“Hi son, how’s it going?” Lance smiled and tried not to let his exasperation show. He sat on the edge of Lance’s bed feeling more like an invader than a father. His heart was aching to hold his boy, though, to have some of those moments like they had before Anna was gone, or at least when it had been just the two of them in the aftermath of her death. It had been a long haul, both of them leaning on each other in Anna’s last phases of cancer. As she grew weak and thin, death made its presence known in her eyes, coming into their lives as the inexorable invader, taking away all they had loved. And yet, while Lance had crawled inside of himself for a while, he’d managed to come back into the light and find love again. Unfortunately, Jeremy didn’t seem inclined to do the same.
Jeremy answered Lance’s question with a scowl. Finally he shut off the mp3 player and said, “How come you’re home?”
“I’ve got some news.”
Jeremy blinked at Lance. He wanted to reach out and touch his boy, but had a premonition of Jeremy recoiling at his touch. He didn’t risk it. “My Uncle Ballard died. We got a letter from the lawyer today. We have to go to Colorado and take care of arrangements.”
“Cool. Well, I’ll stay at Chris’s while you’re gone.”
“Uh, no, we’re all going out together.”
Jeremy’s eyebrows went up in disbelief. “You’re kidding me.”
“No, I’m not. Anyway, there’s a cabin and some property in the mountains. I thought you might like it up there. Maybe it would give you and me some time to do some fishing or—”
“Bullshit!” Jeremy erupted. “I don’t want to go to Colorado with…you and her!”
A familiar mixture of anger and hurt spread from Lance’s heart like poison tainting his blood. He ground his rear teeth together, jaw muscles flexing. He stood, facing his son. “Use that kind of language with me one more time and see where it gets you.” Something in Lance’s eyes spoke violence, and he could see, with a tinge of regret, the anger in Jeremy’s eyes turn to fear. He took a step toward the boy’s door, and paused before closing it behind him on his way out. “You’re going. And I recommend you adjust your attitude accordingly.”
He closed the door firmly behind him.
He paused in the shadows of the hallway, rubbed his face with one hand, and sighed.
3
That evening, after a phone conversation with Prescott Forbes and a strained dinner with Jeremy, Colleen and Lance sat on the couch and went through the contents of the box. There wasn’t a whole lot to it, a stack of papers about an inch thick.
Colleen watched a detective show on low volume while Lance sorted through everything. He had the papers and items spread across the coffee table, an amalgamation of an old man’s life. It was an intriguing study of a man he’d only known briefly as a child, and then at a distance through the descriptions of his parents. Among the papers were a few postcards; some from old friends and places around the world. One was clipped to some letters from a girl named Trudy Mason, from Alabama, who wrote to Ballard when he was stationed in Korea at the end of the war in July 1953. She talked about how she missed him and had a big surprise when he came home. The letters were steamy proclamations of love and devotion that made Lance smile. There were some black and white Kodaks, the small wallet kind, of a girl with dark hair, a short-layered haircut, wavy, with brushed curls at the bottom. Her face was stunning; eyes like Marilyn Monroe, and she was stretched out on a picnic blanket, skirt sliding high on an angled thigh as she posed her long legs provocatively for the picture. Later black and white photos showed a young, thin Uncle Ballard with his arm around the girl. And later, some of the first color ones from the ’60s, portrayed them in wedding dress and tux, with Trudy’s hair now long and flowing around her shoulders.
“I didn’t know Uncle Ballard was married,” Lance muttered.
There was a box with wedding rings, his and hers, a marriage certificate for David Ballard Evans and Trudy Michelle Mason on May 9, 1967. Below that, a death certificate for Trudy: March 29, 1973.
The wistful smile left Lance’s face. Sadness overcame him, took him by surprise, and he discreetly wiped tears from his eyes.
The rest of the papers were business related—a copy of the life insurance policy for $20,000.00, payment books for the land and materials to build the cabin, the property deed, and a stack of permits, and applications for the Colorado state Mined Land Reclamation, plus state and regulatory paperwork for the “Ballard Property, Black Mercy Falls, Colorado.” There were receipts for dynamite and blasting caps from the Davis Demolition Supply.
