Fear Mountain

by Mike Dellosso

  The ease with which I planned this act of violence disturbed me. But it was not an easy conclusion and the thought of what I was about to do knotted my stomach and sent spider legs up and down my spine.

  The wind had whipped up and blew through the treetops like giant fingers combing through hair. Nearer, lightning illuminated the evening sky, followed by the growl of thunder. Using the din of the seething atmosphere as cover, I scurried through the woods in a wide circle, placing myself ahead of Mueller and between him and Helmut. My plan was to wait until Mueller passed, then jump him from behind and clobber him with the handle of the knife. Whether it was a good plan or not, and whether it would have even succeeded, I’ll never know. I never got a chance to execute it.

  As Mueller approached, I crouched behind a thick stand of serviceberry, held my breath and tried to visualize how the attack would take place. There were so many variables, so many ways it could go wrong and place me in the grip of a killer. I said a quick prayer and told myself to trust.

  When Mueller was within twenty feet of me, the beam of his flashlight found my serviceberry. He stopped. The beam hung in the air like a low-slung star. I couldn’t see him past the light but pictured him leaning forward, squinting into the shrub.

  “Helmut?” he said. “Bist du das?” Is that you?

  I froze like a rabbit in those first few seconds of being spotted by a wolf when its central nervous system processes the danger and sorts out the proper response: fight or flight. For the rabbit, the answer is always flight. Run. Beat it to the family nest. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that option.

  I did the first thing that came to mind. I cleared my throat, lowered my voice, and said, “Ja.”

  Mueller approached carefully, slowly, keeping the light fixed on the serviceberry and whatever part of me he could see through its tangle of branches. Thunder clapped overhead and rolled across the sky.

  “Was tus du, Helmut?” What are you doing? He said it like he didn’t really mean it, like a molester coaxing a small boy out of hiding place by telling him everything is okay. Let’s be friends.

  I remained silent as my mind turned and my heart beat like a piston. My plan had crumbled, and I was a helpless rabbit cornered by a hungry wolf.

  Mueller continued creeping closer, closer, inch by inch, slowly, keeping the light on me hidden behind the serviceberry.

  When he was within five feet of the shrub my central nervous system threw the switch to Fight. Exploding from the ground, adrenaline surging into my bloodstream, I leapt over the serviceberry toward Mueller. For an instant, in the fraction of a second it took for me to become airborne and find the ground again, I saw the look of surprise on Mueller’s face and the muted sheen of gunmetal.

  I landed with my arms around Mueller’s legs and my mind screaming, warning my muscles to prepare for the punch of a bullet. Flinching, I squeezed tight and felt Mueller’s weight collapse under mine. The gun had still not discharged. Climbing up his legs, blinded by the flashlight, I groped for his arms. Since he hadn’t fired I could only assume he’d lost the gun in the tussle. If I could get on top of him and pin him to the ground I may have time to . . .

  Before my mind could formulate any further action, a fist, like a sledgehammer, crashed into the side of my head and knocked me back. I rolled off of Mueller, landed on my stomach, and reflexively reached for my throbbing skull. Immediately the beast was on me. His weight was more oppressive than I ever could have imagined, pressing the air out of my lungs. His arm found my neck and wrapped me in a python grip, pushing his bulging bicep against my trachea. Pain raced up and down my neck and face, pressure built in my head.

  Rocking my body just inches off the ground, fumbling at my belt, I was able to find the handle of the trench knife. In a panic, I withdrew it and in one spastic motion whipped it around and plunged it into Mueller’s thigh. The tip of the blade found bone and Mueller howled and released his grip on my neck.

  Shoving him off of me, I coughed and sputtered like a drowning victim gasping for air. My throat felt like I’d swallowed broken glass and the sudden rush of blood to my brain left me lightheaded. But I knew I had no time to spare. Mueller was probably scrambling for the gun while I reoriented myself.

  Pulling myself up, I found the flashlight on the ground, picked it up and aimed it at Mueller. He was on all fours, crawling toward the handgun. The knife was still stuck in his leg. I lunged at him just has his hand found the Luger’s grip.

