CHAPTER 12
ANN GOTH RETURNS
Elizabeth was bored and anxious. She fed the pets and explored the cabin, barn, garden, and edge of the surrounding forest for the third time while she waited to hear from Johnny.
She had just returned again to the cabin when an unfamiliar car moved up the driveway and parked next to Johnny’s car. Looking out a window, she saw two women and a man get out: a small, attractive, middle-aged woman, and a young, stunning blonde bombshell, appearing totally out of place in her clinging dress, high heels, permed hairdo, and tons of makeup. The middle aged man was short, very stout, and unsteady on his feet. Elizabeth had no idea who any of them could possibly be, but they had all gotten past a half-dozen armed Tribesmen at the front gate, so she knew that they must have legitimate business here.
She opened the door and met them as they approached the cabin, the older woman in the lead.
“You are Elizabeth, we were told at the gate about you,” said the stranger, smiling as her piercing eyes studied her closely. “We were told that you are the Tribe teacher and are living here at the cabin temporarily, but not much else. The guards at the gate were surprised to see me here, to say the least. I’m Ann Goth, Johnny’s mother.”
“Mrs. Goth!” said a stunned Elizabeth, as they shook hands firmly. “It’s truly a pleasure to meet you!”
“It figures there’s a woman here,” snipped the second stranger coldly. “Johnny’s a real woman magnet, isn’t he? I should know, I’m Angela Welborne, Johnny’s fiancé.”
“Fiancé?” muttered Elizabeth numbly, as Angela walked past her into the cabin, ignoring her outstretched hand, but watching her closely, a cruel sneer on her lips.
“He didn’t bother to mention me, I see.”
“The subject wouldn’t have come up. I simply rent a room here.”
“How convenient,” Angela quipped.
“And this is Dooley Simple’s father, Professor Fred Simple,” Ann told Elizabeth.
“Glad to finally meet you, young lady,” Simple said, as he shook hands with Elizabeth. “Dooley has said many very positive things about you. He didn’t tell me about the trees with faces and all this other amazing stuff." He waved a hand to indicate the cabin and its surroundings. "I'd also sure like to see your art covered car at some point.”
“Dooley is always talking about you, Professor,” returned Elizabeth warmly. “Dooley is an amazing young man.”
Simple’s smile disappeared in an instant. “Yes,” he agreed. “Dooley is very special.”
“Where are Johnny and Mort?” Ann asked Elizabeth.
“I’m sorry to tell you this, Mrs. Goth; Mort died several days ago.”
“Died!” Ann sat down heavily in one of the living room chairs, her face ashen.
Angela, who was walking around the room looking at everything, with an increasingly sour expression on her face, didn’t react at all.
Elizabeth sat down across from Ann. “Yes. That’s why Johnny was contacted, I understand. I gather that he inherits this property.”
Angela laughed. “This dump couldn’t be worth much!”
Ann frowned at Angela. “This land is worth a great deal in terms of dollars, but it’s priceless to the Tribe. I take it that some sort of attempted land grab is underway, judging from the logging equipment staged at the foot of the driveway and the armed Tribesmen. Fenster equipment, I bet. And Johnny is the new Goth and in the middle of it.”
“That and worse,” confirmed Elizabeth. “Johnny is in the forest beyond the inner gate at some sort of Tribal healing place, trying to keep Two Bears alive. Great Two Bears has been shot.”
“There’s more trouble still,” added the Professor. “I came here because an evil man named Dark took my Dooley. Mrs. Goth said she would try to help me. I suspect that Dark is also behind butchering a couple of men only a few miles down the valley from here. There’s no telling what he’s done with my poor Dooley.”
“That’s terrible,” said a shocked Elizabeth. “We’ll all help. Dooley has many friends in town and on the Reservation, including me. We already know about Dark. But why would Dark take Dooley?”
“Even as a child, Dooley was very special,” said Ann. “I’m sure that Dark would detect that, if he is what I fear he is.”
“Johnny said that Dark is evil,” said Elizabeth. “In town he shook Johnny’s hand and they were suddenly sort of arm wrestling. Johnny had just beaten up four biker gang toughs without working up a sweat, but shaking hands with Dark was far worse. Then there was an explosion of light that pushed them apart. That surprised Dark and he backed away. But from the way Dark acted and what he said, Dark is very interested in seeing Johnny again.”
Ann nodded thoughtfully. “And right now Johnny is preoccupied and vulnerable, and obviously, so are Two Bears and the Tribe. I’m going to him and Two Bears now.”
“What about Dooley?” asked Simple.
“I’ll also get Tribal help for him, Fred, don’t worry. Stay here and rest. I’ll let you know when I find out anything more.”
“Well, I’m certainly going with you,” said Angela.
“No, I’m going alone,” stated Ann forcefully, as she walked to the door.
“No way,” complained Angela, following her. “I didn’t come all this way to miss out on whatever is happening.”
Ann turned her steely-eyed gaze to Angela. “You can stay here at the cabin for now, if that’s alright with Elizabeth, or you can take the car and go back to California. There’s crisis and danger here that I hadn’t expected, or I wouldn’t have brought you here in the first place. Everything is changed now, and you’re not part of it.”
“Nothing has changed at all and I’m a big part of it. I came here to find Johnny and bring him back with me. If he has inherited this property we can have lawyers and realtors take care of selling it.”
“All that is highly unlikely,” stated Ann. She pushed through the big front door and slammed it shut in Angela’s face.