“Jeez,” Lance said. “It looks like he was mining on the property, or something.”
Colleen’s attention was only half his—her show was almost over. “Really? Gold?”
“I don’t know.”
He shuffled through the papers again, organizing them, and came across a yellowed newspaper clipping attached to the land deed. The headline was from an October 31, 1981 issue of a local newspaper, The Mountain Sun. “Nehemiah Jacob’s Haunting Legacy: The Curse of Black Mercy Falls” had run on the front page of the paper that week, on the occasion of Halloween. Lance scanned the story, which was recounted by the reporter in direct quotes from one of the old timers in town, a local historian Dave Pettit. He read it and chuckled.
“Oh man,” he said. “Listen to this. Apparently there’s a ghost story about the place.”
“What’s that from?” Colleen was looking at the old newspaper clipping.
“From a local newspaper. It’s dated Halloween, 1981. I guess they published it for fun or something. It’s written like an old ghost story told around a campfire.”
“Oh, great.”
He could tell she was less than thrilled. He nudged her gently, jibing her.
“It says,” he started reading, “‘About a hundred years ago, Nehemiah Jacob settled here just before the Midland Railroad come through in 1890. He was a polygamist, had a big family, multiple wives, a devoted member of a religious cult. Some folks figure Nehemiah was just a pervert on account of some of those wives being a mite more than girls’—”
Colleen laughed, “It says that in the paper?”
“Yeah, yeah…it’s supposed to be like some old guy tellin’ the story.” He cozied up next to her on the couch and kept reading: “So anyway, ‘after a rough winter where food was scarce, Jeremiah gone a little wacky. Mountain lions thinned out the game, and his family barely made it. Didn’t keep him from certain other chores; they say several of his wives gave birth the following fall.’”
Colleen nudged Lance with an elbow and rested her hand on her belly. “That’s the one ‘certain other chore’ I don’t have to hound you to get done.”
“Heh, oh wait though, it gets better: ‘They say that some of the babies were born deformed, with horns on their heads, with tails, big jowls, fangs, other physical strangeness—but it could be old wives tales.’”
“‘Could be,’ huh?” Colleen rolled her eyes. “Oh gosh, this is horrible. Why would he keep this in his important papers?”
“Well, maybe because it’s an interesting story, true or not, about the land he owned.”
“True or not? Oh, good grief.”
“Hang on now… ‘old Nehemiah decided the babies were demon possessed. After praying, he got it in his head that the water of the falls would wash the demon spirits from the souls of the children, who, upon dying, could return as pure souls to God, cleansed of the evil that twisted their forms on Earth.’”
Colleen’s jaw was hanging agape, now. “He threw them over the falls? Babies?”
“That’s what the story says. He believed that the Falls would somehow cleanse the children’s possessed souls…wash the evil away and return their innocent souls to the Lord. ‘In fact,’ the story says, ‘it was Nehemiah who named this place Mercy Falls. For God’s mercy, of course.’”
“Sounds like that old crackpot needed a little of God’s mercy himself. What a sicko! Throwing babies over the w
aterfalls because they had deformities? What an awful story.”
Lance shrugged. “Part of the local folklore, I guess. Every town’s got a haunted house. Why not a haunted waterfall?”
Colleen laughed and then caught her breath suddenly, wincing.
Lance sobered quickly. “Is he kicking?”
“Oh yeah. Night falls; the baby kicks the heck out of Mommy. Why do you automatically assume it’s a he? Maybe she’s kicking me.”
Lance laughed. “Okay, is she kicking you?” He gave her a kiss on the forehead and caressed her cheek. He rearranged hair out of her face and kissed her lips. “You’re beautiful, sweetheart.”
“I feel like a bloated cow.”
“A beautiful bloated cow.”
She smacked him, and he grinned and laid his head gently upon her stomach, speaking softly to their child in the womb.