  Spinning around, pulling the gun’s barrel in line with my chest, Mueller let out a guttural bark that sounded more animal than human.

  I swung hard and hit the gun with the flashlight just before the barrel exploded in a flash of light and the crack of gunfire rattled my brain.

  Landing on top of Mueller, using the flashlight as a club, I swung again and the casing contacted something hard. Mueller grunted and some of his strength waned. He still had a grip on the Luger and held me above him with his left arm, but I had my left hand tightened around his wrist, directing the barrel of the gun away from me. The Luger fired again, so close to my head that I could feel the impact of the sound waves against my face as they rippled out from the barrel. Grunting loudly, I swung the flashlight with my right hand. Again contact was made (this time I was sure it collided with his thick skull) and again his strength faded.

  Finally, my weight proved too much for Mueller and his arm gave out. I fell on top of him, the Luger sandwiched between us.

  Mueller jolted and the gun discharged again.

  36

  Straddling Mueller and looking down at his wide-eyed, surprise-frozen face, and watching the red stain on his chest grow larger, a rock dropped into my gut. I placed two fingers along his carotid artery and stilled my breath. Nothing.

  Sickened, I rolled off of him and landed on my seat, legs folded up against my chest, chin resting on my knees. The rock had once again grown into a boulder.

  Overhead, a rumble of thunder crawled across the sky and the treetops were whipped about by an irate wind. The storm was approaching, creeping closer, gaining momentum.

  Then the shakes began, quivers and shivers that rippled through my muscles like electric currents. I clasped my hands together in an attempt to settle my jittery nerves but it was useless. I’d killed a man, taken a life. Mueller might have been a German, a Nazi, but he was a human, a man, and though he was a brutal beast and probably deserving of death, I wasn’t prepared to be the one at whose hands that death would come.

  Another roar of thunder filled the sky and under it a man’s muffled, yet familiar, voice floated through the woods.

  I willed my chattering teeth to still themselves, held my breath and listened. Only when the thunder settled did I hear the unmistakable voice of the Nazi leader clearly: “Mueller! Bist du in Ordnung?” Are you okay?

  The voice ripped through me like a bitter wind and it was then that I noticed the flashlight lying by my side was still on. Grabbing it and flipping the toggle switch, I invited the darkness back and sat in silence, trying to reel in my spinning mind.

  Ahead of me but a good twenty yards to my right, the single eye of a flashlight appeared and a beam skittered along the woods floor.

  “Mueller? Wo bist du?” Where are you? “Sag etwas.” Say something.

  Quickly, I shuffled over to Mueller and knelt next to his body. My hand hovered over the handle of the knife still stuck in his leg. I imagined what it would be like to pull it out, to have to work it side to side to loosen its grip from the bone and decided to leave it where it was. Instead, I gripped the Luger by the barrel and slipped it out from Mueller’s grip, trying not to watch as his lifeless hand dropped onto his chest.

  The voice and light turned left and headed my way. “Wo bist du, Mueller?”

  Still holding the gun by the barrel, I scrambled away from Mueller and melted into the darkness.

  From a safe distance and under the cover of a thick tangle of thickets, I watched as the leader’s light found Mueller�
��s body. He stood over the big German, held the light on Mueller’s chest, and nudged him with his foot. When Mueller didn’t respond, the leader knelt beside him and tapped the handle of the knife with his forefinger. He then stood and ran the beam over the woods in a wide circle. When the light reached my hiding place, I laid prone on the ground, hidden in the shadows of the branches.

  “Omar! Komm heirher.” Get over here.

  Seconds later, Coyote—Omar—clambered through the woods and stopped when he saw Mueller’s body reclined on the leaves. “Was ist los, Roth?”

  Roth. The beast had a name.

  Roth glared at him and jabbed the light at Mueller. “Was denkst du passiert ist?” What do you think happened? “Wo ist Helmut?” Where is Helmut?

  Omar shrugged and looked at Mueller again, then bent at his waist and gently ran his palm over the dead German’s eyes, closing the lids for good.

