Paul Borders lifted a wooden box from the bed of the truck. The crate was filled with tools: a hammer, a bag of nails and screws, pliers and wrenches and screwdrivers, and a tape measure. He picked up a handsaw lying loose in the truck bed. The saw in one hand and the tool box in the other, he made his way up to the womenfolk, smiling and nodding his head. “Ladies,” Paul politely said, then, setting the toolbox on the ground, he put his free arm around Maudie and gave her a hug.
“What’re you doin’ with that saw?” Granny Ruth called down from the porch.
“He’s gonna fix those rotten back porch stairs,” Vernie told her.
“You ain’t got to do that, Paul,” Maudie said.
“My pleasure, Miss Maudie. Can’t have you ladies gettin’ hurt up here.”
Maudie smiled. She didn’t like putting folks out, but she was happy to see the steps getting fixed. Last week a piece of wood gave way and sent Maudie reeling onto the ground. She had bruised her hip, and was lucky not to have broken anything. The stairs hadn’t been used since she’d had her accident.
“Bless your heart,” she said, and gave him a little peck on his stubbled cheek.
“Awww,” Paul said, rubbing his jaw and grinning. He picked up the toolbox, crossed the yard and disappeared around the side of the house. Moments later, the dull thudding of hammer on wood echoed from the back yard.
“Vernie, Missy,” Maudie said. “Come on up to the porch and I’ll go and fetch us all a glass of tea.”
“Oh, Granny,” Vernie said. “Missy and I’ll fix the tea. Go on up and sit with Granny Ruth.”
“I wanta go play,” a small child’s voice squeaked.
Missy smiled down at her little boy. “You go ahead then.”
Tony took off running past the old truck, across the yard, squealing and laughing as he piled atop his brother and Mike Borders, which evoked giggles from the both of them. The wrestlers joined forces: while Jason held his little brother down, Mike went to work tickling him. Tony, apparently having the time of his life, howled with laughter.
Missy followed Vernie into the house, and Maudie took a seat beside her mother. A strong gust of wind blew through the trees and Granny Ruth pulled her shawl tight around her.
Paul appeared at the side of the house, and made his way back to the truck, pausing a moment to watch the children before lifting a two-by-eight piece of lumber from the truck bed. Hefting the six-foot length of board over his shoulder, he headed back to the side of the house. Halfway there, his wife called to him. He turned and Vernie came down the front porch stairs carrying a glass of tea. Behind her, Missy Thomas emerged from the house with a glass in each of her hands. She crossed the porch, handing one to Maudie and one to Granny Ruth, and then turned and went back into the house.
“Thanks, Darlin’,” Paul said, as Vernie handed him the glass, and he took a long drink. As he continued on to the back of the house, Missy came through the front door, dragging a wooden chair behind her. She placed it by the empty chair beside Maudie and went back inside. By the time Vernie reached the porch, Missy was coming through the door with two more glasses of tea.
They sat on the porch, talking about the weather and how it was shaping up to be such a nice day. The sun shining down on the valley had brought warmth to the afternoon. The children laughed and played, and the hammering continued. Every now and then it would stop, and they would hear Paul using his handsaw. Once, he yelled out a cuss word, drawing a roll of the eyes and a shake of the head from Vernie. Occasionally Granny Ruth would shoo a fly away with a wave of her hand.
They sipped their tea.
Somebody mentioned the sheriff, and Vernie asked Maudie what she thought of him. Maudie shrugged her shoulders. Granny Ruth laughed and told them Maudie didn’t go off the mountain long enough to know what goes on in town. When Missy said that her husband didn’t like him, and that made Earl Peters okay in her book, they all laughed.
An hour passed, then another. The sun dropped lower in the sky, and then disappeared behind the mountain. Paul, finished with his work, carried his toolbox and saw back to the truck while the children joined the women on the porch stairs.
“Paul,” Maudie called down to him. “You want some more tea?”
“Yes, Ma’am. I’ll go around back and get my glass.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Maudie told him. “We’ve got plenty’a glasses. You sit on down here with the boys and rest.”
