday it was fifty thousand dollars,” said Fletcher. He took a plug of tobacco from his bib pocket and shaved off a sliver with a worn pocketknife. He poked the chaw in his left cheek. “Day after that seventy-five and yesterday an even hundred. What’s it gonna be this time?”
“I’ve been authorized to offer you two hundred thousand dollars for all property registered under your name,” said Russ with a smug grin.
“So it’s double the money, huh? Well, I’m mighty sorry to disappoint you, but I still ain’t interested and I ain’t ever gonna be, even if you offer me a million bucks for Pale Dove Mountain. This here is my land, passed on to me by my pappy and generations of Brices before him. It was where I was born and bred and, by God, it’ll be where I die as well.”
However, Russ insisted on pressing the point. “But think of how well you could live on such an amount of money. Never again would you have to live in such squalor. No more drafty cabin, no more walking in rain or snow just to take a crap. You could buy yourself a cozy condominium in Knoxville and still have enough left over to live comfortably for the rest of your life.”
“What makes you think I ain’t living the way I want to?” asked Fletcher in growing irritation. “I ain’t no poor man, Mr. Russ. I’ve got everything I need to make do. I hunt and fish; I grow my own vegetables in the garden over yonder and my own apples and peaches in the orchard. I’ve no need for fancy automobiles, expensive homes, or modern appliances. If I’d chosen to, I could have moved down to town years ago. But I didn’t have the inclination to do so then and I certainly don’t now. So that’s the end of it. You can go on back to your boss and tell him you did your level best, but the stubborn old fart wouldn’t budge an inch. And I’ll thank you for the kind offer and stay put here on the mountain, minding my own business and hoping others have the common courtesy to do the same.”
“If it’s a matter of money, Mr. Brice, I’m sure my superior would consider raising the stakes.”
“Have you got wax in your ears, boy, or are you just plain addle-brained?” the elderly man asked straight out. “I told you before, money ain’t got nothing to do with it. I ain’t selling out and that’s all I gotta say about it.” He passed the fellow and began to walk — with a noticeable limp — to the front of the cabin.
“But surely you’ll give it a little more consideration. We’re not talking hog-trading or pricing a dozen eggs here. This is very important business.”
Fletcher Brice reached the porch and stood there for a moment, regarding the man as if he were some kind of strange-looking bug he couldn’t shoo away. “If you can’t understand the spoken word, Russ, maybe you can understand something else.” He stepped inside the open door of the cabin and, a few seconds later, reappeared. He held an ancient double-barreled shotgun in his hands. “You ever been shot in the seat of the pants with a load of rocksalt, Mr. Russ?”
The weasely fellow said nothing. He just shook his head no, looking a little pale and peaked.
“Well, it’s a sight different than being hit with birdshot, I’m a-telling you. Lead shot smarts and the doctor has to dig it out with tweezers. But rocksalt is just that—salt. It gets in there deep and dissolves and stings like unholy hell on a bad day. A generous load of that stuff in each butt cheek and you’d not be able to sit down comfortably for a solid week.”
“I can’t understand your hostility toward me, Mr. Brice,” said Russ, trying hard to cover the tremor in his voice. “Surely we can come to some mutual agreement like civilized gentlemen.”
Fletcher’s answer became clear as the twin muzzles of the shotgun dropped below the man’s belt buckle. “Have yourself a nice drive back to town, Mr. Russ. And if you get the itch to come back up here, remember these two barrels and what’s loaded behind them. Now, go on and git…and don’t be pestering this old man anymore. You get to feeling bold and brassy again and I’ll give you both the rocksalt and an arrest warrant for trespassing.”
Vincent Russ decided not to pursue the matter any further. He climbed back into the rental car and, turning around in the junk-cluttered front yard, headed back down the mountain road faster than he had arrived, ne
glecting to slow down for muffler-scraping ruts and shock-busting potholes.
“Confounded jackass!” muttered Fletcher. He went back into the cabin and returned the twelve-gauge to its rack over the stone hearth.