  The two Nazis, Omar and Roth, huddled close and spoke so softly that the wind carried their voices away from my ears. Moments later, Omar left with Mueller’s flashlight and headed away from the clearing, deeper into the woods, combing the ground with the light. Roth remained with Mueller and switched off his light.

  Above the swirling treetops the heavy clouds lighted with a flicker of electric energy. A second later, thunder rippled across the sky like a misplaced earthmover.

  “Amerikanisch?” Roth said. His faceless voice was like a demon’s, calling to me from the depths of hell.

  “Ich weiß, Sie sind hier, American kleinen Hund,” I know you’re here, little American dog.

  From the oppressive darkness, he continued his dialogue. He was speaking too fast for me to interpret it all but I caught something about killing me like he did my family. Was it true? Had he killed them? I wanted to scream my objections but bit my tongue instead. He couldn’t have killed them, reason screamed loud enough. Why drag them for miles through these woods only to kill them?

  Roth’s voice broke the silence again, like a dark, twisted hand reaching out of a nightmare and sticking bony forefingers in my ears. “Ihr Freund starb wie ein Hund.” Your friend died like a dog.

  Peter. My freund. The image of his bruised and battered body dangling from that rope shot through my mind.

  “Sind Sie bereit, auch zu sterben?” Are you ready to die also?

  As he finished his last syllable, tentacles of lightning reached out of the clouds and touched the earth, and a boom of thunder shook the atmosphere. I used the opportunity to steal deeper into the darkness and closer to the clearing. If I could reach the others while Roth and Omar were still in the woods I could see for myself if Roth was telling the truth or not, if he had indeed killed my family.

  37

  Like a bobcat who called these woods his nocturnal home, but without the advantage of feline night vision, I crept over fallen trees, around undergrowth, over jutted rocks, feeling my way along as the other-worldly sense, that magnetic force, pulled me closer to the clearing.

  My heart tapped out a staccato rhythm behind its bony bars, my diaphragm contracted in rapid succession. Hands still shaking, I adjusted the Luger so I was holding it by the grip with my right hand. I’d never fired a handgun and had no idea how to handle a German Luger. Since Mueller had squeezed off several shots, I suspected it was ready to fire. Pull trigger, gun goes boom. Simple enough. My mind worked clearer now and I figured when the time came I would have to hold the gun with both hands to control the recoil. I didn’t know how many shots I had so I’d have to make each one count.

  The thought of taking another life dropped that rock back into my gut, but for my dad’s sake, and Henry’s and Pop’s, I would do it. And for Peter’s sake too.

  I thought of mom back home, pacing the kitchen, worrying for our safety. We were due back home earlier in the day. She would have been expecting our truck to kick up a dust trail as it wove down our dirt lane some time before lunch. Thinking we were just running late or picked up a flat tire, she would have proceeded to prepare lunch. When afternoon waned and the sun began its postmeridian dive, she would have begun to worry. When we failed to show for supper, she would have expressed her concern to my uncle Will. Knowing Uncle Will, he would have tried to assure her that all was well, sharing his own experiences with broken-down trucks and talkative neighbors. But when evening arrived and the sky darkened, even Uncle Will would have grown worrisome. At nightfall, he would have organized a small search party consisting of himself, Chief Macky, an officer or two, Doc Wilson, and probably Luke Brown, a local hunter who prided himself in his Indian heritage and ability to track anything with at least two appendages.

  They had to be on their way right now, maybe even on Bear Mountain. Maybe they’d already discovered the ransacked cabin and abandoned Ford. Maybe they’d found the house in the woods. Maybe they’d heard Mueller’s gunshots. Maybe.

  And maybe they were still at the farm, planning to set off in the morning, at first light.

  Either way, I was on my own now. There were two Nazis left, Roth and Omar, and I was all that stood between them and my loved ones.

  Again, in his soft, almost childlike voice, Peter’s words whispered in my head: Billy, when we find them, you will have to trust, okay? No matter what. Trust. Okay?

