After a minute or so had passed and I had sufficiently supplied my cells with all the oxygen they needed and my muscles had efficiently disposed of the lactic acid that had pooled in them, I climbed to my feet and walked to the edge of the woods. The house sat like a fortress and fear walked icy fingers up my spine. Whatever bravery I had felt during my brief confrontation with Peter and during my heroic run through the woods had left me like a wounded bird taking flight. In its place, dread constricted my lungs and caused my heart to thump fearfully against its bony cage.
The Germans in that house, the ones who had beaten Dad and Henry senseless and had tormented Pop, the ones who had mocked and abandoned me to a lifeless cellar, were nothing like Peter. They were merciless, brutal, soulless beasts who wouldn’t feel the slightest inclination to stop and ponder the moral correctness of their actions before putting a gun to my head and squeezing off a shot. Yes, I had confronted my fear in the woods and round-housed Peter, but the game had changed. Four to one were odds that suddenly made sense to me, and sense said I hadn’t a chance.
What was I thinking before? I would just march into the house and demand, in the name of the United States government, Harry S. Truman, and apple pie the release of my dad, brother, and grandfather? Did I think the Germans would shower me with apologies and send me on my way with a pat on the back and directions to safety? I did a pretty good Groucho Marx impersonation, but I doubted the Germans would appreciate my talent or find much humor in it. Such unique abilities are unfortunately rendered useless in survival situations, unlike say invisibility. But even if I did possess the uncommon ability to render myself unseen to the natural world, how would I get Dad and Henry out of the woods? I had no idea where we were let alone where we would go. We’d have to hide in the woods until nightfall then follow our course by the position of the stars. If it was a cloudless night.
Reality hit me then like a bucket of cold water in the face: I had no plan. The danger with making decisions based on emotion is that emotions are fickle things. Like a fog, they’re present for a time, hiding the truth, softening life’s hard edges, clouding our view. But when emotions dissolve and the fog lifts, we see life for what it really is, reality makes its appearance and the clarity of fact comes into focus. The fact was, I had no plan for rescue, at least not one that ended in anything other than a very untimely and most unpleasant death.
Unless I missed it, God hadn’t promised me anything concerning what would take place in that house should I embark on a rescue mission, and my faith was unsteady at best.
While this thought was still in my head, seated in the front of my brain like a rock, I felt something brush past me. Looking up, I saw Peter break out of the woods and enter the clearing. He crossed the clearing in long, even strides, determination in the solid rhythm of his gait and square set of his shoulder carriage. His arms hung loosely at his sides, swaying like twin pendulums of a grandfather clock.
He took the clearing and mounted the porch steps without once looking back at me. It was as if he knew the Germans inside were expecting us . . . or at least expecting him.
Partially concealed behind the broad trunk of an oak, with much anticipation and some trepidation, I prepared to bolt if the front door opened and Peter pointed in my direction, completing his Judas-like betrayal. But the door didn’t open on its own nor did it open from the inside. Peter opened it and stood on the doorsill, back against the jamb, face aimed inward, unmoving. After a few long seconds, he turned toward me and waved me in.
So that was his angle, earn my trust then lead me right back into the lion’s den. I didn’t move. I’ve been known to be gullible at times, naïve and inexperienced in matters of the world, but I’m not stupid. I wasn’t a child you could trick with a piece of candy and some kind words. But something didn’t make sense. Why rescue me in the first place? Why lead me to safety only to return me to a certain death? It didn’t add up. But maybe it wasn’t supposed to. Maybe the sense of it was to confuse me and toy with my loyalties. Psychological torture. Brainwashing. Maybe this was a technique the Nazis used to break a soldier and manipulate his will. Anger flared in me like hot coals receiving a good, swift breath of oxygen.
Peter waved again. There was nothing in his eyes or the flint-like set of his face that cried of betrayal, and I felt there was still a part of me that trusted him, or at least wanted to trust him.
“They’re gone,” he said and waved again. “It’s okay.”
