Shadow on the Mountain

by Margi Preus

  Per smiled half-heartedly, and they continued without speaking, their breath coming harder as the slope steepened. “Do you think we should worry about our tracks?” he said, glancing behind him at the black stitches their tracks seemed to make in the white snow.

  Leif came up behind them. “Nah,” he said. “The Germans never come up here. They mostly don’t use skis. Besides, they never seem to notice anything like this.”

  It was true. Espen had often been surprised that the most obvious ski tracks were overlooked. Most of his friends would not only notice tracks, they could tell by a fox’s prints if it had been hunting or just traveling. They could tell whether a grouse’s wing marks on the snow had been made an hour before or were two days old. Yet the Germans didn’t even seem to see the tracks a man left behind.

  Even so, Espen had many times gone an hour out of his way to avoid leaving obvious tracks to a contact’s house. Bicycling was best, but it wasn’t always possible in the winter, and especially now that his bicycle was so worn out. Footprints and especially ski tracks had to be considered on the many trips he made. They were often long, lonely jobs, his courier treks. He enjoyed a job like this one, when he could work side by side with his old friends.

  The group emerged into a meadow covered with a shiny crust of wind-polished snow.

  “Let’s hope the snow holds off for tonight,” Stein said, nodding at the dark clouds clinging to the mountains.

  The others began gathering firewood from among the trees, but Espen hesitated. Something had caught his eye, and he glanced across the clearing where the mountainside wore a vest of dark spruce trees. For a moment, something winked like diamonds or jewelry against the dark trees. Just the light catching something bright, probably. A patch of ice. Or perhaps the last rays of sunlight glancing off wet granite.

  Espen joined the others with their task, hauling fallen branches out of the woods and dragging them into the meadow to heap on the bonfires that were being prepared. Luckily, the snow in the meadow had formed a firm crust, making their work easier.

  When the fires were ready, it was still not dark enough to light them, and the moon had not yet risen. They would have to wait.

  “Anyone for a scrimmage?” Ole asked as he removed his skis. He took a soccer ball out of his rucksack and kicked it high into the air.

  Everyone laughed. “You realize you’re going to have to carry that back along with everything else,” Leif told him.

  “What?” Ole said, “I carried it up. You can carry it back!”

  Skis off, the boys began passing the ball to each other. “What is everyone going to do about the Labor Service?” Leif asked, lobbing the ball to Per. “‘All healthy Norwegians must register,’ the NS says.”

  Per stopped the ball with his foot. “All the underground newspapers are urging men and boys to avoid registration at all cost,” he said. “They say we’ll be sent to fight at the Russian front, and younger boys will be sent to Germany.”

  “The only way to avoid it is if you already have a job that the NS thinks is essential,” Gust said. He knocked the ball from under Per’s foot and passed it to Ole.

  “Like my job at the radio shop.” Ole’s kick to Leif overshot him. “The Nazis still need people who know how to fix their radios.”

  “And I’ve got my job at the fish …” Leif scrambled to catch up with the ball. “… factory. The Germans have to eat.”

  Stein reached the ball first, and sent it to Gust. “I’m all set,” he said. Nobody worried about Stein. He was the one who took care of things for everyone else.

  “Per and I are going to stay here in the mountains,” Gust offered. “With the Boys in the Woods.” He gave the ball a huge kick, sending it up and over the incline.

  Everyone groaned, then climbed down the brushy hillside and thrashed around in the bushes until it grew too dark to see. Finally, Stein called them back to light the fires.

  By the time the bonfires were burning bright, the moon had risen above the mountains and was weaving in and out among the lacy black clouds.

  Now the boys waited in tense silence. So many things could go wrong: The moon might disappear behind the clouds before the plane could get to them. Snow might move in, obscuring the drop zone, or the pilot might miss their signal fires. He might not be able to see the Morse signal or he might not be able to drop the load because of doors frozen shut or for any number of other reasons. Or, worst of all, it could turn out to be not a British plane but a “Tante Ju,” a German transport chock-full of paratroopers.