4
Thirteen hours after they left Irving, they drove through Colorado Springs, almost having reached their destination. Lance started the final leg of their road trip by driving west into the Rocky Mountains, up Ute Pass along Highway 24, winding through a canyon of blasted rock and steep pine-swept slopes. Beyond the first few miles, the road opened on either side, a steady climb in altitude, heading upward toward the sun in a brilliant blue sky, mountain ranges to either side of Fountain Creek, which ran through a ravine beside the highway.
Colleen sat in the passenger’s seat, one hand stroking her bulging belly. Her copper hair was tied into a ponytail. For the first time during the drive, they were able to turn off the air conditioning, roll down the windows, and breathe the cool mountain air.
Jeremy slouched in the backseat, headphones stuck in his ears, as he griped for the umpteenth time about the drive. “How much longer?”
“We’re almost there,” Lance said.
He looked over at Colleen who seemed to be enjoying herself at last, finally choosing to ignore Jeremy’s complaints. She’d been quite the trooper in the car all of this time. Frequent bathroom breaks aside, he thought with a grin.
“My God. It’s beautiful!” Colleen breathed deeply as crisp clean air swooshed through the vehicle. She pointed. “Look at the tunnels up there in the mountainside.” Railroad tunnels for old steam engines were cut midway up the slope to their left. “Jeremy, can you see the tunnels? Maybe we should pull over, honey, so Jeremy can get a better view.”
Only silence answered her question.
Lance said, “I don’t think he’s interested.”
Colleen looked over her shoulder, smiling, ever hopeful. Jeremy was engrossed in his music.
On the opposite side of the pass was red rock laid bare where stone was blasted to make room for the highway. Farther up, they curved to the right: a reflective road sign announced the Pikes Peak Highway.
“This sucks!” Jeremy said, loud, as if to hear himself over the noise of his iPod.
Lance frowned, looking at Jeremy’s reflection in the rearview mirror, contemplating what he should say, if he should even bother.
“Jeremy,” Colleen said, infinitely patient. She’s going to make a wonderful mother, Lance thought. “Look at how beautiful this is, have you ever seen—”
“I hate this,” Jeremy snipped, yanking the headphones from his ears. They could hear his heavy metal music through the small speakers. “I’d rather be home. You should’ve let me stay with Chris. At least then I could’ve been playing Wii or something. This blows. Bunch of stupid rocks and mountains. So far all I’ve gotten out of this trip are a few crappy Indian souvenirs and the squirts from those bean burritos.”
“Watch it, pal. And no one made you order burritos,” Lance said. Jeremy muttered something indiscernible. “You don’t see me tearing it up, burning my ass out of a seat up here. That’s a free tip from the Book of Foods NOT to Eat on Road Trips.” Lance pointed at him in the rearview mirror and winked.
Jeremy smirked and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, thanks for that.”
“Well,” Colleen offered, “I thought we’d relax and have a good time up here. Don’t you want to see the cabin, Jeremy? There’ll be so much to explore! I’m excited.”
Glancing at the rearview mirror, Lance saw Jeremy roll his eyes again.
“Whatever,” the boy said. “Of course you’re excited. This is so stupid. I can see why you’d be excited.”
Heat flushed Lance’s cheeks. His knuckles went white on the steering wheel. Pain dug into his heart. “That’s enough.”
“I’m just so sick of oh, it’s so great and oh, isn’t that wonderful. God, she makes me sick.” Jeremy glowered in the backseat.
“That’s it! Jeremy, I’m about to pull this car over and spank your ass like a rotten little kid. You keep acting like one, and I’ll be glad to treat you like one. You need to show Colleen the same respect that you show your mother—”
“She’s not my mother!”
It stung like the crack of a whip. Colleen visibly recoiled and probably wished that Lance hadn’t put that on her.
Lance felt his teeth grind together. His jaw muscles pulsed, and heat flushed his cheeks.
“Let’s just forget it,” Colleen said. “If he’s not interested, then it’s his loss. No point making a fuss over it.”
Jeremy jammed his earphones into his ears.
Lance fumed, but Colleen was right. This wasn’t anything they could fix overnight, and it had been like putting all of their problems into a pressure cooker throwing them into a car together on such a long drive. He decided to do everyone a favor and let it go.