Gone? Was this still part of the ploy? Did he really think I was so foolish to march right back into the prison I’d just escaped only a day before? But something didn’t sit right with me. Again, I felt a sense of trust, a pull toward believing Peter had my best interest in mind. I couldn’t explain it, but I wanted to trust him, I wanted to believe him, I wanted to place my life and the life of my dearest kin in his hands. But, naïve or not, I was skeptical.
Peter waved again. “Come. See for yourself. The house is empty.”
How did he know it was empty? He hadn’t even crossed the threshold. If he was indeed on my side, how could he say with such confidence that the house was empty? Maybe the Nazis were hiding on the second floor or in the cellar, waiting for our sure return for my family. Surely they had to know I wouldn’t just find my way out of the woods and forget the whole event ever occurred. It was a trap, whether Peter was privy to it or not I could not tell, but I wasn’t about to walk right in and announce my arrival.
As all this was circling through my head I found myself crossing the natural border from woods to clearing. I wanted a better look at the front door.
Circling around to the front of the house, I stayed along the edge of the woods, like a deer on high alert and ready to run at the first sign of danger. But no sign came. The house was quiet, still. Peter remained at the front door watching me with a look that could only be described as curiosity, as if he couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t place my complete trust in him.
Aligning myself with the front of the house so I had a straight view through the front door, across the living room, and at the staircase, I stood motionless, watching and waiting. Watching for that sign of danger that had yet to reveal itself and waiting for the Nazis to unwittingly announce their clandestine presence. After a few minutes that seemed more like hours, what with the rapid ticking of my heart and coiled tension in my muscles, I decided that the only way I’d know for sure whether the house was truly empty or not, whether I could truly trust Peter, and whether I was truly gullible enough to fall for such obvious deception, was to proceed across the clearing toward the front of the house and the welcoming open door.
The dry wood of the steps and porch creaked under my weight. Peter still stood with his back to the jamb, straddling the threshold between porch and living room. I looked at him and he nodded slightly as if to welcome me into his own home. Stopping in the doorway, I held my breath and listened for any sign of life inside the house. The living room was as I remembered it the first time Henry and I entered. A few pieces of scattered furniture littered the floor, broken glass sparkled like diamonds in a morning sunray that broke through a side window, and a large braided area rug was folded and pushed to one side of the room. The house seemed empty. I heard no footsteps coming from the second floor, no deep German voices, no sounds at all other than a few birds singing their morning praises and Peter’s steady breathing just inches from my ear.
I looked at Peter again, and he simply tilted his head toward the inside of the house, inviting me to search it on my own. His left cheek was redder and still slightly swollen and a twinge of guilt stabbed me in the gut. I shouldn’t have hit him. There was a sad quality to his eyes that bewildered me, though. I couldn’t tell if it was sadness because he was about to betray my trust, or sadness because of my lack of trust, because I had insisted we return to this house and so much time had been wasted already.
I decided then that I would quickly search the house. If the Germans were there, waiting in anticipation for me to walk into their
trap, there was nothing more I could do about it. I had to find out one way or another. If the Germans weren’t there and the house truly was vacant, then Peter and I would be on our way. I only hoped that if the Germans did indeed move Dad and Pop and Henry that Peter knew where they had taken them. And that if he knew where they’d taken them, he’d be willing to lead me there and aid me in their rescue.
Crossing the threshold into the living room, I walked softly trying not to land my full weight on the aged floorboards. If the Germans were in the house, I didn’t want to announce my location so quickly. Making quick work of my search, I circled the first floor and found no one. Then ascending the stairs, I searched each room and the bathroom and again found no one. The room in which Dad and Pop and Henry would have been found was empty, the only sign that anyone had been there were a few odd-shaped blood stains, soaked dark into the worn wood, where Dad and Henry had been seated.
Returning to the living room, I found Peter now inside the house standing in the middle of the floor, arms hanging loosely at his sides, tears rolling down his cheeks. “They’re not here,” he said in a quiet voice, almost a whisper.
