Killer Mountain

by Peter Pinkham

  He admired the more intimate view than that from the top. It was a specially welcome sight after St. Petersburg - the sweep of the Presidential Range and the White Mountain National Forest; to the east the villages of Mt. Washington Valley nearly bare under a thinner than usual layer of crusty mid-winter snow. It was Tuesday, the weekend hordes had long since returned to their homes in Newton, Hingham and Avon. Below him the trail dipped steeply and cut sharply to his right, leaving jumbled mountains at eye level, and valley far below. Easy lift rides to views like these probably spoiled many for the effort to reach them in summer, he thought. Yet there is no substitute for the feeling of aloneness on a mountain peak or trail - where all you can hear is chirp of a cricket or, as now, the click of your skis. That’s why he enjoyed the end-of-day run, sweeping the mountain for leftover skiers, and often made it, whether scheduled or not. His aimless fleeing to New Hampshire last spring, after the sudden death of his wife of twelve years, had been the right move. There was a fascination to the White Mountains. He wondered if those who lived in other mountainous areas felt the same about their home turf. Probably. Though here in the Presidential Range he could reach their tops without the rope and pitons required by upstart angular peaks. Climbing through churchly spires of pine and fir and fluttering parties of birch and beech, by casual brooks with elderly rocks, rounded by age, in gurgling conversation. The snap of a twig might be a deer or bear; the scurry of a raccoon had recently been replaced by the crashing of a blundering moose.

  As he rounded the last turn in the trail, he saw his wife of two months on the front deck of the base station. Her back was to him, and he allowed his momentum to carry him up the snow-covered ramp to land with a clatter of skis on the wooden deck next to her.

  “Whup,” Cilla blinked. “I should have known. My husband refuses to show proper respect for his boss.” She looked up at a boyish grin. “But he might have a little for that middle aged body he throws around so carelessly.”

  “He took a child bride to keep him young, not to badger him with insults on his mature physique. Which incidentally didn’t get that way on cauliflower and broccoli. If I brought a steak home tonight would you let it in the house?”

  “Surprise. I already have one. If you’re headed home throw some potatoes in the oven for the two of us. Andre’s eating out with Bob.”

  Chapter 6

  Home was a rambling farmhouse, white with gray shutters and a center chimney, sprawling beneath oaks and pines on Bartlett’s Swallow Hill Road, some ten minutes from the ski area. The screen porch across the entire front was entered either from the middle or the garage end on the far right. To the left of the center front door an old-fashioned two-person couch swung gently in the breeze. Outside under the snow cover was a substantial lawn, well cared for by the previous owner, though the geese he’d allowed to run on it were gone.

  After steak, which Hudson thought quite good despite the disdain of the chef, he got a fire going.

  “You and Kurt had words this afternoon.”

  “His problem. He likes to pound on my filing cabinet when he’s making a point.” She paused with her hand on the mantle. “Hudson, speaking of the files, I’m a little concerned there may be things in there that could leap out and bite us.”

  “Leftovers from Carr?”

  “We haven’t really had a chance to talk. The business with Andre has got me a little worried.”

  “Our houseguest?” He adjusted his chair to the left of the fireplace.

  “I met him when he came into my office breathing fire. Apparently Adams sent Carr a letter a year ago, which he never answered, just dumped in a folder. Ever hear of the Indiana Bat?”

  “Is it like the Highland Fling?”

  “It’s a bat, Hudson. One of those things that fly around at night. Adams claims one was sighted last spring here at Great Haystack.”

  “Sure, I see them all the time in the base lodge.”

  “In Isis Cave. Stay with me on this.” Isis Cave was a small flue, ten foot high and fifty foot deep, on a shoulder of Great Haystack, which currently was being developed for grove skiing.

  “So?”

  “He seemed pretty puffed when he came in, saying things like `the sighting has serious federal implications.’”

  “Because bats have crossed state lines? They’re probably now subject to the Interstate Commerce Commission.”

  “Or the FBI.”

  “Nut or not, I’m sure glad he was where he was the other day. Ice climbing! You really used to do it as a kid?” Hudson leaned back in his chair and gazed at his wife in wonder.

  Cilla waved it off. “Back when I was on the ski patrol at Great Haystack.”

  “Why?”

  She turned on the table lamp between the chairs. “We were kids. We’d do anything.”

  “Climbing an icicle… I suppose there’s a way to keep from sliding off?”

  “The shoes are the important things. We didn’t have any of the fancy equipment we used the other day, but we had the shoes. There are half inch metal pieces in the toe that stick into the ice. And crampons on the soles.”

  “A whole half-inch to keep you nice and secure a hundred feet up. Suppose you lean back?”

