by Tim Young
“Excellent, but not just here in Athens,” Nick said, leaning forward. “You have to ship to all ten of my chefs.”
“Yeah, I know,” Blake answered. “I’ll get the shipping details from you the week before.”
Nick tilted his neck left, then right, cracking it both ways.
“How are the mountain sheds holding up? Everything working right, just like I laid it out for you?” Nick’s line of questioning continued.
“Yep, all three are fully loaded and working fine. Blended right into the mountainside like it has been for two years now. You’d probably walk right past them,” Blake replied, allowing the most imperceptible of smiles to skirt across his lips.
Wade couldn’t hide his enthusiasm. “Heck boys, just like making ’shine in the old days up in Dawsonville.”
Nick chuckled and relaxed just a bit. “Hmm. You gotta get up and see this spread,” Nick said to Wade. “How big’s the spread, Blake?”
“Twelve acres,” Blake answered.
“Twelve acres,” Nick continued. “But behind that close to a hundred thousand acres of nothing, just woods. And I mean absolutely nothing, not a trail anywhere and all federally protected land. You have any idea how much land a hundred thousand forested acres is?” Nick let the question linger for effect.
“I mean, a whole village could get lost up there and no one would find it,” he continued. “Cool, mountain air, dense, tangled forest up over 4,000 feet. Absolutely perfect.”
Wade listened awestruck as if Nick were describing another planet. “Yeah, we’ll have to get up there, Wade,” Nick continued. “We can stay at my place on Lake Burton, take Blake and his wife out to one of Clayton’s finest restaurants while we’re there. How’s Angelica doing, Blake?”
Blake didn’t care for the small talk. He just wanted to find out what Nick wanted, and get out. He could answer the tactical questions, but the personal ones just reminded him of how much of his life Angelica didn’t know about...couldn’t know about, and walking that fine line had taken its toll on him. He’d let off steam later though, not in front of Nick.
“She’s doing fine, thanks for asking.” Blake continued gingerly, not knowing how much Wade knew. “You know...if you come up, Angelica doesn’t know...I mean, she knows nothing about what we’re doing up on the mountain. She only knows that—”
“You’re delivering for me,” Nick interrupted. “I have you on the payroll delivering wine and produce, I know. Did you bring the chicken and beef from Black Rock? I have it on the menu next week.”
“Yeah,” Blake said. “Just need one of your guys to unload the coolers from the truck.”
“Sabrina,” Nick yelled across the room to the woman who had greeted Blake. “Have a couple of fellas in the kitchen grab the coolers out of Blake’s truck.” As Sabrina acknowledged Nick’s order, Wade’s cell phone vibrated. He excused himself and walked to the other side of the bar.
Nick lowered his voice. “So, you’re on the verge of your big pay day,” he said. “Close to a quarter million bucks for what you’ve done. You’ll be debt free and have money to play with, what you always wanted, right?”
Blake didn’t realize how pursed his lips had become, how tightly his jaws had clinched. He hated all this secrecy! He should have never...God, if he could go back and do everything over. Maybe Angelica had been right. But he was so damned hungry for money, to get out of the projects, to give Angelica more than she wanted or needed that he jumped at what he thought was easy money.
“Is that all you wanted from me—just an update?” Blake asked as he glanced at his watch.
The smile on Nick’s face dissolved. Nick leaned back, extended his arms toward Blake and interlocked his fingers to crack his knuckles. “I need to be absolutely positive that you’ll be ready next month.” Nick’s brown eyes stared at Blake without blinking. “I’ve promised this, among other things, to 500 members who joined 50-Forks and paid seventy-five grand each to do so. I won’t let them be disappointed.”
“I am, and it is,” Blake said, keeping his voice low as he raised his eyes from the table to meet Nick’s. “We’re ready to go, just like we agreed.”
After a long twenty seconds, the smile returned to Nick’s lips.
“Good, but let me know if you have any trouble up there. Anything.”