The cabin was old but sturdy, having been constructed by Fletcher’s great-grandfather, Efram Brice, a decade or so before the Civil War. The heavy logs were seasoned by age, dovetailed at the ends, and packed in between by chinking of rock hard clay. The cedar-shingled roof had been replaced around the Great Depression by one of sheet tin and a hardwood floor substituted for what had once been bare earth. The structure was rather small in size, consisting of only two rooms. One was partly a kitchen and partly a room for sitting, furnished with a hand-built table and chairs, a cabinet for dishes, and two cane-backed rockers sitting before the fireplace. The second room was a large bedroom. When his daughter, Jennifer, had grown up there, he had curtained off half of the chamber to provide some privacy. In recent years it had become a lonely place to live. Both Jenny and Fletcher’s wife, Lucille, were gone now—his daughter to her own life in the crowded metropolis of Memphis and his spouse to her deserved reward in the great hereafter.
Fletcher was planning on going out and digging a little ginseng that morning. He knew a man over in Knoxville who would pay eighty dollars for an even pound of the medicinal root and knew where there was a whole mountain hollow full of the plant. His left leg was stiff and had pained him a bit since he woke up — a childhood injury he’d just soon not dwell on — but he was bound and determined not to let it slow him down. He was getting a burlap sack out of the pantry closet and a tool to do the digging with when he heard something stirring near the rear door of the cabin. He could hear the faint sound of footsteps in the soft spring clover, then the thud of something being dropped to the ground.
The old man backtracked to the fireplace and retrieved his shotgun. If that was Russ sneaking around out there, he was going to fill his drawers with hard salt and without prior warning this time. But as he reached the back door and saw what laid in the yard outside, he knew that his visitor was not the lackey from the big urban corporation.
No, this particular trespasser was not the type you chased away with threats of rocksalt and the county sheriff.
He caught a quick glimpse of something as it ducked behind the tool shed. He set his weapon aside and stepped out into the yard. He couldn’t quite tell what it had been. All he did know was that it was big and shadowy. And he sure didn’t intend on running out there, hell-bent on finding out what it was.
Fletcher turned his attention to the thing the intruder had left on the grass of his backyard. It was a pure albino fox, breathing irregularly and near death. He stood over the animal and watched, without apparent surprise, as the critter went through its erratic change, switching from one form to another. With a crackling noise that always reminded Fletcher of dry bones rattling in a casket, the creature turned from fox, to deer, to bird, to snake. The only constant in its entire appearance was the pale hue of its hide or plumage. That and the neat little hole in its chest, a .30 caliber from the size of it.
The creature had probably caught the bullet during the shooting Fletcher had heard the previous night. Those albinos had a strange and stubborn way about them; they clung onto life something fierce. He had seen some of them suffer wounds that would have killed a grown man instantly and still take several hours before they finally upped and died. Even as he considered that, the thing at his feet gave up the ghost, surrendering after a long and agonizing struggle. Fletcher watched as it changed for the very last time, settling into its true size and shape.
Fletcher went back into the house and came out with the burlap bag he had intended for his ginseng digging. Reluctantly, he reached out and picked up the albino creature. After all those years on the mountain, Fletcher still got the creeps watching the albinos’ strange transformation and the sight of their true likeness. In fact, it was safe to say that he was the only living man who knew what the creatures actually looked like, and probably would be until he died.
With a grimace, he flipped the dead critter into the bag and cinched it up with twine. Then he hiked up the pathway in the direction of the fruit orchard that grew along the western side of the mountain. He went to the tool shed and found a shovel. When he shut the door and continued on up the trail, he chanced a glance behind the shed. The thing that had hidden there moments before was now gone.
He reached the orchard and picked a shady spot beneath a blossoming peach tree. After digging a hole three feet deep, he tossed the sack in and then covered it with earth. All the time, Fletcher was aware of eyes upon him—curious eyes watching his every move. The uneasy sensation was not a new one for the old man. He had lived his entire life subjected to that unseen gaze and had grown to ignore it as much as possible, although never completely. There was always an element of underlying danger in that feeling of scrutiny. An element of not knowing exactly where he stood in regards to the thing that clung to the shadows.