The children gathered around Granny Ruth and Maudie, and Paul sat on the steps, sipping tea and gazing out at the mountain ranges. Three nearly full glasses sat beside him—Missy and Vernie had fixed them for the children but they’d barely been touched.
Missy Thomas touched her stomach and stared down at the floor.
“What’s the matter, child?” Granny Ruth asked her.
“Nothing,” Missy said. She smiled, but the smile looked forced.
“Tummy ache?”
“No… nothing, really.”
Missy’s youngest child climbed onto Granny Ruth’s lap, staring at the thin white hair, the patches of scalp showing through it, the roadmap of deep wrinkles in her dry and weathered skin.
“Tony,” Missy said. “Get down from there.”
The child reached up and touched her face. “How old are you?” he said.
Laughing, Granny Ruth said, “I’m old as that oak tree Billy was swingin’ on.”
“Are you a witch?”
“Tony!” Shocked, Missy apologized for her son.
“They’re just excited about Halloween coming up in a couple of days,” Vernie said. “Ain’tcha, boys?”
“We’re goin’ trigger treatin’!” Billy called out.
“Devil’s night,” Granny Ruth said, and Maudie nodded her agreement.
“Better keep them younguns close by, Vernie,” Granny Ruth said, and ran a gnarled hand across Tony’s head. “There’s evil lurkin’ about the mountains this time of year.”
Vernie shook her head. “Oh, Granny Ruth,” she said. “You don’t still believe that stuff, do you?” Then to Missy, “When we were children, we never got to celebrate Halloween like other kids. Mama used to make us sit up here and pray and sing gospel music.”
“Daddy played the fiddle, Mama strummed the guitar,” Maudie said, closing her eyes and picturing those nights so long ago.
“We sure did,” Granny Ruth said. “We prayed, we sang songs. We kept the evil away… until those two men came up the road that night.”
“That’s the night they chased that murderer up here, ain’t it?” Paul asked her.
“That’s right. We tried to warn ‘em but they didn’t listen. And all them men disappeared that night.”
“I remember Daddy tellin’ me about it when I was a little girl,” Missy said. “I thought he was just trying to scare me away from playing up the mountain.”
“No, it happened, all right,” Paul told her. “I don’t see how they done it. Four or five men just up and vanish like they was never even here. No reason for it.”
“Unless they chased him into one of those old mines and got lost,” Vernie pointed out. “Or it caved in on them.”
“Well, yeah. That could’ve happened, I guess.”
“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Granny Ruth said. “The awfullest racket you ever heard. Them Indians screamin’ and cryin’ and whoopin’ and’a hollerin’.”
“Indians?” Little Tony said.
“Yeah, we used to have a bunch of ‘em livin’ up here, didn’t we, Maudie?”
“We sure did.”
“The next mornin’ they come down the mountain, and they never did go back. When a bunch of men from town went lookin’ for that sheriff and his men, all they found was arms and legs scattered about the mountainside, and severed heads on poles stuck in the ground. Dead Indians all over the place.
“There used to be an old half-breed lived up here when I was a little girl, John Little-Deer, he called hisself. Told Daddy back years ago, back bef
ore the first white folks ever showed up, an Englishman came to the valley. Called hisself Zachariah. Went around wearin’ a top hat and a cape. Just showed up out of nowhere. Soon as he did, livestock started to disappear. They’d find one of their cows all butchered up, the head cut off, the body split down the middle and gutted. One day a baby went to missin’. A couple of weeks later, another. As time went by, more babies and little children started to disappear. Them Indians would just wake up and they’d be gone. Sometimes they’d find the little bodies with their chests ripped open, an empty hole where their hearts should’a been. Sometimes they wouldn’t find anything at all.