Nick softened his tone and smiled peacefully at Blake. “You know, what you’re doing is really important, Blake. Just as honorable as the work my father did back in Spain. Maybe even more so since you’re the first one here in America. A lot of people wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps, and I predict a lot will want to follow in yours once they see what you’ve accomplished!”
“Thanks,” Blake said half-heartedly.
“We’re in good shape then,” Nick said as he stood, providing the cue that Blake was dismissed. They shook hands, Nick promised to visit, but Blake knew he’d never set foot on the mountain. Blake wanted to sprint out, to get away as fast as he could, but he momentarily suppressed his anger as he walked through the vestibule and out the front door. He stood at the door of his truck and fiddled with the keys. Blake looked back at The Federal and pulled his sunglasses out of his blazer pocket. He put them on, turned right on Washington street and walked with purpose to the closest pub.
Chapter 6
Ozzie sprinted straight up the slope and away from the only home he had ever known with nothing more than raw fear guiding him. There was no time to think and develop a plan as he sprinted, his breathing already becoming labored. Had he had time to think of a plan it would have been simply to get ahead of the men and circle back to his mother. How did I get out in the first place?
By now he had learned the sights, sounds, and smells of this forest almost as well as any of the wild animals that inhabited it, but only from inside the fence that had imprisoned (or had it protected?) him. As he ran, he thought about how often he had wanted to break free of those wires and pursue his own freedom, the same liberties enjoyed by his captors and even the wild animals that often approached the other side of the fence. He even saw black bears lumber close to his fence more than once during broad daylight, examining Ozzie as if he were a zoo exhibit, but they hadn’t frightened him. The only thing in the forest that had done that, other than the farm truck, was the occasional cries he heard. Horrific cries of anguish and pain that seemed to come from within the mountain itself, something between a woman’s most frightened scream and a tortured baby’s cry. Always they ascended from the depths of a ravine, and only on the darkest of nights. They never failed to send chills down his spine. He even saw his father cringe when he heard the cry late at night.
Why had he wanted to get out of the fence in the first place? Now, he wanted only to be behind the blanket of the fence’s protection. Just keep running, he told himself, lose these stalkers and go back to mom.
But still the men came as they pursued him through a dense thicket along a featureless hillside in the midst of the massive wilderness. “We’re gaining on you,” Jesse shouted as he pulled off his light blue jacket in the early afternoon heat, tossing it on the ground. “You’re done for!”
“Yee haw,” Shane screamed.
Ozzie didn’t understand a word the English-speaking mountain men said, but he understood the threatening tone. He ran on the wet leaves for at least half mile along a ridge, both the hunters and the hunted slowing to a pace they could sustain.
Jesse judged Ozzie’s pace and realized the chase wouldn’t end as quickly as he had hoped, but he had no choice. If he didn’t catch Ozzie and return him, Blake would have his head, putting an end to the $5,000 bonus Blake had promised him that he’d earn the next month. $5,000 cash, all at once. Jesse became intoxicated by the number, vaguely aware of his surroundings as he saw only Ozzie running before him with a $5,000 caption suspended over his head. Jesse narrowed his eyes on Ozzie like an archer zeroing in on his target. He thrust himself ahead.
Ozzie sprinted alongside a thick line of mountain l
aurel and, once past it, turned sharply left. This forced Jesse and Shane to run the whole way around it, too, so they couldn’t cut him off. Gravity and fear pushed Ozzie faster than he had ever run before as the ground descended steeply. The expansive forest looked the same in all directions, like trying to discern one wave from another from a raft in the middle of the ocean. There were no landmarks, trails, or singularly distinguishing features. Just ancient trees that towered above and required Ozzie to fend for himself in a life or death race over very steep terrain.
There was no need to look back. The sound of snapping twigs and heavy footfalls constantly reminded Ozzie that they were coming for him. Yet, the sounds weren’t getting closer. Ozzie hadn’t stopped moving for over half an hour, but he had greatly slowed his pace. It was pure torture running those hills, and now that he had left the ridge the underbrush had thickened. Privet, buckeyes and brambles popped up and Ozzie had to run through all of them. Jesse and Shane had fallen behind and were even more exhausted than the younger Ozzie, but still they came. Jesse in particular was motivated, as the $5,000 price still hovered over Ozzie’s head, albeit in a smaller font.
