by Ronald Kelly
"See anything good in there?" Bubba asked his partner. He shot a quick glance at the open magazine and saw the unfurled centerfold. It was a shot of a buxom blonde beauty reclining seductively in the hayloft of a barn. Her only articles of clothing were a Stetson hat and pair of cowboy boots, complete with shiny silver spurs.
Steve drew a sharp breath through his teeth. "Man, would I like to take a roll in the hay with this babe."
"I'll have to tell Peggy you said that next time I see her," Bubba told him. "If your wife knew you were looking at that skin mag, she'd take that new chainsaw she got you for Christmas and turn you into an instant gelding."
"Ouch!" Steve grimaced at the thought. "It's no big deal really. I only buy Satyr for the articles anyway."
"Oh sure," laughed Bubba. "I certainly believe that. Hey, Wainwright, what do you think about Steve's paper sweetheart there?"
The hunter eyed the nude model with distaste. "I am constantly amazed at the preoccupation you Yanks have with sex. It's on your tellie, in your periodicals, and foremost in your brains every waking hour of the day. Don't you chaps ever grow weary of such juvenile voyeurism?"
"Not when it involves boobs the size of basketballs!"
Steve turned the magazine a couple of pages and held it out to the Englishman. "And this guy right here is certainly not going to grow weary of today's demand for flesh either. He's making millions off the All-American libido."
Wainwright studied the man in the photo. He was a tall, willowy man who very much resembled a young Basil Rathbone, except for a golden ring in one ear and a long ponytail that hung midway down his back. He wore a pair of black karate-type pajamas with a bright red sash around the waist. "Who is this faggy-looking bloke?"
"The guy who's going to put Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler out of business," Steve told him. "Lance LaBlanc, the publisher of Satyr magazine. His publication treads the fine line between soft and hard porn, giving the reader the best of both worlds. He has the most beautiful girls you've ever seen wrapped between two glossy covers. And they say the guy is loaded. He has seven estates around the world, a whole fleet of expensive cars, and a yacht the size of a battleship. They say he even has a trained paramedic standing by at his sex orgies, in case a guest overdoses on passion and goes into cardiac arrest."
"If you don't put down that magazine, you'll be blowing a valve yourself," Bubba told him, "and if you do, what do you think God's gonna think about you checking out with a nudie book in your hand? He'll take one look at that copy of Satyr and give you a one-way ticket to the devil's whorehouse."
Once they reached Tucker's Mill, it didn't take them long to locate PaleDoveMountain on the detailed maps that Russ had left with them. Soon, they had reached the first scheduled site to be surveyed. They were to divide the mountain acreage into six individual tracts, so that the lumberjacks could cut their own access roads and strip the peak of its timber, one section at a time.
Bubba parked the truck in a grassy clearing near the forest, and he and Steve began to set up their equipment, Bubba usually gauged the footage and sighted in the boundaries with a 20-power transit level, while Steve held the builder's rod and put down the stakes. Bubba was setting up the tripod and securing the transit to the base when Colin Wainwright slung his elephant rifle over his shoulder and stared into the dense forest of the mountain's southern side. "I believe I'll take a stroll around and see what I can find," he told them. "Give me a quick call on the radio if the dreaded beastie shows up."
Bubba patted the walkie-talkie clipped on his belt next to a holstered .45 automatic. "Will do. But the ugly critter will probably be dead by the time you make it back."
"Still, give me a call if you see anything." Wainwright took a canteen and a game bag from his gear in the back of the truck and headed out.
The hunter spent most of the day exploring the heavy pine and oak forests of PaleDoveMountain. He checked the ground often, for tracks and animal spoor. But he found nothing. As the morning drew into afternoon, Wainwright discovered no indication that the creature Dellhart was worried about actually existed. The only wildlife the hunter had spotted during his entire trek were a few birds in the trees and a raccoon washing its hands beside a creekbed before chowing down on a lunch of crawdads. He had found absolutely no sign of an animal big enough to brutally maul two full-grown men to death. Only a bear or a very large mountain lion was capable of doing the amount of damage that had been done to Frank and Joseph Stoogeone. So far, Wainwright had found nothing to confirm that such a renegade beast was stalking the wilderness of PaleDoveMountain.