After the task had been performed, Fletcher removed his hat and said a short prayer over the grave. When he had capped it off with a solemn “Amen,” he turned and surveyed his surroundings. It took a little while, but he finally found what he was looking for. The shape was black and indistinct, tucked deep in the sun-speckled shade at the back of the fruit orchard. It did not move, but simply crouched there in a patch of dense shadow, watching him quietly.
“Right nice funeral, if I do say so myself,” said Fletcher aloud. “Wanna add anything to the eulogy?”
A low growl from the shadows told him that the thing wanted to remain as it had throughout the burial—an invisible mourner. Also, the utterance was in no way menacing. Rather, it held a distinct tone of satisfaction. It approved of the simple ceremony Fletcher Brice had provided. And the old man found himself breathing a little easier because of that.
Fletcher turned to go back down the pathway, then glanced over his shoulder. “Something I’m a mite curious about,” he said to the obscure form in the orchard. “That godawful commotion I heard in the middle of the night…did it have anything to do with the man who shot this here critter?”
Again the thing answered, this time with a contented, if unnerving, purr.
“I figured as much,” said Fletcher, before continuing on his way.
Halfway back to the cabin, he heard the sound of something very large and cumbersome moving through the trees of the orchard, ascending the sloping face of the mountain, toward the lofty peak. He considered looking back, but refrained from giving in to the urge.
As he went back about his business, he thought of the midnight poacher, of the awful screams and the horrible way he must have died. And Fletcher Brice vowed, right then and there, that he would never give the Dark’Un just cause to regard him in such disastrous and unforgiving terms.
Chapter Two
Jennifer Brice stood on the deck of a paddlewheel riverboat and looked across the muddy Mississippi at the sparkling nightlights of Memphis.
A warm breeze fluttered through her long, blonde hair and plastered the white silk of her evening gown against her petite body. It was a comfortable and familiar sensation, a part of herself that she preferred to keep hidden recalled simpler days. Days of a barefooted country girl running through the spring trees with the blustery wind of April on her skin and the scent of wildflowers in her nose.
But then that had been a long time ago and such memorable days had been few and far between. She pushed the greenery of eastern Tennessee from her mind and turned her thoughts back to the glittering lights of the southern city she now called home. Memphis—a thriving commercial mecca overlooking the most legendary river in America, the birthplace of Beale Street and the blues and, most noteworthy, the home of the original rock-and-roller, Elvis Presley.
That night was a special one for Jenny Brice. Earlier that evening, she had attended a special art showing at a Memphis museum. That in itself would not have been unique; she had be
en to many since claiming a job in a local art gallery five years ago. But this showing had been different. It had showcased some very special work—her work. An exhibit of thirty paintings had occupied the center floor of the museum’s fine arts section, rubbing shoulders with the works of the great masters. All were paintings that she had done since her arrival in the city—paintings that she had created out of some strange inner compulsion, certain that they would never leave the dark confines of her apartment closet, let alone be viewed in public.
They were not the usual fare of today’s art lovers. No stark impressionist or modern renderings, no colorful and lifelike landscapes. Instead, the canvases that adorned the debut showing were of wildlife, though of a very unique kind. They were all albino in nature. A variety of woodland creatures adorned the collection of paintings: deer, rabbit, reptiles, and birds, all with snow-white coats and blazing pink eyes. Even the natural scenery of foliage, wildflowers, and thorny thicket bore the same colorless hues as the subjects they surrounded.
Jenny had mingled with the gathering of admirers—among them the wealthy and affluent of Memphis society—and had watched their reactions with nervous anticipation. They did not appraise each work and then quickly pass on to the next, as most people will do with wildlife artwork. Rather, they seemed to stand and stare at each painting, transfixed by the soulful pink eyes of the surreal creatures. It was if they were unwillingly absorbed within a secret world that transcended the physical boundaries of oil and stretched canvas. Jenny had been aware of such a profound experience while painting the pictures, using no models other than those that existed in her own mind. But she had never suspected that her disturbing creations might awaken a similar response in others. They had, though, inspiring some patrons to display emotions that they would have never thought of revealing in public—emotions such as awe, sorrow, rapture, and yes, even a sense of underlying unease and fear.
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