He took deep, calming breaths and focused on the terrain.
The highway carried them above the blasted walls into the deep, expansive valley of Ute Pass. Below them, to the left, was a sweeping panorama of tree-covered mountains dwarfed by the distant crown of Pikes Peak. They could see across the staggered mountain range for ten miles: purple sky over granite peaks, sunlight streaming between gray thunderstorms. The vision was surreal. The work of a divine artist.
When they finally reached the turn off for Black Mercy Falls, Jeremy removed his headphones and took a sudden interest.
Black Mercy Falls was a small town nestled deep in a valley. The crossroad descended a steep grade into a sea of pines. Atop the valley, in the distance, was a rocky ridge above a jagged treeline. It was a steep slope prone to avalanche. Still, the treed area below was speckled with a scattering of homes. Dirt roads led directly up the mountain, some more bike trails and run-off pilings than actual roadways.
Soon, the street leading into the heart of town took a turn south, past a small elementary school and a community center. They drove past the post office and bicycles in a bike rack in front of the town library. They passed a sign: Welcome to Mercy Falls—elevation 7756 feet, population 2436.
“I thought it was called Black Mercy Falls,” Jeremy said.
“That’s what the map says.”
“Maybe the locals just call it Mercy Falls,” Colleen offered.
Shops lined the main strip. On the left was a bar, a newspaper office, and a café. Near the center of town was a video store, and a bank. Some teenagers loitered in front of a laundry mat, kicking around a hacky sack. They passed a brick jail with a façade dated 1883. The first intersection was a three-way stop, where a convenience store sold gasoline and advertised maps to Pikes Peak.
Lance consulted the e-mail printout of directions that Prescott sent, and turned onto a road that went up through a small vale. The pavement ended. Their tires bounced hard in dirt and gravel, throwing them so they had to hang on. They drove into a deep ravine that curved into the forest, a trickling creek eroding the edge of the road. The scent of pine infiltrated the car. Rocks popped beneath the tires, and a cool wind rustled the foliage outside. None of them said anything, staring intently out the windows at the wilderness around them. They passed a rickety mailbox, painted with the numbers: 1036-E, B. Evans. Blue spruce, evergreen, aspen, and brush had grown very close, making a hollow of the driveway, as if it hadn
’t been cleared in years.
“Guess this is it,” Lance announced. He and Colleen exchanged glances. They knew that the other one was thinking the same thing. Obligations to take care of the funeral aside, they hoped this was worth the drive.
In the back seat, Jeremy was silent.
They drove over tree roots growing into the roadway from an eroded mountainside. On the other side of the roots, the road dissolved into a tunnel of trees, bare branches still entangled in a winter grip. Even though spring touched everything with its brilliant brush of color, this hollow was a tangle of dead, gray branches. They drove through it, shadows settling inside the car. Then, the light arrived at the end of the tunnel and the road smoothed into a lush green cove of vegetation.
The area into which they emerged was a bowl at the end of a valley. It had likely been formed by water in some age past, but now the one-hundred-foot waterfall was all that remained of a once copious flow that carved this magical pocket of nature from the mountainside. The flow of the falls cascaded into a pool one hundred feet across. The water’s edge lapped at a craggy beach made mostly of chunks of broken granite. Sunlight transformed the mist at the base of the falls into a prism of color. From the edge of the pool, a sweeping carpet of emerald ascended in a perfect slope of lawn up to a two-story cabin.
It took just a few minutes to reach the end of the driveway and pull alongside the cabin. It boasted two levels, with a balcony overlooking Mercy Falls. From the cabin, it was just a short walk over a packed earth path to the jagged rocks surrounding the falls. Even from inside the vehicle, they could hear the water roaring.
“I’ll be damned,” Lance murmured. He put the Pathfinder into park, and gazed through the windshield at the waterfall. Water cascaded from a hundred feet up, a sheer drop into the pool. The perpetual mist collected on the windshield and scented the air like rain.
Black Mercy Falls Page 2