“A bunch of them finally went to the stranger’s shack. He laughed at them, spread his arms wide and dared them to try and hurt him. They shot an arrow into his chest. John Little-Deer said when the arrow hit him, he threw his head back and howled like a wolf, and his body changed. Right in front of them, his chest swelled up, them muscles bulging out so big they ripped right through his shirt. Little-Deer said he looked like a beast, or a demon straight outa Hell. Eyes like two fiery embers surrounded by bubblin’ puddles of puss. He pushed the arrow all the way in ‘til the bloody tip came pokin’ out his back, roarin’ and howlin’ and makin’ the awfullest racket. Then he reached around like his arm was made of rubber and pulled it all the way through. And his body changed back. Little-Deer said it was like the demon melted back into a man. He pulled open his coat and showed ‘em the bloody hole, and then the hole closed up all by itself. Then he waved a hand over the arrow and the darned thing caught fire and burnt up. Well, them Indians skedaddled right outa there, lemme tell ya.
“Next mornin’ the chief woke to find his wife dead in their tent and his newborn baby gone. He led a group of braves to the stranger’s shack. This time they brought their medicine man with ‘em. But Zachariah wasn’t there. They went inside and found a cauldron, and a cows head that had been nailed to the wall, right over an upside down cross of bones. There were little bitty arms and legs—severed heads—dead snakes and eyeballs bubbling in that unholy stew.”
“I don’t know if I want the boys hearin’ this,” Paul said.
“That’s what they found!” Granny Ruth told him, obviously caught up in her tale.
“I wanta hear, Daddy!” Billy cried out.
“They heard a baby cryin’ and found him tied across an old wooden table. Cut him loose and hightailed it back up the mountain, they did.”
Missy looked at Vernie and rolled her eyes.
Vernie smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
“The medicine man told the chief there was magic in his son, that the stranger would come after him. They knew what Zachariah had done with the arrow, how his wound had closed up on its own. He was a beast, and there was nothing they could do to stop him. But the medicine man was wise—he knew what to do. He told the chief, to kill the beast he’d have to sacrifice his son, or wait for Zachariah to cut a bloody trail of death and destruction through his people.
“They gathered at their burial grounds, where no white man had ever set foot before. While the medicine man danced and chanted and said some magic words, two braves dangled the child by his ankles. Another wrapped his arms around his chest and held him tight, and that chief slit his own son’s throat. They filled a sheep’s bladder with his blood, dug up the grave of the medicine man’s father and buried the child with him. When they got back to the village, they took a different child into the chief’s tent, and then sat there waiting for the beast.”
“Did he come, Granny Ruth?” Billy wanted to know.
“He came, all right. And when he showed up, the chief took off up the mountain with that little baby in his arms.”
Granny Ruth pointed up the narrow dirt road. “That used to be nothin’ but a foot-path. John Little-Deer said Zachariah chased ‘em right through here, with the old medicine man dead on their trail. The chief ran into a cave, and when Zachariah followed him inside, the medicine man poured the Holy blood across the threshold. The cave sealed itself shut and the beast was trapped. The chief sacrificed his son and himself to save his people.”
“You don’t believe that,” Vernie said, as if no one could believe such a thing.
“I didn’t ‘til them two men showed up that Halloween night.”
“I never believed it,” Maudie said. “But Daddy did, and Mama. And somebody ripped them Indians to pieces the night them men went missin’. That’s a plain fact.”
“You don’t believe it,” Granny Ruth said, “you come on up here Halloween night. You can just feel the evil lurkin’ out there in the dark. You can smell it in the air.”
“Why Halloween?” Jason Jr. asked.
“That’s the night they trapped him in that cave, somewhere between here and the mountaintop. Some folks say he’s inside Ward Rock. Don’t nobody know for sure, though.” Maudie looked out at the narrow dirt road. Dusk had found the countryside, turning the yellow and brown leaves gray.
Granny Ruth said, low, as if she were afraid of who might hear her, “He’s up there, somewhere.”
Chapter Thirteen
James Hastie crossed the summit of Seeker’s Mountain, enjoying the morning sun, and the cool breeze blowing through his window. A cow mooed and he laughed; a rooster crowed and he smiled.
That, he thought. Would take a lot of getting used to.
He wondered what his Uncle Louie was doing right about now, as he glanced in the rearview mirror at Pitch, who sat quietly, staring out at the horizon. Hastie was already missing the city, and hoped like hell they wouldn’t be away from it too long.