It was nearly evening when Colin Wainwright checked in with the surveyors with his walkie-talkie. Like the times he had talked to them before, they reported that they had seen nothing out of the ordinary, only a few birds and a squirrel or two in the trees. He agreed to meet them back at the truck at six o'clock for the ride back to Knoxville.
He was halfway down the southern slope of the mountain when he spotted a pale flash of motion swoop through a break in the forest. Instinctively, the hunter lifted his gun and centered the crosshairs. The scope brought the target in, crisp and clear. It was a pure albino hawk with the pinkest eyes and talons that he had ever seen. He was not hesitant in his decision to fire. He let the barrel follow it for a couple more yards and then squeezed off a shot. The heavy-grain slug nailed the hawk through its left wing, tearing most of the plumage away. It flapped awkwardly for a moment, then fluttered to the carpet of thick green kudzu.
By the time Wainwright reached the bird, it was hopping around, as if trying to take flight again. It had no luck. Its wing was utterly ruined. The Englishman slammed the butt of his rifle into the bird's head, then deposited its limp body into his game bag. Satisfied that the day wasn't a total loss, he continued the hike down the mountainside, pacing himself with the aid of his wristwatch.
He reached the pickup truck at six o'clock sharp. Bubba and Steve were loading their equipment into the lockbox in the back. "Any sign of old Bigfoot out there, Wainwright?" asked Steve.
"Nothing of any real danger," replied the hunter. "But I did bag a rather remarkable fowl. A pure-white hawk."
"Really?" said Bubba with interest. "Let's see it."
Wainwright opened the game bag and reached inside. There was suddenly a brittle rattling from within and the Englishman withdrew his hand faster than it went in. There were two red puncture marks on the knuckles, spaced an inch apart. Wainwright quickly tossed the bag to the ground and watched as something crawled out.
It wasn't a gun-shot hawk that flopped out onto the spring grass, though. Instead it was a snow-white rattlesnake with tiny, pink eyes and an equally pink rattler.
"Funny-looking bird," remarked Bubba, but he didn't laugh. "Damn, the bastard bit you, too, didn't it?"
Colin wasted no time with words. He quickly drew a hunting knife from his belt and laid the edge of the blade across his knuckles, cutting a deep gash across the snakebite. He sucked on the wound, then spat the blood out with a puzzled look dawning on his rustic features. "That's bloody strange."
"What is?"
He brought his hand to his mouth again, sampling the blood and examining the snakebite closely. "There is no venom in this wound," he told them.
"How do you know?" asked Steve.
"Because I've been bitten by everything from a king cobra to a bloody black mamba, and I know how poison tastes. This rattlesnake must be a rare one, not to have any venom in its glands."
They looked down, but the snake was already across the clearing and heading for the woods. There was one thing they noticed about the rattler before it made the cover of the thicket. The snake had been shot. There was a large, ragged bullet hole in its left side, halfway down its body.
Bubba and Steve looked at the bewildered hunter, then at each other. Either the old sportsman was going senile or he had been carrying something stronger than water in that canteen of his.
"You want us to take you to a hospital?" asked
Bubba.
Wainwright took a handkerchief from a flap pocket of his jacket and wrapped it around his bleeding hand. "I suppose not. There is no need if there was no venom in the bite. Bloody peculiar about that snake." He picked up the game bag and looked inside. It was saturated with fresh blood, but totally empty.
"Bubba!" called Steve from behind them. "Come over here and take a look at the truck!"
Bubba joined his friend and found that the passenger window had been shattered from its frame. The funny thing was, the glass laid on the ground outside the truck, rather than on the truck seat, as if the window had been broken from the inside. The doors were still locked and the window on the driver side was cracked an inch for ventilation, just as they had left it early that morning.
