by Jack Lacey
Then everything went quiet. Stalemate.
‘Shit...’ I muttered under my breath, thinking I was going to have to intervene again, like I’d done with the bikers back in Minnesota.
The pick-ups’ headlights came back on again as if reading my mind, forcing Martha to raise a hand to her eyes to shield them from their halogen glare. She took a step back and slid a couple more shells into their chambers, then raised the barrel in the air as if to fire straight at them. The headlights went off in response. Martha lowered the gun slowly.
Gradually the trucks edged back into the shadows then disappeared completely from view, as if they’d never been there. I got dressed and rushed down to the kitchen as Martha stomped through the door angrily. She looked ruffled, but reasonably calm considering.
‘You alright?’ I said.
‘Sure. Usually I won’t let those damned rednecks get to me, but throwing rocks was one step too far this time. You two okay?’
‘We’re fine, though the room’s a bit of a mess.’
‘Thank the Lord for that...’
‘What did they want?’ I pushed.
‘Not sure. They know Nancy stays here a lot, so maybe they’re trying to intimidate us again, make life uncomfortable for her while she’s building the Black Mountain case against them.’
She placed the gun carefully down on a side table then produced a bottle of homemade spirits from a drawer.
‘Want some?’
‘Sure,’ I said, wondering if the intimidation was just for my own benefit.
I took a few mouthfuls of the moonshine and felt the burn.
‘I like it,’ I said as soon I could speak.
‘Damn right. I made it meeself.’
‘There’s not much you can’t do eh, Martha?’ Nancy said, joining us.
I eyed her figure through the flimsy night-shirt and felt a pang of attraction, then pulled my eyes away diplomatically.
‘You folks better take one of the rooms downstairs.’
‘What about the guests? I can’t believe that they didn’t wake up too,’ Nancy said, yawning.
‘One lot cancelled and Ted’s in the other, and he sleeps like a rock when he’s drunk. You two love-birds were well asleep by the time I knew about the cancellation so I let you be, though I wished I’d woken you up now. You’re sure you’re both alright?’
‘I gotta few tiny cuts on my feet, but it doesn’t feel like there’s anything lodged in them,’ Nancy said lifting the sole of one foot to her knee, revealing a flash of her lemon knickers.
‘How bowt youz?’ Martha said, looking me up and down.
‘Yeah, the same…but nothing that can’t wait until morning.’
‘You two are gunna have to share a bed…you okay with that?’ she said with a wry smile.
‘Sure,’ Nancy said, heading straight for the door.
Martha tapped me on the buttock as I followed, chuckling to herself. As soon as I’d shut the door I heard the bed springs depress in the dark.
‘You gunna just stand there by the door all night, or are you coming over to help me warm this damned bed?’ Nancy’s said playfully.
I edged my way over to where the voice had emanated and slipped in beside her, half-expecting to feel her back pressed coyly against mine. Instead, I felt her arms reach out for me, beckoning me to turn.
‘It’s been a long time since I’ve shared a bed with anyone,’ she whispered, her lips brushing against my shoulder.
‘Me too,’ I replied, enjoying the softness of her skin against mine. ‘Do you think those guys came up here because of the case your building against them, or because of the girl?’
‘I’m not sure, Blake. Who knows what’s going on in the minds of those degenerates.’
‘Well, whatever it is, they’re seriously worried,’ I said, my eyelids becoming heavier.
‘And I have a feeling that it won’t be too long before we find out...’
Chapter Eighteen
‘ghost town’
I stared out of the open window into the shape-shifting mist then caught a glimpse of a white-tailed deer as it broke cover and sprinted across the road ahead.
I sighed and breathed some of the crisp Appalachian air deep into my lungs, enjoying its pine-infused scent. It was great to be high up in the mountains and alone with Nancy again. Just being around her made me feel more relaxed, made the horrors of France seem that little bit more distant.
