Wild Mountain

by Nancy Kilgore

  The first message was from Erica. She and Jake were doing a day hike, and she’d be back tonight. The second was from Mona. “Hey, Frank,” she said, her voice rich and open. He sensed that something had changed since he’d seen her the other day. “Do you want to come over for dinner?”

  He punched the counter and raised his fist. “Yes!”

  “There’s a select board meeting tonight,” she went on, “and I thought maybe you’d like to come with me.”

  His fist dropped. The bridge vote. In his excitement about Gus, he’d almost forgotten.

  He sat down in his rocking chair and opened the book Stone Chambers in Sharon and South Royalton. If he could only figure out who had built these stone circles and caves. This book said that the Indians had built them—the early natives of New England, like the Abenaki. But then he’d found an Abenaki scholar on the Internet who said that the Indians didn’t build things out of stone. More likely, he said, these structures were Neolithic, made by ancient peoples—Celts who had traveled to this continent long before Columbus, and brought their traditions from Ireland.

  On his way out the door, Frank noticed a pile of mail on the table. Erica must have gone to the mailbox. Placed on top of the pile was a postcard with no picture, but some big, bold lettering:

  GO HOME, FLATLANDER

  Whoa. On the other side, nothing but his address. Damn. He’d thought he was winning friends and influencing people. He put it in his bag to show Mona.

  When he arrived at Mona’s door, Boris flew around the corner, jumped up on him with sniffing and joyful barking, and dropped a tennis ball at his feet. “Hello, buddy.” Frank bent down and ruffled the soft black fur. He picked up the tennis ball and threw it across the side yard. Boris leapt on the ball and brought it back, dropped it at Frank’s feet, and sat and looked up at Frank.

  “You know what happens with this game.” Mona stood in front of the open door, hands on her hips. She was wearing a magenta silk blouse, skintight black jeans, and a wry smile.

  Frank almost dropped the ball.

  Mona’s pale face glowed in the evening light, and her body shimmered—an otherworldly combination, magical, like a bioluminescent sea at twilight, Marlene Dietrich in soft focus.

  “I’ll just throw it once more.” This time, he heaved it with all his might, Al Smith in the outfield. Boris dashed away.

  Frank stepped inside to a savory aroma. “Mmm,” he said. “Chicken?”

  “Yeah. I’m not much of a cook, but this was my mom’s recipe.” Mona’s house was pre-Victorian, with low ceilings and small rooms, everything in diminutive except the sofa in the middle of the living room. Two small windows faced the front, toward the river; two others faced the side yard. The bamboo shades on the front windows were pulled halfway down, and the western sun streamed through and under them into the room.

  Frank stepped over to a floor-to-ceiling shelving unit that was completely filled with rocks: a variety of shapes and sizes, from pebbles to one as big as a bowling ball, in textures that were smooth or rough, and a range of colors from black to gray to terra cotta. He picked up a stone flecked with crystal quartz. “Where’d you get all of these?”

  “Mostly around here,” she said. “Some from an old mica mine over in West Paris, and some of them are from the river.”

  “What about these?” he asked, putting down the quartz and picking up two lumpy, fist-sized stones, one white with pale green streaks, and the other speckled black and white.

  “Oh!” Mona’s face lit up. “Let me show you.” She opened a cupboard door beneath the shelf, took out a rectangular lamp, and plugged in the cord. She picked up one of the stones and directed the light onto it. The white stone immediately glowed a bright, eerie rose. The black-and-white stone was flecked with yellow, but when held under the black light, it shone pink, the flecks glowing an iridescent green. “They’re phosphorescent—franklinite, calcite, and willemite—and they’re only found in Franklin, New Jersey. I went down there with my dad one time.”

  “Very cool,” said Frank. As she switched off the lamp and put it back into the cupboard, he touched the other stones, feeling their textures and examining their colors. “Did any of these come from up at Gus’s place?”