There were only a couple of things missing. Strange things, considering that there was an expensive flashlight and a CB radio in the truck that had been untouched.
"My Satyr magazine!" groaned Steve, finding the top of the dashboard empty. "Somebody took it! And my new copy of Sports Illustrated, too!"
`"Who would break into a vehicle for a couple of bloody magazines?" asked Wainwright.
"Kids maybe," said Bubba. "Boys will do desperate things to get their first glimpse of a naked woman. I know I was so horny when I was a teenager, I sneaked a pack of nudie playing cards out of my Uncle Max's underwear drawer. He found me checking them out behind his garage and just about whaled the living tar out of me."
Steve smiled nostalgically. "With me it was a sideshow stripper at the county fair. She was a middle-aged broad, but boy, did she have the knockers! Nearly gave me whiplash, the way she slung those things around."
"Please, gentlemen, spare me your memories of adolescent lust," said Wainwright. "The only flesh that I'm interested in at the moment is a juicy sirloin steak."
"I'm kinda hungry myself," admitted Bubba. "There's a restaurant in Mountain View that serves good beef. We'll stop there on our way back to Knoxville."
The others agreed and they climbed into the truck. As they left PaleDoveMountain for that day, their thoughts were on an evening of good food and relaxation. The albino rattler was soon the farthest thing from their minds.
On the other hand, the snake didn't forget them quite so quickly, especially the man with the high-powered rifle. The creature struggled through the tangle of the forest, then made its way up the rocky pathway lined with pale flowers. It changed into several different forms during its journey up the mountainside reclaiming the form of a snake as it reached the cave at the top of the peak. Then, with its last bit of strength, the creature vanished into the cool darkness within.
Chapter Sixteen
Jennifer Brice only owned one black dress. Fortunately, it was one of conservative design, catering to the female business executive, and not a revealing evening gown that flashed a lot of cleavage and thigh. While hurriedly preparing for the trip home, Jenny had packed the dress, knowing that she would have need of it during her stay in Tucker's Mill. I'm probably the best dressed mourner in the place, she thought humorlessly.
The funeral service of Fletcher Brice was held in the Free Will Baptist Church, although he was to be buried behind the Presbyterian Church in the town's only cemetery. Jenny always thought it was odd that the Brice family had put so much stock in sticking to PaleDoveMountain in life, yet shunned it in death. All of the Brices were buried in the town cemetery, even her great-great-grandfather Efram. She had always wondered why the Brices didn't have a family graveyard somewhere on the mountain. But it seemed that the Brice men, her father included, didn't care much for the idea of being laid to rest in the mountain soil. She had once overheard her father tell her mother that he didn't want to be buried on PaleDoveMountain because he "didn't want to be dug up and played with like a damned rag doll."
At the time, she had thought that was a pretty funny thing for him to say. But she changed her mind after her frightening encounter with the Dark'Un on the mountaintop.
Jenny stood next to her father's casket and stared, with red eyes, at the man who lay there. She could hardly stand to look at him. The undertaker in Mountain View had done his best to cover the cuts and bruises that Anthony Stoogeone and his brothers had inflicted on the old man, but still the features seemed slightly out of kilter and covered with too much makeup. And the wrinkled hands that were crossed over his chest were the same. If you looked closely enough, you could tell that the fingernails were fake, like the artificial ones she sometimes used. They concealed the neat, little holes that Joseph Stoogeone's sadistic power drill had put there during Fletcher s time of torment.
Every time Jenny thought of her father's needless suffering, she began to cry, not so much out of sorrow as anguish. She could not picture any of the Stoogeones doing the ugly deed; she didn't even know what they had looked like. No, every time she closed her eyes and pictured the torture that led to the signing of the deed, Jenny saw Jackson Dellhart there. Grinning that deceptively charming smile, face deeply tanned, hair like spun gold, Dellhart requested her father's signature, and when the old man refused to give it, the millionaire Adonis revved the motor of the Black and Decker, and put the drill bit in one more time.