The place was every bit as abundant as she’d described before we’d fallen asleep too. It was the perfect tonic after the previous night’s troubles. I just wish I’d had more time to enjoy it with her, and that I didn’t have to find someone’s missing daughter and take her back home. Nancy’s enthusiasm for nature was infectious, just like Laura’s had been before I lost her. I wanted to know more about it just by being around her. The only wildlife I usually came across, were the morons that got thrown out of the pub on a Saturday night…
As if reading my thoughts, Nancy looked over at me, her face filled with child-like wonder.
‘Mixed mesophytic, Blake. Real old. After the Rainforest, one of most diverse places for tree species on the planet. You can find everything from Black Bears to rare Salamanders up here too. Impressive huh?’
I nodded and peered harder into the thickening mist, as we wound our way higher in the pick-up Martha had leant us. After working our way through a hearty breakfast at her place, Nancy had suggested that we go and see some old timer called Benjamin who lived up in Crow Creek not far from Black Mountain, just a short drive away from where we were based at Devil’s Fork.
She said that he’d probably know where the English girl was if she was still around, as he knew most things that were going on in the Appalachians. Afterwards, and if she was still feeling okay, we then planned to head back to Lexington to check on the house together, which her friends had already secured after a late night ring around.
While she took care of business, I would then head over to the Street Level Cafe and hopefully pick up some fresh leads there…
‘That’s where the Graysons used to live,’ Nancy said, pointing to a single-story house that was boarded up, located on the edge of the town we’d just arrived at. The wife and two kids died of Lymphoma there, Larry next door, of Black Lung.’
I stared at the jumble of dilapidated trailers and ship-lap houses lining the main drag. Most of them looked empty and abandoned, their overgrown gardens filled with rusting bikes and fridges, and old cars that had been stripped off anything valuable.
I stared at an old swing chair hanging precariously from a single chain, and wondered who’d sat there, who had laughed and supped a beer, and enjoyed the sunshine before it had all gone terribly wrong.
‘Most people moved out a few years back when the air and water quality got worse. There’s only a handful of folk who live up here now. The place is dead...’
‘Because of the mining companies?’
Nancy nodded and sighed.
‘Yep, most people took the money when it was offered, allowing Corrigan and his freak show to expand their operation. He wanted to build some new haulage road up here to access the coal seams higher up on this side of the range. Corrigan decided the town was in the way and that it had to go.’
I stared at a rusting sign for Crow Creek hanging down precariously from its last fixing and thought it apt. The place was utterly broken. A shell. Then there was the mud and the debris, sandwiched between the buildings as if some giant had poured a bucket of liquid clay down the mountain...
‘Six people died that night.’
‘Is that a common occurrence up here?’
‘It is in places where some dimwit has cut down all the trees on the slopes above, so there’s nothing to bind the soil anymore.’ Nancy sighed. ‘Heavy rains came one day and the whole lot just gave way, came tumbling down the damned mountain, swallowing everything in its path.’
‘No wonder most people left when they got offered the money. Makes you w
onder if they’d cleared the trees on purpose, to try and persuade them?’
‘Wouldn’t have surprised me…There’s nothing that the mining companies wouldn’t stoop to anymore, and in particular Corrigan.’
‘So this Benjamin character, he’s one of the hold-outs?’
‘Sure is. He knew it was only a matter of time before it happened too, so he chained his trailer to a rock when he knew the rains were coming.’
We passed a derelict gas station covered in aggressive vegetation, pulled up a dirt track nearby, then drove up to an algae-covered trailer with a tatty blue awning protruding from its front.
‘He lives here?’ I said incredulously.
‘He’s made a few modifications over the years...’ Nancy said chuckling.
I stared at the corrugated lean-to slumped against one end, then the array of wooden chairs and tables clustered around the pole-lathe outside. As we neared the steps, the glass-panelled door fanned open wide and a huge bearded figure loomed before us wearing a thick fur coat and a wide-brimmed hat.
