by Rick Boyer
"Listen Mary, I just—"
"This isn't Mary," said a gruff voice. "Is this Bird-Brain Adams?"
"Speaking," I said. "Listen, Brian, why don't you just —"
"No. Why don't you just listen. You're in trouble again, bubblehead. Mary just called me. After hearing your latest shenanigans, I'm not surprised she's upset."
"There are no shenanigans. I have a week or so to spare and I'm taking a motor trip. I don't see that it's any business of yours or the Concord Police Department."
"Hell it isn't. It may interest you to know that I have many friends on various police forces around the country. I know a lot of powerful people in the Carolinas, too. If you don't turn around pronto, I'm going to unleash my influence down there: you won't know a moment's peace. They'll follow you wherever you go, day and ni—"
"Yeah, well I'm not going to hold my breath, chief. Mary put you up to this. I think you'd just better let it be."
He replied that this would not happen. He said that he and his agents were going to follow me like yesterday. He hung up. I was almost asleep when the phone rang a third time. It was Dr. Morris Abramson, my former friend. He informed me that after hearing Mary's description of what I was up to, he was convinced I had lost my reason. Accordingly, for my own good, he had no choice but to notify the appropriate people and have me confined to a lunatic asylum.
"Oh is that so?"
"Absolutely. And when they get you in harness, fella, dat's it. They'll put you in a little tiny room wit' padding. It won't even have a window. Just a lightbulb high up, so you can't strangle yourself wit' the cord, and a li'l tiny slot to peek in at you once a week."
I pictured the scene in my mind. It was grim. But I thought of the bright side.
"Heck Moe, at least the weekends won't seem to fly by like they do now."
"Remember Doc, you've been warned."
Then he hung up. Ominous, especially for Moe, who can barely bring himself to swat a fly. I was down; I fell back on the pillow and sighed. My own best friend turned against me. But just before I fell asleep the phone rang yet another time. It was Moe again, calling to apologize. I should have known. The world's biggest sap.
"It was to scare you," he admitted. "Mary thought it might make you turn around and come back."
"Tell Mary I shall turn around and come back. In just a few days. She cannot control my entire life. Okay? Now I'm not going to do anything stupid. And, if you'll recall, a major reason for this journey is the advice you gave me."
He wished me luck. God bless Moe. As soon as the lump in my throat subsided a bit, I slept. But just before my mind started the lazy, crazy-quilt mosaic of unrelated thoughts and images that marks the drifting off, I knew I had not been altogether truthful with him. The main reason for my solo journey south was simple: I wanted the adventure of it.
In the predawn darkness I awoke with the traveling fit still upon me. I was out of bed and dressed before live and on the road soon afterward. When I stopped for coffee at seven I was past Staunton. I ate breakfast in Roanoke, took a break, and pushed on. I entered North Carolina before noon, going south on Interstate 77. By one I was on I-40, headed west for the mountains. But where were they? The land all around me was flatter than any I had been traveling through. Were they a myth? I passed through Hickory and Morganton with no sign of the fabled Southern Highlands.
And then, at the little town of Old Fort, it happened. I could see—far ahead, and to the left and right as well—an awesome purple swelling in the distance that seemed to reach halfway up the sky. The road tilted upward into a hill. The hill went on, without dipping even slightly, for five miles. I downshifted the bike into fourth, then finally into third gear, with the throttle well opened up. The high-torque, low-revving engine pulled me up that huge incline making a noise like a Singer sewing machine. The hill wouldn't stop. I passed semitrailers slowed to a crawl, their diesels roaring with a deep brassy whine as they struggled up the mountain. My ears popped, then popped again. The air took on a rarefied quality, with the aroma of pines and spruces. The sun was getting low in the sky now and sent undulating shadows along the sides of the mountain ranges. Far off on any horizon, the mountain ranges were set one behind the other in layers, like gigantic frozen ocean waves. The colors of the ranges varied with the distance. Close ones were bright green. The farther ones were turquoise, and the ones farthest away purplish blue or even bluish gray with the distance. The sky was blue and gold. My, it was pretty.
At the top of the big hill the highway leveled out a bit into a series of sweeping curves that wove through mountain peaks.