  Leif broke the nervous silence. “What are you going to do, Espen?” he asked. “About the Labor Service?”

  Espen hesitated. He was almost seventeen and didn’t have a job that counted. But he had become a valued courier for the Resistance. He had made countless trips all over the region and knew a lot of people involved in the underground. And they knew him. There was always the worry that his name—code name or real name—would be spoken to the wrong person eventually. He remembered now what Per had said about being followed, and about his own uneasy feelings. He wondered for a moment about the odd sparkle he’d noticed across the clearing earlier. He almost said something about it when a low rumble in the distance caught everyone’s attention. As one, their heads turned toward the sound. Per got into position and began flashing the signal with his flashlight.

  Suddenly, a big bomber roared overhead; its bomb bay doors swung open, and black specks plunged toward the ground, then, just as quickly, were swept upward as the parachutes opened. Dozens of containers drifted lazily toward earth, their parachutes glowing in the moonlight. They looked like jellyfish floating in the sea, Espen thought.

  He and his friends stood smiling and waving to the brave pilot and crew who risked their lives to bring them supplies from across the ocean. For this brief moment, Espen felt connected to people all over the world, people who still lived in and fought for freedom. The weapons, radios, oatmeal, tinned meat, and chocolate that the packages contained were all needed and appreciated, but almost better was the feeling of being connected to the larger struggle, of not feeling alone and forgotten in the Norwegian mountains.

  A few moments later, the engines revved to gain speed. With a thunderous roar that rocked the mountainsides, the plane sped away and disappeared. The friends got to work packing the supplies onto the toboggans and into their rucksacks.

  “We’ll take what we can to Oleanna,” Stein said. “Some of this will go to the Milorg base farther up in the mountains. But we won’t be able to get it all in one pass.”

  “Per and I can come back for whatever we can’t carry tonight,” Gust offered.

  “You can walk in easily from the road down there.” Stein pointed downhill, where they knew there was a small road that snaked along the mountainside. “There won’t be any traffic along there at night. So, are we all set? Espen, did you decide what you’re going to do about the labor draft?”

  “I’m all right,” Espen replied. “I can dodge the Labor Service people if they start looking for me, but I need a new bicycle. Mine is almost shot.”

  “Too bad! Wish I had known,” Leif said. “I just bought a bike and sent it by train to a contact in Fossen. It’s probably there already.”

  “I’ll see if I can reroute it,” Stein said. “Now, remember, boys, if anything goes wrong, head to Oleanna.”

  ksel pulled the car door shut behind him and rubbed his hands together. He turned to the two storm troopers in the backseat. “Shall we go catch ourselves some Milorg boys?” he said.

  His protégés gave affirmative snorts.

  “It’s a foolish game they play, these bandits,” Aksel said as the car got under way. “They really accomplish nothing, except to get people killed—often innocent people, if there is such a thing as an innocent person in all of Norway. These Milorg men, these XU agents, the Civorg people—they are like mosquitoes, jabbing their tiny, annoying, but not very dangerous stingers into the bare necks of the Germans. They thin
k they are protecting Norway, but from what? From their real protectors!”

  “There are only a few of them, really,” Hans said from the backseat.

  “Don’t be stupid,” said Lars. “There are more and more of them every day.”

  Aksel shot Lars a look.

  There was no point wasting his wisdom on the two men in the backseat. Men! Aksel thought. That was a bit of an exaggeration! At twenty, he was older than either of these mouth-breathers. They were just bullies who saw a chance to do what they liked to do by joining the hird. They knew how to do one thing and one thing only. And they were good at it. So, at least, Aksel didn’t have to damage his gloves or risk having blood spattered on his uniform. Still, he hoped to be rid of them soon. One more promotion and he’d be able to shake off these stupid boys and get to work with the professionals, the real Gestapo men.

  “Turn off the lights,” he said to the driver.