‘Nancy,’ he boomed, enveloping her like a bear.
‘This is my good friend, Blake. He helped me out yesterday when I crashed the car.’
‘You okay?’ he asked, holding her at arms’ length, so that he could look her up and down like some concerned parent.
‘Sure, just a few bumps and scratches.’
He nodded at me in gratitude then turned to head in, beckoning us to follow with a wave of his massive paw of a hand.
‘Well, you better come in and tell me all about it, Nancy-pants.’
‘Nancy pants?’ I whispered, noticing her cheeks flush with embarrassment.
‘He knew me since I was a kid, okay…’ she replied, poking a finger into my sore ribs.
‘Hey, Blake,’ Benjamin said turning suddenly. ‘Fancy chopping up a few logs outside? Running a bit low. The axe is by the woodpile on the left.’
‘Sure thing,’ I said, knowing it a ruse to quiz Nancy in private.
When I finally entered the trailer it was like stepping into an Aladdin’s Cave. Apart from a small area around a glowing log burner, elsewhere was piled high with books and bottles, old banjos, antler horns and a myriad of intriguing wooden toys.
‘Did you make these?’ I said, handing him some logs.
‘Not much else to do on those long winter nights. D’ya like em?’
I picked up a cowboy, waving his Stetson triumphantly in the air as his horse reared up on its hind legs.
‘You’re like that toymaker in that film with the flying car,’ I said picking up another skilfully carved piece.
Benjamin looked at me blankly.
‘You’ve never been to the movies?’ I said surprised.
‘Once,’ he said, scratching his gnarly grey beard, ‘back in the seventies; some comedy with that blonde woman who JFK liked.’
‘Marilyn Monroe?’
‘Could be...Last thing I ever did see. Don’t have much need to watch something on a big screen when there is so much to see and do in life? Why people wanna be stuck to a television half their lives beats me...’
Benjamin disappeared for a moment then returned with three mugs filled with black coffee and a splash of something else in them judging by the smell. I put the toy back and took one, thinking how best to approach the old timer for information.
‘Benjamin, we need your help,’ Nancy said, taking up the reins of conversation.
‘Sure,’ he said, easing himself into a large rocking chair.
‘Blake’s looking for some English girl. She was down here protesting a few weeks back. She helped me take some of those water samples I did at Ludlow Creek. Her name’s Olivia Deacon. She’s just eighteen years old.’
His large brown eyes fixed on me for a moment, then returned to Nancy.
‘Uh-huh’
‘Olivia is the daughter of Blake’s friend’s back in London. He wants to make sure that she’s okay while he’s over here on business. Her father hasn’t heard from her in over six weeks and is seriously worried. Have you heard anything? Did she come this way at all?’
He glanced at me warily, then pulled back to Nancy before returning again and lingering, making me feel uncomfortable.
‘So what you getting out of this, brother?’
‘I want to be straight with you, Benjamin. I’ve never actually met this girl. Finding people is my job.’
I felt Nancy’s eyes burn into me at the revelation.
‘But you’ve seen death, boy, haven’t you?’
The question jarred. It was out of place.
‘Yes...’ I said eventually.
‘I can tell, that’s all. Death stays in people’s eyes like a photo,’ he continued, ‘I just like to know who I’m talking to, that’s all…’
‘Is that so?’ I replied, unsure of what to say.
‘And you’ve tasted death only recently, right?’
For a second, the image of Laura suspended in the water flashed through my mind.
‘Yes,’ I replied feeling unnerved.
The old timer leaned to one side, picked up a poker and slowly stoked the fire. Nancy looked over at me and shifted awkwardly in her seat. After a minute or so Benjamin turned and eyed me again.
‘That guy you fought a few years back...he had to go down, didn’t he?’
I looked deep into his steely eyes trying to work out if he were crazy, then decided that he wasn’t. I’d met plenty of people over the years who claimed to see into the future, to be able to read the past, and some were hard to disprove.