  “Yes, Gus gave me that pyramid-shaped one on the right.” Mona sat down on the overstuffed sofa that faced the fireplace. In front of her, on the coffee table, was a bottle of red wine, two glasses, and a plate of crackers and cheese. She poured wine into the glasses, then picked up one, holding it stationary in midair. “Wait a minute!” She put the glass down and jumped up, rushed over to the shelf, and picked up the pyramid-shaped stone. “I wonder—”

  “You wonder what?”

  “They said they found some triangular stones at the fire site. Religious relics, Luke called them. They said it was evidence that Gus was there.” The stone in Mona’s hand was smooth and triangular, like a pyramid with rounded edges, an indistinct knob at the top. She handed it to Frank.

  It was just a plain stone, something that could easily be overlooked if you walked by it on a path, but the shape felt like a woman in a robe. “This,” he said, “looks like the carvings of the Arawak goddess of fertility that I saw when I was in the Turks and Caicos.”

  “A goddess. That would fit with Gus’s thing about Anu. She sounds like some kind of spirit or goddess.”

  “And that’s what I was going to tell you! I was up there today, and I think he has it all worked out. It makes more sense than it appears to.”

  “How so?”

  “Anu is like the benevolent female goddess, he said, stationed there because it’s a power point, like Stonehenge. And Gus believes that the lesbians are actually a positive force in the world, contributing to female healing power, or something like that. But that’s what he’s thinking when he mutters about lesbians.”

  She turned the stone around in her hand. “So, that’s what these stones represent? Female healing power?”

  “Yes, and also why he would put them at the fire site.”

  “Like some kind of talisman to ward off evil.” She put the stone back on the shelf. “Luke and Cappy thought he put the stones there as a curse. This is just the opposite.”

  “They can’t convict him when they understand this.”

  She smiled that completely open smile again, her heart shining through her eyes. “You are superb!”

  “Well…” her praise seemed a little exaggerated, but it felt good. “I guess I’ll bask in that for a while.”

  They sat down on the sofa and sipped in silence. Frank put down his glass. “So, who do you think started the fire?”

  Mona’s face darkened just as quickly as it had shone a minute before. She was quiet and tense, struggling with something. Finally, she spoke. “I’m afraid my ex had something to do with it.”

  “Your ex? John O. Duval? The guy with the gun?”

  Mona began to tremble. “There was an incident.”

  “An incident?”

  Haltingly, she told him about the car ride, the rescue by Roz and Heather, and Luke’s reaction. “I think Luke is going to take it seriously—the possibility that he did it.”

  Frank was uncharacteristically silent. He felt besieged by a mixture of emotions: resentment that she had called Heather and not him, shame about feeling that resentment, anger at Johnny O., and an overwhelming urge to chase him down and punch him out. He took a big gulp of wine. “Where is he now?”

  “I don’t know. Somewhere in New Hampshire. I don’t even have a phone number for him.” She was still trembling.

  He put his glass down, reached over, and put his arm around her. She softened and yielded into him, touched his face and lightly stroked his neck and earlobe. The fire in the belly, and this time, he didn’t need to hide the swelling in his groin. He found her lips with his, and caressed them with his tongue until she opened to him. He stood and offered her his hand as she rose, and they moved without speaking up the stairs and into her bedroom. The bed,
piled high with a peach duvet and matching sheets, was already turned down, and the two western windows brought into the room a flush of late afternoon light with the faint sound of the river in the distance: a murmuring pulse to the warmth and peach and softness.

  “If there is a heaven,” Frank said as he slipped out of his clothes, “this is it.”

  Mona chortled, her laugh like a spring of water bursting out of the earth. She unbuttoned her blouse, placing it on the chair by the window, and peeled off the tight pants. She was wearing a red lace bra and matching panties. Slowly, so that both of them could savor each moment, she took those off, too. They stood naked, facing each other in the burnished light, and then came together.

  When they finally got to their dinner, the sun had gone down. Mona switched on the lamps, took the food out of the oven, and lit three candles at the table.

  As Frank finished his chicken leg, he took another sip of wine and leaned back in his chair with half-closed eyes. “That was the best meal I ever had.”