Ozzie felt a sharp pain in his ribs from running so far, so fast. His leg muscles tightened and burned from the inside out, as if his blood were a sea of boiling magma spreading through his veins, in search of a vent. His mouth was so dry that he wondered if his body would reject water the way a thunderstorm washes off a drought-stricken hardpan. Breathing heavily, he crested a hilltop that flattened out as oaks gave way to a narrow stand of towering pines. He sprinted through a broad thicket of brambles, hearing only his labored breathing as soft pine needles muffled his own steps.
In the distance, Ozzie found a landmark that drew him in like a tractor beam. In the midst of the pine cathedral a massive granite outcropping beckoned. Ozzie had never seen anything like it, and the sight of it gave him a sudden burst of endurance. As he closed in, he focused his eyes on a protrusion overhanging what appeared to be a small cave opening. A hiding spot! Ozzie looked back, seeing that the men had still not crested the hill and were out of sight. His heart sank as he reached the boulder and saw it wasn’t a cave. There was no place to hide. But it was water, fresh mountain water, and that was almost as good as a cave. It would give him some time to catch his breath and drink. Maybe sixty seconds until they were on him, but then they would have to rest too. Wouldn’t they?
Ozzie took a long drink, almost choking because he drank so much, so fast. He burped loudly, drank some more and then plopped in the spring, cooling his whole body. He had run so long, so far, and only then did he think that he had no idea where he was. He turned his head back to the brambles, eyes closed, hoping that would erase the monsters. He opened his eyes and saw that still they came, closer now, each holding his side and running with great difficulty. Ozzie bent down quickly to take another sip, one for the road.
POW!
An incredibly loud and thunderous boom erupted and ricocheted off the boulder, causing rock dust to sprinkle into the spring just before him. Ozzie turned and saw the men only sixty yards away, almost on him. One of them pointed the black rifle at Ozzie. The sound catapulted Ozzie as if he were launched out of a cannon. He circled to the back of the boulder and ran flat out, zigging then zagging, out of the pine clearing toward the next thicket.
POW!
Bark flew off a hemlock tree just to Ozzie’s right.
“Watch it!” Jesse said to Shane. “You don’t want to hit him!”
“I wasn’t trying to, but what difference does it make at this point?” Shane asked. “We’ll never get him back without shooting him and we can’t let him get away.” Jesse wanted to disagree, but Shane was right. He stood bent over his knees, panting, and tried to catch his breath. It felt like a needle was being shoved into his left side just below the ribcage.
POW!
Another shot rang through the forest for no one to hear but the three of them. Ozzie was nearly out of sight now in a rising thicket, but he didn’t know that the men had momentarily stopped pursuit when the bullet swished over his head. The frightening sound brought forth the image of Ozzie’s father lying in the mud, eyes open and staring at him. What was the last thing his father had said to him? You’re almost grown now. Act like it! Yes, that was it. And his mother’s last words to him? Run, Ozzie, just run! Ozzie said to himself, run!
Ozzie crested a hill, terrified but relieved to be alive, a good 200 yards away from the boulder. For just a second, he stopped to glance back. Shane used the boulder to support his 30.06 rifle. He had been following Ozzie for fifty yards through his scope but couldn’t get a shot off. When Ozzie stopped and looked back it allowed Shane to zero in. Shane tried to catch his breath and control his breathing, but there was no time for the perfect shot. He squeezed the trigger, absorbed the recoil and then aimed his scope back at Ozzie. He found his target just in time to see Ozzie fall to the ground.
“Got him,” Shane panted to Jesse, who was on his knees now trying to catch his breath. Shane had run long distance track the year before as a senior at Rabun County High and he was still in decent shape, but Jesse was really hurting. “Just get your breath,” Shane said. “He ain’t going nowhere.”