Angela stood shaking with anger for a few moments before she could do anything else at all. Then she exploded. “Who the hell does she think she is?”
Elizabeth managed to not respond, but she watched with amusement as Angela struggled to reopen the heavy door and ran out in search of Ann. Even if by marriage, Ann was a Goth, there was no doubt of that. If she didn’t want this Angela woman to follow her, then she wouldn’t, Elizabeth had no doubt about that either.
Angela had been a huge shock to Elizabeth; not only the fact that she was engaged to Johnny but the fact that Johnny would have anything to do with such a woman at all. She was obviously very attractive physically, but it seemed to her that was as far as her beauty want. Wouldn’t Johnny see that?
Elizabeth resumed tidying up around the cabin, and Simple was avidly examining wood carvings of creatures real and mythical when Angela came storming back into the cabin. “I need the key,” she announced tersely, as she held out her hand to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth continued tidying up. “What key would that be?”
“For that damned big gate in the woods!”
“Only the Goths and the Tribe Shaman have the key to the inner gate.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care what you believe.”
“What’s inside that fence? Why the hell is there a fence at all?”
Elizabeth didn’t answer, but started washing dishes in the sink.
“I demand that you answer me, you little moron,” shouted Angela.
“I’m busy.”
“Doing what?”
“Mostly deciding what to do about you. Throwing you out on your ass is number one on my list of possibilities right about now.” She stopped fussing with the dishes, turned on Angela, and stood toe-to-toe and eye-to-eye with her. “Or, you could leave on your own power, or you could sit down and shut up, but I’ve had about all I can take from you. This is my home.”
“This is Johnny’s property and I’m his fiancée.”<
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“I don’t care who the hell you are. I’m not Johnny’s property and I’m certainly not yours. You’re in my apartment. Sit down and shut up or get out. Now.”
Angela spun on her heal and marched outside to the rental car, got in, and slammed the door shut.
She considered driving away, but then remembered that Ann had the keys. This wasn’t going as she had imagined it would. She had expected to simply use her sex appeal on Johnny and bring him back to LA, away from Goth Mountain and from his mother. Now she knew that she needed something else, some other angle to work, but had no idea what it might be.
Her cell phone rang. “My name is Bill Fenster, Ms. Welborne,” said the caller. “I’m a long time business acquaintance of your father and I’m very interested in acquiring the Goth property and its timber.”
“How very interesting!”
“I’m also interested in finding out more about what else is contained on the property.”
“You and me both.”
“That’s why I called. I surmise that we may have some common interests.”
“And what if we do?”
“I just talked with your father. You’re not interested in your Johnny becoming a hermit on Goth Mountain, or in living on the Mountain with him. Like any normal person you’re interested in cash and climbing the social ladder while living in a more civilized area than the Northwest. Mountains and even box companies don’t interest you much, do they? I, on the other hand, make my living developing properties like Goth Mountain. I could take it off your hands and we could both greatly profit from it.”
“What would you have me do?”
“Get your Johnny and his mother away from Goth Mountain. As well as that woman Winters that rents a room there.”
“I was planning on doing all that anyway, but it will be difficult. Much more difficult than I thought.”
“You can also help me in other ways.”
“First, what’s in it for me?”
“We can reduce risk for each other, and minimize potential losses.”
“That sounds a little fuzzy.”
“How does a half of a million in cash sound? It would be yours as a bonus, in addition to whatever Johnny wants for the place, which would be much more than that.”
“OK, now I’m listening.”
“To start, simply keep your eyes open and tell me what’s happening. What are the Goths and the Tribe doing now?”
“Both Goths are in the woods looking after some Indian guy that’s been shot. Other Indians are hanging out all over the place, with rifles. Simple and Winters are in the cabin.”
“Very good! Where in the woods did the Goths go? Why did they take the wounded Indian into the woods?”
“I don’t know. They went through a big fence that I can’t get through and walked towards the mountain, into a forest of big trees.”
“Big trees? How big?”
“I don’t know. Huge. Biggest I've ever seen and I've seen Sequoias.”
“How wide are the trunks?”
“Five to fifteen feet across maybe. Some bigger, maybe. I didn’t pay much attention. They looked even bigger, beyond the second fence.”
“Bigger than fifteen feet in diameter? How many trees that big?”
“How the hell would I know? Hundreds, maybe thousands.”
“Thousands,” mumbled Fenster. Millions of board-feet of virgin timber, and it would soon be his! And what else? What was it that drew the Tribe there, and Dark? Surely Dark has no interest in trees. "Can you tell me anything else?”
“I’ve only been here fifteen lousy minutes, and I do mean lousy.”
“OK. Keep your eyes and ears open and I’ll call again later. If you come up with something that helps me get that timber, you’ll be richly rewarded. If you find out about other things of value on the property, I’d be very interested in that also.”
“Other things?”
“Come now, Ms. Welborne, even if you’ve been there only a short time, you must have already sensed something unusual about that place, and about the Goths. I haven’t seen Johnny since he returned, but I bet he’s something special, like old Mort was. Somehow the key to it all is that Mountain, and I’d like to know exactly what that key is.”
“I’ll let you know what I find out, but you’ll have to make it worth my effort.”
“I can do that. I’m a very wealthy businessman, Ms Welborne. Talk to your father, he can verify my credentials.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Very well then. Good luck.”
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Secrets of Goth Mountain Page 31