  Stepping over a fallen tree and into the clearing, I found them. Three dark lumps huddled close together. I paused to scan the woods for any sign of Roth or Omar, held my breath and listened for the familiar sound of footfalls but the rustle of leaves overhead was too loud and muffled any sound the woods offered.

  Lightning crackled again, illuminating the clearing with a strobe of white light. A deafening clap of thunder followed on its heels. I could almost feel the electrical charge in the air and nearby a tree snapped and splintered and crashed to the ground with a whoosh.

  During the flash, I noticed that Dad was before me, Pop to my right, Henry to my left. All three looked lifeless. Dad lay prone, his head turned to one side. Henry was on his right side, curled in the fetal position. Pop was also curled into a ball, but on his left side.

  With a shaky hand, I reached for Dad’s neck, felt my way to the trachea and found the carotid, praying there would be life coursing through the main artery that feeds the brain. There was. I rested my palm on his forehead. I didn’t see how he could walk much farther. The trek had proved simply too much for him. I put my palm back on his head and prayed that God would spare his life. Then I removed my jacket and placed it over him. Leaning close to his ear, I whispered, “Dad, if you can hear me, I’m here. You’re going to be all right. Just hang on, okay? Please, Dad, just hang on.”

  Next I moved to Pop and found his pulse. He was alive too. I ran my hand over his chest and abdomen, feeling for blood, wondering what the Nazis had done to him. When I pressed on his right side, Pop moaned. I brushed his hair back, like he used to do to me when I was young and sick, and bent forward until my mouth almost touched his ear. “Pop, it’s Billy. You’re okay. Just lay still and don’t make any noises. Grandma will be here soon and then we’ll take you home.”

  I heard Pop’s dry mouth crack open. “Joe? That you?” he whispered. His voice was husky and raw, stroked with fear. “Bob needs help. Needs a medic.”

  I knew Pop wasn’t talking to me. Doctor Alzheimer spoke for him. He was in another place, another time, but sadly, it didn’t sound like he’d found a happier reality. In his diseased mind, he was no doubt hunkered in a trench, wounded, wet, tired, hungry, yet still concerned about the waning life of the poor soul next to him.

  I leaned close again. “It’s okay, sir. Medic’s on the way. Bob’s fine. You stay calm and quiet.”

  Pop grunted something, cursed someone named Jackson, then fell silent.

  Shuffling to my left, I put both hands on Henry’s shoulder and gently nudged him. “Henry. You hear me?”

  When no response came my heart jumped in my chest. I knew Henry had taken the worst beating from the Germans, but he was also the youngest and fittest of the three,
the one most likely to survive a Nazi hazing. But his unresponsiveness paralyzed my lungs and caught my breath in my throat.

  Sliding my hand around to the front of his neck, I felt for a pulse. At first I couldn’t find it. With a lump in my throat and tears burning the backs of my eyes, I felt the other side of his trachea. It was there, thin and weak, but there.

  Tears of relief and sorrow and anger and panic spilled from my eyes. “Henry,” I said, my cheek against his. “Hang on big brother. Please hang on.” Straightening my back and with my hand still on Henry’s shoulder, I searched the clearing for Peter’s body. Another branch of lightning surged toward the earth, another canon blast of thunder. Peter still dangled from the tree, the picture of death. Anger swelled in my chest fueled by the sorrow of losing a friend and the unbidden guilt of being unable to rescue him the way he’d rescued me.

  Two large drops of rain found my head and hand. The storm had found us.

  I knew sooner or later Roth and Omar would have to return to the clearing. I would wait in the darkness, and when they arrived, I would shoot them both. I prayed for God to forgive me for what I was about to do, knowing full well I would be acting out of vengeance and malice, spurred on by the frustration of having to sit idly by while my dad and brother lost their grip on life.

  Squatting on the balls of my feet, I waited while marble-sized raindrops pelted the ground. Five minutes passed and the rain steadily increased. Ten minutes and my knees started to ache. Twenty minutes and I feared my legs would go to sleep, rendering me unable to act quickly when the time for swift action arrived. Standing to straighten my legs, I saw one of the Germans enter the clearing. I couldn’t tell whether it was Roth or Omar. Moments later, the other followed.