Stop it! she scolded herself, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. You're only making it worse. But it was hard to drive the images away. Whenever she looked at her father's peaceful face, she knew that it was a cosmetic lie. Had he looked that way when Anthony Stoogeone put a hollow-point slug through the center of his back? Or when Gart Mayo found him lying on the kitchen floor in a pool of thickening blood?
Her harsh thoughts were mercifully interrupted by the voice of a man behind her. "Jenny?"
She turned and saw Glen Tucker standing there. He looked the same as the last time she saw him, except for the addition of the beard. Glen also had a haunted look to his features, the expression of a man who had suffered much in a short period of time. She knew that to be the case, too. He had gone through the same thing that she was going through now. Except that it had been November then and it was his wife, Liz, who had been the subject of the mourning.
Jenny took his hand and smiled. "Hi, Glen."
"How are you holding up, Jenny?" Glen's hand pressed hers, but his touch was cold, like that of a man who had given up the warmth of life in the wake of tragic death.
"I'm hanging in there, I guess." She saw Dale Tucker standing behind his father, fidgeting with his clip-on tie. "Hi there, Dale. Boy, you must have grown a whole foot since the last time I saw you."
Dale nodded bashfully. She noticed that the child purposely averted his eyes from the open casket at the front of the church.
"I was sorry to hear about Liz," she told Glen. "I'm sorry I couldn't make it to the funeral."
"We appreciated the flower arrangement you sent," he said. "I would've sent you a thank-you note, but I just never got around to it."
"I understand." She considered how very much Liz Tucker had loved her husband and child. Liz had been Jenny's best friend in school, but they had drifted apart after Liz's marriage to Glen. Jenny told herself that things like that were bound to happen when letters and phone calls were the only contact possible. But secretly, she knew that she was mainly to blame. Liz had never known it, but Jenny had always had a secret crush on Glen and she supposed she had felt a little betrayed when Liz announced their engagement. Jenny knew that it was childish and immature to have reacted in such a way, but she couldn't help it. There was once a time when Jenny felt that Glen might be her only reason for staying in Tucker's Mill. And when that dream went sour, Jenny had used that, along with her dismal upbringing on PaleDoveMountain, as her excuse to leave PeremontCounty and seek a new life elsewhere.
She drove away the thoughts of lost love and turned her eyes back on her father's motionless form. "Glen, you were there the night that Anthony Stoogeone died, weren't you?"
Glen looked uncomfortable. "That's right."
"Did he die badly?"
"Yes," said Glen. "Very badly."
Jenny smiled. "Good."
Glen left her then, directing Dale to the second pew, where Miss Mable sat whispering gossip with some of the local women. She noticed that the boy was fidgety and, reaching into her huge black pocketbook, found a roll of Five-Flavor Life Savers to keep him occupied.
Jenny watched as they took their place among the mourners. She was surprised to see that nearly the entire town had turned out for the funeral. Fletcher Brice had never been a popular man in the community. Almost everyone in Tucker's Mill had labeled him as a hard man who disliked people and cherished his privacy. But both Jenny and her mother, Lucille, had been well thought of, and she figured the townfolk were there out of respect for her, rather than for her father.
She glanced past the rows of farmers decked out in their Sunday best, and their wives wearing summer dresses and their hair freshly styled for the occasion. Gart Mayo, Homer Lee Peck, and the preacher, Lyle Johnson, were standing in the church foyer, talking quietly. And there was a new arrival, too, shaking hands with the three.
Jenny couldn't believe her eyes. It was Rowdy Hawkens.
She turned back to the casket, aware that the man was walking up the center aisle toward her. She stood there, pretending to be lost in her grief, when he stepped up beside her. "Howdy," he said, but this time his voice was low and compassionate, and not the brash boom of the life of the party.