  Mona laughed. “That’s what my cousin used to say every time he came to dinner: ‘Aunt Dottie, that was the best meal I ever had.’ We used to kid him about it, especially when he grew up and became a slick courtroom lawyer. But then I discovered that his mother had been a strict vegan, and never used butter or sugar or anything that might be bad for you, so of course, my mother’s cuisine always tasted delicious.”

  Frank was grinning. “I wasn’t talking about the food.”

  She smiled and looked at her watch. “Oh, we’ve got to get going. Don’t want to miss the fun!” She rolled her eyes.

  “Oh, darn, the select board. But don’t they read the minutes and reports before they get to the meat? Maybe we could arrive late.”

  “Always some dull stuff first. But this is the vote on the bridge, and I heard that Charlie and his gang are bringing that petition about Roz. There will be a crowd, and we should arrive early.”

  34

  FRANK WAS QUIET AS THE CAR CLIMBED THE HILL and passed through a forest of pine and hemlock. His face, in repose, sagged a little, was less round and jolly.

  Mona smiled to herself. It was beginning to feel familiar, this being with Frank, making love again, having him beside her in the truck, pointing out this and that, like the way the sun hit the field of newly-planted cabbages, their gray-green knobs sticking up out of the earth like that carnival game where you pound the heads down with a mallet and they keep popping up again.

  The way Frank saw things was surprising, but surprising in a nice way. He made her see not just the landscape, but the layers of meaning in people and situations, and that opened up new avenues in her brain. This idea about living off the grid, for instance. Her initial reaction had been horror. She’d imagined a life of deprivation and skimping much worse than the way she grew up, but now, she was beginning to see it differently. There was a kind of purity, or clarity, in his vision, this idea of living without a lot of stuff around all the time, all those computers and cell phones and iPads and iPods, things that her nieces and nephew thought they needed. And, she had to admit, there were times when she herself became obsessed with her web searches, her historical research.

  She reached over and gave his thigh a caress. “Tell me some more about living off the grid.”

  Frank’s face lit up, and instantly, the youthful enthusiasm returned. “I’m getting there,” he said. “I’m looking into putting wind socks on my land in a couple of places, and I think I’ve found the best spot for the windmill. There are a lot of companies that are starting to make them now, but I’ve found one in Burlington that sounds good. Erica’s boyfriend Jake knows the owners.”

  “A windmill? Don’t people get upset about those? I mean, having them in their view?”

  “Yes, in some places. But I think Vermonters are more interested in sustainable living, and—”

  A high-pitched sound in the distance grew louder. “A siren,” said Mona, looking in her rearview mirror. “I’m not speeding. What—” She switched on her police scanner, and as the siren’s sound intensified, the flashing lights of a police cruiser appeared at the top of the hill in front of them. “That’s Luke!” she shouted, and slowed down as the cruiser streaked past.

  A tinny, staccato voice sounded from her scanner. “Three quarters of the way up the Toggins Trail on Wild Mountain. They’ve been trying to revive him,” spoke the disembodied voice of Mary Louise, the dispatcher, “—mangy, waist-length hair tied in some strange fashion around his neck.”

  Mona and Frank exchanged a look. “Gus,” she said. She slowed down and pulled onto the shoulder of the road. “I’ve got to go up there.”

  Frank didn’t hesitate. “Sure, of course.”

  She made a wide turn in the road and drove back down LaDue to River Road, gaining speed as they rounded the bend and coasted down to the river. Shoulders hunched over the wheel, Mona glared into the setting sun. The scanner had gone silent, and she banged her hand on it. “Damn it,” she muttered. “What could it mean—‘trying to revive him’? Did he pass out? Have a heart attack?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Where are we going, anyway? Up to the stone circle?”

  “Yeah. That’s on the Toggins Trail.”

  Frank looked as tense as Mona felt, and she turned onto River Road with a screech of tires.

  “Take it easy,” he said in a tone of voice she’d never heard before, a kind of scolding.