‘You’ll see a lot more trouble before your time ends, brother, of that I’m sure,’ Benjamin continued. ‘It’s part of your journey. Some people are just meant to live with chaos. They’re like the crows that eat the carrion off our highways. They clean up after us all. It’s the way they heal...’
He stared into my eyes for a moment, murmured something to himself, then returned his gaze to the crackling fire, leaving an awkwardness hovering in the smoke-filled air.
‘I like crows, Blake,’ he said eventually, picking up a long tapering pipe from a side-table. ‘So why did you take this job on, brother? Can’t believe it was just for the money...’
I watched in silence as he pressed a fresh knuckle of tobacco into the end of his pipe.
‘It means more to you than that, doesn’t it?’
Nancy shunted forwards to the edge of her stool and placed a hand on her friend’s knee.
‘Come on Benjamin, he’s answered enough of your questions.’
‘It’s okay Nancy, I’m happy to,’ I interrupted, staring back into the woodsman’s eyes, imagining what they had also seen.
I cleared my throat.
‘My daughter died a few months back.’
Benjamin sat there stony-faced then offered a deft nod inviting me to continue.
‘I thought it would do me some good to get away, to help someone else find their own child,’ I said, shifting my attention to the embers, wishing I could cauterize the emotion that was now burning in my guts like acid. ‘Before I’d agreed to take this job on, I’d quit for good. I’d made a promise...’
Benjamin offered a brief, but genuine smile.
‘Thank you for sharing that, friend…I just like to know what sort of people I’m dealing with before I offer up information, that’s all. Knowing that I’m dealing with an honest sort, helps me to bring out my own honesty…You get me?’
‘Sure,’ I replied, still feeling uneasy.
He took a long hard drag and blew the scented smoke out from one corner of his mouth, then looked me up and down slowly, as if he was trying to connect with something deeper inside, as if he could see the septic emotion festering away and wanted to draw it out just with his gaze.
‘You’re a good man, Blake, I can see that...’
He stood up slowly and ran the back of his hand over Nancy’s cheek.
‘The girl, I heard, had come back around a week ago with her boyfriend, Ethan. The
y were hanging out at the lake near Hangman’s Ridge.’
‘You serious?’ Nancy said, becoming more animated.
‘Damn right. I heard that they were keen to get involved with the sharper end of the Black Mountain protest this time. I also heard that they were besotted with each other.’
‘Are you sure?’ Nancy pressed.
‘Charlie, who lives near there, came over last night wanting his banjo fixed. If I was you, I’d go there tonight. There’s a benefit dance for the Black Mountain activists, so they’ll probably be going along.’
He cracked a tight smile, his mahogany eyes narrowing with a clandestine knowing. Nancy stood up, kissed him on the cheek, then offered me a hand, keen it seemed to push the investigation forward herself now.
‘Come on, I want to show you Black Mountain while you’re here, Blake, and while it’s still standing too.’
‘Thanks, Benjamin,’ I said following Nancy out of the door. ‘For everything…’
The old timer raised a hand like some Indian chief and smiled warmly, before returning to the fire as if it had something to say to him.
‘You know where I am if you need me...’ he called out, as I headed down the steps after Nancy.
Outside I drew a breath and enjoyed the flicker of sunshine that had managed to break through the forest canopy above, then wondered if Benjamin had seen something else in there too, and had chosen not to reveal it, something as equally as dark, if not darker than what had gone on in my own recent past, and something that there was no way of avoiding in the future…
Chapter Nineteen
‘black mountain’
For a while we drove in silence, both of us seemingly reflecting on what had happened at Benjamin’s, as well as the night before. Not that it mattered now I thought. In a few days I would have found the girl, I’d be sat back in the static on Jerry’s site, listening to my old stereo as if nothing had happened. Then I’d look back at my brief connection with Nancy and enjoy it for what it was. Just a connection, that came and went…