“I haven’t checked the cellar yet,” I said. “They may have taken them down there like they took me.”
Peter shook his head slowly. “No. They didn’t. They’re not here. I tried to tell you.”
A mixture of anger and guilt bubbled in my chest. I was angry at the Nazis for being so evil and angry at myself for being so stubborn. How much time had I wasted by not trusting Peter? How much of a head start had the Nazis gotten? They couldn’t move fast with Dad and Henry in such poor physical condition and Pop so confused. And what would they do when they realized or decided that they’d be better off without three weighty hostages? What was to stop them from killing them and dumping their bodies in a shallow grave?
If I’d trusted Peter and allowed him to lead the way, we would be gaining on them right now instead of standing in this cursed house wasting time. And that was the source of my guilt.
Tears now burned my own eyes and a lump settled in my throat. “Where? Where did they take them?”
Peter ran a sleeve across his face, smearing dirt and tears. “I’ll show you.” He started to leave but turned when he got to the doorway. A shaft of sun slanted across the room, landing on his eyes, causing them to glisten like two aquamarine gemstones. He straightened his back and eyed me directly. “Billy, do you trust me?”
I tried unsuccessfully to swallow past the knot in my throat and a tear ran down my cheek. I couldn’t speak so I just nodded, hoping it was enough to invoke his forgiveness.
On the porch, I placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder and found my voice. “I’m sorry I hit you. That was wrong of me.”
Peter placed his hand over mine. It was warm and soft, not the hand of a soldier, especially a cold-hearted Nazi killer. He didn’t have to say anything; I knew then that he did forgive me. “I’ll take you to them,” he said. Then he removed his hand and turned and stood in front of me. “Billy, when we find them, you will have to trust, okay? No matter what. Trust. Okay?”
“O—okay,” I said. “I will.”
28
I’ve only planted my seat on a train once in my life. When I was twelve, Dad, Mom, and us three boys traveled from Brunswick to Boston via the Amtrak Downeaster Railroad to visit Mom’s brother, Mitchell, the lawyer. Two things I remember about the trip: the rhythmic, almost hypnotic clickity-clack of steel wheels on steel track, and the just as rhythmic brown and green strobe of trees whizzing by my window at breakneck speed.
Peter and I weren’t traveling at any speed even close to breaking our necks but the trees were nonetheless whizzing by in the same striated pattern that had caught my half-dozed attention from car number five of the Downeaster.
Once again, racing as if he knew exactly where he was going, as if some unseen lighthouse guided him and an invisible rope pulled him along through the tempest of leaves and branches and thickets that swirled around us, Peter led the way with me close on the heels of his black Nazi boots. We were running up hill, up Bear Mountain, gaining ground on the morning sky. I felt like we were chasing the sun over the mountain, a task that was both fatiguing and futile.
Sucking air as if through a hose, my chest constricting more and more with every labored breath, I was amazed at Peter’s stamina. It seemed there was no end to his energy stores. After twenty or so minutes, with my stores depleted, I pulled up, propped the weight of my torso against a sturdy oak, and rubbed my burning quadriceps. Peter must have noticed the absence of my heavy footsteps behind him because he stopped moments later. Turning to face me, hands on his hips, chest rising and falling in rapid succession, he said, “Are you okay?”
“I just need a break. Just a minute.”
Peter wiped his hand across his forehead and looked around. “This is beautiful country.”
I righted myself and leaned against the oak. He was right, it was beautiful. Light filtered through the leafy ceiling and dappled the ground in a mottled calico pattern. Trees—maples, oaks, sycamores—stood like gentle giants, overseers of the wood and all its inhabitants. Holding the title of octogenarian of the woods, Oaks routinely live to see the two-century mark. Nearby, a bird, nestled comfortably among the branches of one of those senior members of the arbor world, whistled happily. In the distance, high above the trees, a hawk screamed.