  “I’m afraid it will be dark by the time we get up there.”

  “Do you have a flashlight?”

  “Yes, I have a couple.”

  “So, we’ll be fine.” He reached over and patted her arm, and she felt a flood of warmth and reassurance and slowed down a little, but then pursed her lips in guilt, because how could she feel good when poor Gus was in some kind of trouble?

  The sun sank behind the tree line on the opposite bank of the river as they reached the West Paris Bridge. They crossed and drove up Wild Mountain Road in twilight. Frank started humming, and then he was singing something in Latin, some kind of chant.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s part of a Tallis Mass. Something I sing with the Mountain Chamber Singers.”

  She shook her head. Here she was, racing up the mountain to rescue Gus, and Frank was singing a Latin Mass—but for some reason, she was feeling strangely comforted. Comfortable. With Frank. For the first time in years, she could imagine staying with someone, sitting around the fire at night and listening to music, and being completely at ease with this man beside her.

  She pulled into the lay-by at the trailhead, and they both jumped out of the truck. She grabbed the two flashlights and her first-aid kit from behind the seat, and they headed up the trail. It was eerie in the waning light, and darker here beneath the trees. She shone the light on the path and went ahead, walking as fast as she could without tripping. Frank was close behind her, and all was silent except for the squishing sound of their feet on the composted leaves and the scuffing of their shoes on the rocks. From a distance came the howls of coyotes. This, she thought, this woodland trail, was truly a wild place, a place where coyotes spoke with the wind; and she and Frank, the humans, were part of it. Together, they breathed the breath of this place, this living mountain.

  As Mona and Frank came into the clearing, they heard voices. In the center of the clearing, a fire glowed, and Luke Spinelli was squatting over something on the ground. Mona ran up to him.

  The something on the ground was Gus. Motionless. His skin, in contrast to the rosy faces around him in the firelight, was devoid of light or warmth, a ghostly grayish white.

  She gasped. “What happened? Is he okay?” she asked, knowing the answer.

  Luke slowly turned his head. “No, I’m afraid not.” He pointed to two figures sitting on boulders at the perimeter of the clearing. “Those people found him.” Behind the two, and above the blackness of earth and trees, one bare tree stood in silhouette against the glow of the deepening sky. “He’s go
ne.”

  Mona shrank back. Her body buckled, and she dropped down into a seated position on a boulder. Where was she? She heard voices, but they had receded into the background, like a radio playing behind a door in the next room. On this side of the door, it was quiet, peaceful, nothing stirring, as if she’d been drifting on the water in the stillness of the frozen north. She was on an iceberg in the North Sea, with just the sea moving around her. There was a noise in the distance, maybe a seal barking, maybe a whale, but here on the iceberg, all was still, still as ice.

  “Holy shit!” someone shouted, and Mona sat up, reluctantly drawn away from her tranquil island. Cappy Gold stood over the body, shouting out a string of curse words. Cappy, usually so controlled, so reserved, only showing his feelings through a raised eyebrow or a smirk, was now flailing his arms about and yelling at Luke, as if all of this was Luke’s fault. Luke just stood there, nodding his head. The fire smoldered behind them, and in the darkening night, they looked like shadow puppets, prehistoric warriors enacting some archetypal drama.

  Now Mona could feel the pain in her chest, so sharp it was almost as if one of her nieces had died. Gus. Gus was gone.

  And she hadn’t protected him. She had let him stay up here, knowing he was vulnerable. Could she have convinced him to come back down and live in town? Could she have kept him safe and warm?

  Where was Frank? There, across the clearing, hunched over, were two hikers, who looked somehow familiar. She moaned. Suddenly, Frank was beside her, as if he’d dematerialized and transported himself to her side in an instant, as if here in Gus’s space, time had become bent and distorted, and the logical sequence of past, present, and future had no meaning.

  “Ooh,” she moaned again, holding her heart. “Why didn’t I come up and check on him again? I should have—”

  “Hey, Mona.” Frank sat down beside her and put his arm around her. “This wasn’t your fault.”