  “Are you crazy?” the driver said. “On this winding road? It’s still dark!”

  “There’s enough light to see.”

  “But not for someone to see us coming around the corner,” the driver told him.

  “Exactly,” Aksel replied. “Now you’re catching on.”

  The lights were switched off, and the car continued slowly up the mountain, carefully navigating the sharp curves. As they rounded one of the switchbacks, the driver slammed on the brakes. Some strange thing lay in the middle of the road. Something round and pale.

  There was an uneasy silence in the car. After a moment, Lars whispered, “It looks like a head.” Hans snickered nervously and then was silent.

  “Wait here,” Aksel said, and he got out of the car.

  The predawn light cast an eerie blue glow on the coating of snow. Aksel approached the object in the road cautiously.

  Then he laughed. It was only a soccer ball. He reached down to scoop it up but stopped. Were those voices he heard? He signaled the driver.

  The driver threw on the headlights, sharply illuminating Aksel, the road ahead, and two young men who had appeared from around the bend and stood blinking in the twin beams.

  “Well, well, well, if it isn’t a midfielder and a forward—am I right? On your way to a soccer match?” Aksel said, holding up the ball. “Or perhaps”—he pointed to their heavy rucksacks—“coming from an airdrop?”

  The car doors slammed as the two storm troopers stepped out onto the road. Maybe, Aksel mused, that promotion would come sooner than he thought.

  hey’d gotten a name out of the soccer players—although not without some pain, Aksel reflected, as the car pulled up in front of the house in Lilleby. Well, that’s what those Milorg bandits should expect. Even so, Hans and Lars had laid it on pretty thick. When one of them took off his boot and started beating the smaller of the two boys with it, that might have been more force than was necessary. But they had succeeded in getting a name—probably a code name—and also an address, and Aksel hadn’t even gotten blood on his uniform.

  “Draw your guns,” Aksel said grimly as they quietly exited the car. “I’ll go first.”

  He knocked on the door, and, a few moments later, it swung open. He recognized the fellow immediately: Stein, captain of the soccer team. In a glance, Aksel noticed the surprised look. Stein’s hand was still on the doorknob, and there was a pile of papers on the floor behind him. There were hurried footsteps—someone was getting away, Aksel thought. He noticed Stein’s subtle step back, the door beginning to shut …

  Aksel’s mind couldn’t quite keep up with everything, and his finger, as if of its own accord, squeezed the trigger of his gun. The gun went off, and Aksel saw Stein go down, shot point-blank through the chest. He couldn’t think about that right now, he told himself, moving past the fallen man and into the room. The retreating person was gone; the breeze pushed a lace curtain in through an open window. Aksel pulled the curtain aside and, in the early-morning light, noticed the dark outline of trees that lined the river below. He waved Lars and Hans around the side of the house to go after whoever had escaped while he turned his attention to the papers.

  Aksel moved them away from the expanding pool of blood that was seeping from the dead man, whom he did not want to look at or even think about. He wished it had been someone he didn’t know. Not that he’d ever liked Stein, he reminded himself. Still, he felt a little sick to his stomach, so he went into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water.

  Through the window he could see Hans and Lars walking back up the slope to the house. They were empty-handed. He pulled himself together and tried to think about practical considerations. He shouldn’t have shot Stein without even questioning him. He was likely to be reprimanded. Unless … unless he could get more names, especially important names, or many names.

  By the time the storm troopers came in, Aksel was back in the front hall, going through the papers, every single one of them in code and signed with code names, no doubt. “Go through the pile,” he said to the men. “See what you find.”

  “Here’s something!” Hans plucked a luggage ticket out of the pile. “Something going by train from Lilleby to Fossen.”

  “Is there a name on it?”

  “Nei,” Hans said, tossing the ticket to the floor.

  “Are you an idiot?” Aksel said. “Pick that up.”

  Hans picked up the ticket and handed it to Aksel.

  “Put all these papers in something, and let’s go,” he said, heading for the door.