But the beauty of the woods was eclipsed by the ominous truth that somewhere in its fabric, hidden among shadows and crevices, was the enemy. And where the enemy was were my loved ones, held against their will, clinging to life, if there was any life left to cling to.
“How do you know where you’re going?” I asked Peter.
He shrugged and tilted his head back so he gazed up at the canopy above us. “I don’t know. I feel . . . pulled, you know?”
“No, I don’t know.” I was beginning to think Peter assumed everyone possessed the same powers as he and everyone had access to his knowledge. What he didn’t realize and on what I was about to educate him was that while he was glowing like an impassioned firefly and playing matchsticks with his fingers the rest of us were just left in the dark. “I don’t understand, Peter. I don’t understand any of this. What are Nazis doing here in America? How did you get here? How do you do all this weird stuff, glow and start fires and know which way to run? How did you know the house would be empty? How did you heal my ankle? I don’t understand you, this, any of it.”
Dropping his hands into his pockets, Peter ambled over and stood in front of me. There was sadness in his eyes again, as if he desperately wanted to tell me what was really going on, answer all my questions, and give me a little of his light so I could see clearly, but he couldn’t. Whether it was against his Nazi code or some other code of honor to which he’d subscribed and pledged his allegiance, he was unable to share with me the full truth of who he was, who he truly was.
Reaching out to touch my shoulder, he said, “Someday you will see clearly, in the full brightness of the light, but for now, don’t despise ignorance so much, not all the truth is for you to know.”
I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. Once again, Peter’s enigmatic words had befuddled me. At times, he spoke like a child, innocently and simply, and at other times he spoke as if he possessed the wisdom of a century’s worth of philosophers and teachers. But before I could question him further, he slapped my shoulder and said, “Are you ready? We have a long run ahead of us. They have quite a head start.”
Filling my lungs one more time with the rich oxygen-soaked air of the mountain, I nodded. “Let’s get going then. We need to slow down some, though. I need to pace myself.”
A slight smile curled the corner of Peter’s mouth. “I’ll slow down. Just holler if you’re having trouble keeping pace.”
The afternoon ticked by quickly, measured in the soft thumping of our boots against the floor of the woods and the steady encroachment of a storm system moving in from the west. As
the hours passed and afternoon became evening, the sky took on the flat gray quality of slate. The atmosphere was heavy and the air thick with moisture. An eerie stillness had crept up the mountainside along with us and sat on Bear Mountain like a brooding specter, waiting patiently until the fullness of time had come to unleash its fury.
When daylight had waned, hurried by the oppressive mammoth that loomed overhead, Peter slowed to a walk and allowed me to catch up. When I had come alongside him, matching his gait step for step, he suddenly stopped and stood still, head tilted slightly to the left, eyes slowly searching the woods.
“What is it?” I asked in almost a whisper. “Do you hear them?”
Peter said nothing, but continued listening to the still silence. After less than a minute, he turned to his right and started jogging again. I watched as he disappeared behind a clump of serviceberry before taking off after him. A few hundred yards away, I found him crouched close to the ground, on his knees with his back to me.
As I approached I noticed what he’d heard and gone in search of: the birthing place of a mountain spring. Crystalline water bubbled out from under a moss-covered rock and spilled its way down the mountainside. Somewhere, miles away and hundreds of feet closer to see level, this infant grew into an adult and spilled into the steady-flowing Old Course Saco River.
Peter dipped his cupped hands into the water and scooped some to his mouth where he then lapped at it like a dog. He looked up at me, water dripping from his chin, and smiled. “Drink. It’s good.”
Stooping beside him, I cupped my hands and submerged them into the spring. The water was cold and sweet and satisfying. When my stomach was full and my thirst quenched, I splashed water on my face and head and let it run down the back of my neck. “I never thought I could enjoy water so much,” I said.
Standing and rubbing his face and neck with wet hands, Peter said, “And the Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and make fat your bones. And you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.”
Fear Mountain Page 14