Shane laid the gun on the pine needles and eyed the spring. A gift from above, Shane thought, just in the nick of time. A little piece of paradise, no bigger than a bathtub under this gigantic boulder, giving life to lush, fragrant rhododendrons on each side of the water. As he knelt before the water and prepared to drink, Shane felt almost as if he were at a Sunday church service. In the infinite blackness of the still water, he saw the reflection of the ancient, weathered rock, giving him the feeling of kneeling at an altar with God looming above as an everlasting boulder of strength. Shane knelt at God’s feet as a humble, grateful servant. He leaned forward and cupped his hands to collect His gracious gift in this Garden of Eden.
Before putting his hands in the water, Shane paused as he caught the reflection of wispy clouds streaming overhead against a deep blue sky. The moment was perfect. So quiet, so peaceful. And yet...he felt something else, something disquieting. What is it? He thought. Like...maybe I’m being watched. Is God watching me from above?
A trio of pinecones fell beside him as a raven launched from a branch and descended to perch atop the boulder. It folded its wings close to its side as it peered deep into Shane’s eyes.
“Well, I’ll be,” Shane said. “Look at that, Jesse.”
Jesse remained hunched over, catching his breath. Shane looked down at the reflection of the bird and put his hands back to the water, still feeling as if he was being watched. Is it the raven? He asked himself. No. It wasn’t the raven, he realized as he looked up into the bird’s black eyes. Nor was it something he sensed from above. It was...something closer, he felt. Something from the side. Shane shifted his eyes to his left at Jesse, who knelt with his eyes closed and sweat dripping from his face. Jesse wasn’t watching him. The hair on the back of Shane’s neck began to prickle as he felt the staring bore into him. Something from...his right side. Slithering eyes upon him.
In the dead quiet of the forest, he heard the slightest twitch of a rattle. He jerked his head quickly to his right, just in time to see a coiled timber rattlesnake that had chosen this oasis to give birth to her young. Shane’s eyes had time to open wide, but his scream couldn’t escape as the five-foot long rattler struck fast and hard, her fangs piercing the right carotid artery of Shane’s neck. Eden’s serpent hissed and recoiled to her newborn babies.
Shane stood, screaming, as he pressed his hands to his neck.
“JESUS! Rattler! I got bit!”
Jesse saw Shane jump back. Ejected from the spring as if hell had spit him out.
“What the hell happened?” Jesse shouted.
Shane hit the ground, his face already flush and feeling like someone dug into his neck with a red hot poker. Jesse pried Shane’s bloody hands off his neck just enough to see the marks on Shane’s swelling n
eck as if a vampire had repossessed his soul. Shane clamped down on the pain again.
“Shit!” Jesse exclaimed. “Holy shit!”
Shane was in complete agony as the toxin started its work, weakening and disorienting him. He couldn’t have been bitten in a worse spot. Jesse helped him past the rhododendron on the left side of the spring and leaned him up against the boulder.
“Shit!” Jesse was in a panic. He knew he needed to get help but—Where the hell are we? Shit! Jesse almost began hyperventilating. He tried to calm himself, tried to be the leader that Blake had told him he was of his clan. Think! he told himself. It was a timber rattler, but they’re not usually deadly if you get help.
Then another voice emerged inside his head, a voice less confident. A voice that frightened Jesse.
Ah, the voice said, but look at where the bite is. Right in the artery. D-E-A-T-H will be quick, the voice said in a raspy, haunting whisper.
“Shit!”
Jesse looked back at Shane, who no longer screamed. His neck had swollen to almost twice its normal size and was horribly bruised. Shane’s hands draped by his side. Jesse’s mind tugged him in all directions. Go get help. Stay and help. Save yourself. Comfort Shane. Kill that snake!
“Shit!” Jesse didn’t know what to do. There was no way to extract the venom, no way, not from that spot on his neck. He could carry Shane to help, but they had been on the hunt for hours. It was so far back, and even if he could carry Shane that far, even if Shane could make it that long, he wondered if he could even find the way back? Jesse grabbed the rifle and went around the bushes to look for the snake. He found the mother coiled up with three babies that had yet to squirm away. Had yet to slay their first victims. Jesse trembled as he took sight of the now defenseless creature and blew a hole right through her.