  At the station in nearby Fossen, Aksel presented the ticket to the agent and received a bicycle. He gestured to Hans to take a look.

  “Just a bicycle,” Hans said. “So, big deal.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Aksel told him. “Look at this.” He pointed to a stamp on the bicycle; it read HEGVIK’S SPORT SHOP. “Somebody bought this bicycle—wouldn’t you agree?”

  Hans nodded.

  “And this little piece of paper”—Aksel held up the luggage ticket—“may be a way to track someone down. Isn’t that obvious?”

  Hans backed into a shadow.

  “So … on to Hegvik’s.” Aksel smiled. “In Lilleby.”

  He enjoyed the chase. He enjoyed the unraveling of a mystery. He wished right now that he was accompanied by real Gestapo men instead of these stupid Norwegian punks. The Germans often acted as if they were naturally smarter and more quick-witted than the Norwegians. Aksel would have relished showing them that a Norwegian could be just as smart as they were. Smarter.

  The drive from Fossen to Lilleby took longer than it normally would have; they had to stop twice for sheep on the road and another time to change a flat tire. By the time they reached the bicycle shop, Aksel had worked himself into a lather. He told the men to follow him in and bring the bicycle with them. As they stepped inside, the sole employee in the shop was heading into the restroom.

  “This is why”—Aksel paused to spit on the shop floor—“the Norwegian economy is not working. The employees would rather take a piss than wait on a customer.” He continued through the store to the repair shop in the back and spoke with a bike mechanic in a greasy apron.

  “Who bought this bicycle?” Aksel demanded, gesturing at the bike.

  The repair man wiped his hands on his apron and went to the front of the store, where he dug around in a drawer for a long time before finally producing a receipt.

  Aksel recognized the name: Leif Eversen. They had gone to school together, and, like Stein, they had played on the same soccer team. And Aksel knew where he worked: the fish factory.

  Back in the car, Aksel began to think about Leif and the entire soccer team and how much he hated all of them. Leif had been one of those who had walked off the field the day that Aksel had been made captain. The thought of it brought a metallic taste, like gunmetal, to his mouth. He rolled the window down and spat. Well, he thought, it had been a worthless team, anyway. None of them were any good. And the young one—that kid who’d played goalie—he was as dumb as a post. Like that stupid
employee at the bike—

  Aksel had a sudden, jolting realization: That bike shop fellow had never come out of the bathroom the whole time they’d been there. “The devil!” he shouted. “That Hegvik’s man! He wasn’t going to the bathroom—he was climbing out the window! Step on it!” he screamed at the driver.

  Aksel knew he was pushing it, acting like he had more authority than he really did. Shooting Stein had been a mistake and would probably get him into trouble. Maybe he could say it was self-defense, if the hird boys would keep their mouths shut on the subject.

  If he could get Leif to talk, though, and turn up more names, important names, these transgressions might be overlooked. So he’d just better find Leif. And soon.

  By the time they screeched to a halt in the factory yard and piled out of the car, Aksel had collected himself.

  “This is how it’s done, men,” Aksel said, stopping for a moment to adjust his jacket. “Step by step. Wasting no time. Tighten the noose around the neck of your prey.” He bent to brush the dust off his boots, noticed the blood spattered on them, and rubbed it off with his thumb.

  He wanted to look his best when he arrested Leif. Or, if necessary, killed him.

  s evening fell, Espen set out on his bicycle for Leif’s house. The front tire was a little low, and the wheel rim was bent, but not so badly that he couldn’t ride. The bike would at least get him as far as Leif’s to drop off whatever was in the envelope he’d been given to deliver. It had rained earlier in the day, and he could see that it had snowed up in the mountains. It looked like it would soon snow here in the valley, too, but maybe not so much that he couldn’t get to Leif’s.

  He thought about Ingrid’s birthday the next day, her thirteenth. He should have gotten her some kind of gift. A cake, he thought, as he puffed up the hill, would have been nice.