Then there was the little town of Black Mountain. Pulling off the interstate to gas up, I swept into a Shell station that sat on a tiny plateau surrounded by wide valleys and high, greenish-blue mountain walls. I kept looking and looking to make sure it was real. Real, all right, and gorgeous. The attendant was waiting for me with the nozzle. He was experienced; he knew how much motorcyclists appreciate not having to get off their bikes and lower the kickstand unless they're ready. I filled the tank, handed back the hose, and swept around to the side of the station, where I parked. I pulled a Mountain Dew from the soft drink machine—it seemed appropriate—and guzzled. Two more bikes pulled in, a big Yamaha cruiser and a Honda Goldwing Aspencade. The Honda had full fairing, twin tufted bucket seats, a stereo system, a cabled intercom system, bags and trunk, and two sets of extra running lights. It looked like a Chris Craft. The riders parked their machines and came over to where I sat on the station apron. They had taken off their helmets and stowed them in the trunks; they wore billed caps. Both tipped their hats at me before sitting down. I liked that.
"See you got one a them Kraut bikes," drawled Honda, lighting a Winston. "Them's good bikes I hear. But expensive."
"Uh-huh. And slower than some, too. But they do last a long time. Where are you from?"
"We're from Sylva. Little bitty place between Asheville and the Smokies. I'm Pete and this is my ridin' partner, Jimmy." We shook hands all around, and they began to talk about riding in the mountains. How they could talk. I enjoyed every minute of it. Pete must have offered me cigarettes a dozen times. We bought coffee, and they asked if I wanted to ride with them "for a spell." I said sure.
We finished the coffee, hit the head, and mounted up. We rode off into a sunset that was drowning itself in a magnificent gap in the far mountains, a huge V of red and gold. My God, it was lovely. Beethoven's Fifth in color. Our engines hummed and thrummed under us, and we made wide, leaning sweeps through the curves, heading for it.
I was tingling with excitement, glad I'd come along.
14
WE RODE ALONG I-4O WEST together until we got to Asheville forty minutes later. Asheville sits on a high plateau between two mountain ranges. It was getting dark and the temperature was falling. We parked our bikes and sat in what was left of the sun in a parking lot that belonged to the phone company. From where we sat, I could see the far ring of mountains all around. My new friends pointed out the sights. There were fine old buildings below us, a big, neoclassical courthouse right next to an art deco building that they said was the town hall. Pete took out a can of Skoal and shoved a pinch down behind his lower lip. Then he lighted a Winston. He gestured at my bike.
"Massachusetts, eh? You a long way from home, seems like."
"Uh-huh. I'm taking a week off for a private vacation. How far is a town called Robbinsville?"
"Robbinsville? Two hours. Pretty ride, too. Real doggone pretty, eh Jimmy?"
"Yep. She's right on the Tennessee line, you know. They hunt boar and bear there a lot."
"I especially want to find someone who lives there. A friend of an friend of mine. Ever hear of a family named Royce?"
They shook their heads, and a long silence followed. Jimmy worked his lips around, savoring the sting and buzz of the wet snuff oozing nicotine into the tiny blood vessels of his mouth. I decided not to tell him about my several encounters with the effects of wet snuff o
n the mucous membranes of the nose and mouth. I did know, having tried leaf tobacco a few times on fishing trips, of the tremendous wallop it gives the user—more powerful than two big Jamaican cigars.
"What you want to find them Royces for anyhow?" Jimmy asked finally. The tone of his voice was friendly, but I sensed the faint beginnings of distrust and suspicion. I stretched out my legs, appearing as nonchalant as possible, and said that a friend of mine in trouble was seeking help from an old army buddy. He was too injured to travel, so I was helping him out.
"Well, that's good. A Christian thing to do. But don't you move too fast on 'em. We mountain folks, we're nice as pie most of the time. But outsiders should be careful, too, especially if they're from up north a good ways. We don't rile easy. But when we do, we're like a nest of copperheads. What'd you say your name was again?"
"Charles Adams. Call me Doc."
"Are you a doctor?"
"Yes, a surgeon. I operate on people's jaws and teeth."
"Well I never! A biker-doctor. But like I was sayin', Doc, if you want to get along, just be easy."