Pitch had made him a wealthy man, taking the ten thousand Hastie had won at Saratoga the day they’d met and turning it into stocks. All summer long their value had risen. When Louie Boccianni demanded to be let in on the deal, Pitch welcomed him with open arms. By summer’s end, Hastie was worth a hundred thousand dollars, and Little Boss held well over a million dollars in high value stocks and bonds. James Hastie didn’t know it, but those stocks were now worthless.
Hastie downshifted, letting the transmission slow the vehicle as they started down the steep incline. A chilly wind blew through the window as he rounded a curve and looked up at the bright morning sun painting the treetops, and saw the great mansion sitting back on the mountain.
“Is that it?”
“That’s it,” Pitch said, and then leaned forward, draping an arm over the front seat. “Slow down, we’re almost to the access road.”
Another fifty yards and Pitch clamped a hand on Hastie’s shoulder. “There it is, Jimmy,” he said, pointing at the gravel path cutting a trail up the mountain.
Hastie swung the car onto the road, rocks crunching beneath the tires as they started up the steep incline.
Pitch said, “I’m going to have this paved. Should’ve done it a long time ago.”
When they reached the top, the road leveled off, and the gravel gave way to a concrete drive surrounded by a lush carpet of meticulously manicured grass, seemingly as out of place here as Hastie figured he was. Elm trees dotted the landscape, and tall, thick hedges surrounded the front of the white, three-story Colonial-style mansion, which stood before an intricately carved, polished marble walkway lined with rosebushes, that led up to the front porch.
Hastie pulled up in front of the house and cut the engine, got out and opened Pitch’s door. “Quite a place you’ve got here,” he said, genuinely impressed. Pitch had offices in a high-rent New York building and a penthouse at Harrison Towers. Hastie knew Pitch was rich, but he hadn’t expected anything like this.
“Get the luggage,” Pitch told him.
While Hastie opened the trunk, Pitch lifted a suitcase from the back seat. He walked across the marble and stepped onto the porch. Fishing a key from his pocket, he opened the front door and stepped inside, and then ran his hand along the wall, flipping a switch that flooded the hallway with light.
With a suitcase in each hand, Hastie stepped onto the porch, and Pitch turned.
“Just leave it in the foyer,” he said. “And come with me.”
Hastie put the suitcases on the floor and followed Pitch down the hallway, past a living room filled with expensive antique furniture, and a dining area.
Look at these rooms, he thought. They’re huge.
Pitch led him into the study and turned on the overhead light, hoisted the suitcase and laid it on a mahogany desk that reflected light off its polished surface.
Motioning toward a couch, he said, “Sit down over there. I’ll be right back.”
He left the room, returning a few minutes later, carrying a tray with a pitcher of ice water and two glasses. He set the tray on the table in front of Hastie and returned to the desk, where he opened the suitcase, which was full to the brim with neatly-stacked bundles of hundred dollar bills. He went over to a liquor cabinet and grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels, returned to the suitcase and took out a few stacks of bills. Money in one hand and whiskey in the other, he crossed the room and tossed the cash on the coffee table in front of Hastie.
“What’s this?” Hastie asked him.
“That’s yours. I cashed you in.” Pitch twisted the cap off the Jack Daniels, gulped down a mouthful and handed the bottle to Hastie.
Jimmy smiled. “Oh yeah?” he said.
“That’s a hundred grand, Jimmy. Not bad for a summer’s work, huh?”
Hastie took a drink of whiskey, chased it with the water and sat the bottle on the table.
“We’re out of the stock market, Jimmy. I liquidated all my holdings. Made a goddamn fortune, too. Just in the nick of time, I might add. Because those stocks aren’t worth a damn now.”
“What do you mean?”
“The bottom dropped out, and so did we.” Pitch pulled an armchair over to the coffee table, picked up the bottle, lifted it to his lips and turned it up. “Goddamn, I love a good drink of whiskey.”
Lord of the Mountain Page 6