Jimmy settled back against a young locust tree and chuckled softly to himself. Meanwhile, Pete went over to his bike and took a steel thermos of coffee from his saddlecase. We passed around the cup and talked. Pete looked at his watch.
"We're a hour from home, Doc. I like to get home before five on a Sunday. The missus likes that. Even we tough road hogs got to foller the rules."
He winked at Jimmy, who chuckled again. I debated whether to push on or spend the night in Asheville. It was the biggest city in the western part of the state and seemed pretty and pleasant. But then they asked me to ride along with them as far as Sylva and have supper, so off we went, down through town and back onto the highway. We purred into Sylva as night was settling down over the place like an old down comforter. It was brisk out but not cold. I heard the far-off murmur of waterfalls and the whisper of wind in the trees. We wound up a road that was really a wide path in the mountains until we stopped in front of a clapboard house dug into the cliffside. It was faded white, with a gingerbread porch on two sides, facing down a valley. Pete led us up onto the porch and pointed across the valley at a mobile home set on cinder blocks. Lights twinkled around it; vines grew around the carport and the tiny attached porch.
"That's Jimmy's place yonder. He lives alone since his wife died, but spends a lot of time over here. Let's set out here a spell."
We sat while Pete left and reappeared with a plastic gallon milk jug half full of water. His wife, Liz, followed and welcomed me warmly, without hesitation or surprise. In the near-darkness I could see her glasses and brown hair done up in a bun. She said we would have roast pork, potatoes, and leather breeches for supper, with biscuits and cold buttermilk afterward. She went into the house. I asked what leather breeches were, and was told I would find out. Pete poured the water into three jelly glasses. It was water, all right: firewater. I added some branch water to mine to smooth it out a bit. It wasn't bad. It wasn't good particularly, but it wasn't bad. And it packed enough of a punch to warm me up after the ride. We drank and talked and watched the last bluish light disappear from the valley. Pete pointed up the valley to where it seemed to end in a solid green mountain wall.
"See that, Doc? This here's called a cove. Lots of coves here-abouts. A cove is a valley that's sealed up at one end by a mountain. What it is, really, is a big gully carved by a mountain stream, you see. Where the stream begins, up in the mountain yonder, that's where the cove ends. Open only at this end. Coves is right private places. Only one road in, one road out. Families own their own coves, mostly. This here is called Sluder's Cove, named after us. Only way in here is the little road we was just on. Everbody else stays out. Yep, coves is private."
Alter forty minutes or so of chitchat and illicit whiskey, we went inside and sat down around a table covered with blue gingham-patterned oilcloth. Pete said grace, being sure to thank the Almighty for each and every thing we were about to eat . . . and all the people involved, too, including me. It took a while. I liked it. And I was beginning to like these people a whole lot, too. Everything was terrific, except perhaps the leather breeches, which were dried beans in their pods, soaked up and boiled in pork broth. Must be an acquired taste. After supper we sat and drank coffee. I lighted a pipe and asked if there was a motel nearby. But Pete and Liz Sluder wouldn't hear of it. They showed me a cot in the sleeping porch. The screens were covered with plastic, which cut the chill a bit. I brought my bags inside and settled in. Liz knocked at the door and waltzed in with two enormous quilts—comforters, really. The quilt designs on them were beautiful. She caught me looking at them.
"You like these, Doc? This here's called the Double Irish Chain. Idn't it pretty? And this one's what we call a story quilt. That scene in the middle. Took me three months to finish."
I looked more closely. The central picture was of a young blond man under a fallen tree. A double-bitted ax lay nearby.
"That's Bill. My only nephew. We never had any young 'uns of our own. Bill was kilt by a falling tree out in the Snowbird Mountains when he was logging there fifteen years ago."
"I'm really sorry."
"No need, Doc. He's in heaven now. A right pleasin' young man. I made this story quilt so we'd always remember him. Goodnight now."
She left the room. I turned out the light and climbed into bed. The mattress was too soft, but the covers weighed a ton and the night was really cold now. The plastic wrap on the windows sucked in and out and flapped against the screens. Outside was the sighing and hissing of the strong wind through the pines. I heard the distant rush of falling water and the hooting of nightbirds down the valley. I could have been ten thousand miles from Concord, Mass. And perhaps sixty years away, too. I snuggled down in the comforters and was gone.
* * *
I was up before dawn again. What was wrong with me? I slipped out of bed, dressed, and carried my saddlecases out to the bike and attached them. I wanted to leave behind a gift of some kind, but I didn't have anything. I wanted to slip away without inconveniencing the Sluders further, although I wanted to say good-bye as well.
"Where you think you're goin'?" said a gruff voice behind me. I turned to see Pete Sluder on the porch.
"I thought I'd just mosey on without bothering you any further."
"Well, not before you eat you ain't. Lizzie's gettin' a big breakfast going."
So I stayed for that, too. Sausage, eggs, biscuits, country ham, and grits with red-eye gravy. Red-eye gravy may not sound appetizing, but served over hot grits it was the finest surprise I got in the South. With all this we were served cider and percolator coffee that was prescription strength. I rolled out of there at sunup. As I purred down the gravel lane, Pete caught up with me.
"There's several Royces in Robbinsville. I think the one you want is north of town. There's a widder lady there with a son living with her."
"When did you find this out? I thought you didn't know about the Royces."
"Oh, we knew a little bit. We just didn't want to say nothing until we figured you was all right. Good-bye, Doc. Stop back here on your way back home and we'll do some ridin'. Good luck. Be careful out there. Look sharp."
We shook hands. I yelled good-bye to Liz and was off. The scenery along the road to Robbinsville put everything else I'd seen in the shade. Sometimes the valleys were so narrow and steep that I had a sense of claustrophobia, which was understandable perhaps for someone raised in the Hat cornbelt. But in these narrow valleys the high rocky walls of the nearby mountains were so close and steep that they seemed to loom up around you, almost blocking the sun. The valleys were very sparsely settled; those with people living in them had only one or two shacks hanging from the cliffsides. How their residents got their pickups up there and down again sure had me puzzled. In rugged mountains like these a neighbor who lived half a mile distant might be an hour's trek by steep footpaths. This was the reason for the legendary clannishness of the mountain peopl
e, and perhaps, too, for their violent reaction to much of the outside world. The land had imposed a Dark Ages isolation on the hillfolk. They were, for all practical purposes, a thousand miles distant, a hundred years behind the times.
I rolled into Robbinsville a little after eight and had the whole day to find Bill Royce, or his homestead. Robbinsville was not a wealthy town, but it was getting by in a frontier sort of way. I cruised around town first, giving it the once-over. There was a huge furniture factory on one side of town, with a never-ending lumberyard and log depot attached. It reminded me of the lumber and paper mills in interior Maine. From this, and from reading the bulletin boards and the local paper, I assumed that lumber and hunting were the two primary revenue getters. There were a lot of advertisements for bear and boar outfitters. I ordered coffee at a diner and looked through the phone book. Six Royces. I wrote down all the address and phone numbers. Most of the Royces were on Royce Cove Road. I knew what that meant: they were all snuggled up together in one of those box canyons with only one way in, one way out.
I found the dime store and bought a town map. It was really a hunting map prepared by the North Carolina Fish and Game Department, showing hunters where to find big game in the mountains. The map was bordered by photos of trophy black bear and Russian boar. The specimens were huge and nasty, even in death. Wild country, no doubt about it. Royce Cove Road was indeed north of town, and it wound around the mountains for a goodly distance. It paralleled a small branch stream on the map with the unlikely—not to say ominous—name of Hanging Dog Creek. I tucked the map into my breast pocket and cruised out of town until I picked up the road. It was a single-lane dirt path, and I wound my way up the foothills slowly, keeping an eye on the mailboxes. I passed four boxes with Royce painted on them and went all the way to the end of the road, which terminated in a steep path up the side of the mountain. The path was dark; I couldn't see up it farther than about twenty feet. In the distance I heard the plashing of a waterfall. I turned the bike around on the narrow road. I would work my way back down the cove and out. So I stopped at the first mailbox, the one farthest in. The lady who answered the door was friendly and said she was the widow Royce. Her son, Edward, was an electrician who was working on a big job at a nearby sawmill. When I asked her about Bill Royce, she fell silent for a few seconds and asked who I was and what I wanted. I explained I was a friend of a friend and wanted to see him. Squinting at me, she finally asked if I knew what had happened to him overseas.