  “You don’t.”

  Hudson nodded and got up to poke at the fire. “We’ll try another subject. How do you feel about having a double out there somewhere?”

  “They say everyone has one; you just don’t usually run into them. Makes me feel funny, as though I’d been cloned. I’d like to meet her. She’s apparently about my age.”

  “And he’s close to mine?” He turned to Cilla.

  She studied him. “Maybe a little younger. Certainly not a middle aged man.”

  “Like the geezer who’s married to his young chick boss?”

  Cilla put her arms around his neck. “How do you feel about that?”

  “Excited. How many guys get to hit on their general managers without waking up on the street?”

  “Now you’ve done it, reminded me of work. Britton left a note, there’s a problem with the air we’ve rented.” She let her arms fall to her sides.

  “And we’re practically on grass now, with the holiday week coming up. What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t either. He’s trying to figure it out tonight.”

  “Okay. I’d better go. He may need a hand, and I should know more about the snowmaking system.” Hudson shrugged into a parka.

  “Are you all talk?”

  “What gave me away?”

  “This bragging about hitting on general managers. Just hot air?”

  “Can this be the innocent child I married, propositioning an employee?”

  “And still scared to death doing it.”

  Hudson added a furry hat, thinking of another that may have saved him from a cracked skull. Or worse. He’d said nothing to Cilla about the attack and didn’t intend to. “Think how far you’ve come.”

  “In some ways. The other day a man opened the ladies locker room door at the club. By mistake. I was in my underwear and I froze. Couldn’t move a muscle. He apologized and quickly closed the door, but I was shaking.”

  “Good thing for him he was quick. It may have saved his masculinity.”

  Chapter 7

  It was light before the snowmaking system was back in operation. Hudson yawned as he paused at the entrance to Swallow Hill Road to let several cars heading in the opposite direction go by. His left turn signal was blinking, and he had started his turn when a pickup behind him suddenly shot by nearly clipping his left fender. He braked hard. The truck raced through the intersection, swerved around a westward-headed sedan, forcing it off the road, and swung into a convenience store with a gas pump outside. Hudson noticed the off-the-road vehicle was already moving back onto the highway, its driver peering back at the rogue pickup framing familiar words, and decided he needed gas. The driver of the truck went into the store as Hudson pulled up at the pump. He got
out and followed him in. He was young, no more than seventeen, but looked as though he should be playing high school tackle.

  “A little dangerous, wouldn’t you say?”

  “What?” The kid put on a baffled expression.

  “You nearly hit me and forced another car off the road.”

  “I don’t care.”

  What kind of response was that? “Other people might.”

  “That’s their problem.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “I don’t have to tell you that.”

  A man appeared from a door with “Toilet” over it, the word, “Mike” on the left breast of his cover-alls. “What’s going on, Kevin?”

  “Kevin nearly caused an accident.”

  “But he didn’t, huh?” Mike was unimpressed.

  “Does he have a license?”

  “Look, take off old man,” said the young driver. “You don’t know how much trouble…” He pushed his hand toward Hudson’s chest. Hudson took it in both his.

  “Ow!” The boy fell hard on his knees. Mike made as if to grab Hudson’s arm.

  “Don’t,” said Hudson. Something in the way the word came out froze Mike. Hudson looked down at Kevin. “Watch your driving from now on. I’ll remember you.”

  The rest of his drive home was unsatisfactory. He didn’t feel he’d handled the situation well. What did he prove, that he could physically impose his will on a scrawny clerk and a seventeen-year-old boy? He’d done nothing useful. Kevin wouldn’t have learned from what had happened. Right now Mike was surely not lecturing the kid on driving. He, Hudson, had only widened the gulf a teenager feels between himself and adults. Maybe if he hadn’t been up all night… But even if he hadn’t, what should he have done?

  Chapter 8

  The luminous dial on her bedside clock said one-fifteen. She lay back on the pillow. What had awakened her? She could feel the bed beside her empty; was Hudson home? That must be it. She turned on her side and pulled the blanket up. Pretty soon she’d hear the third stair squeak, as it always did no matter how quiet he tried to be. As he always did.

  It startled her to realize how much her life had changed in just a few months. The last two years in the ashram outside Syracuse were nearly perfect as she lived them: peace, security, the absence of threat. Who could ask for more out of life? She still thought of them with fondness; the devotees were...That clinking sound wasn’t Hudson... She pulled a sweater over her pajamas and stood for a moment, listening. She was tempted to call out Hudson’s name but didn’t want to wake Andre. There had been two squeaks, and as she listened she heard a rustling she couldn’t identify. She turned to go to the door, as it opened and two burly men burst in. One had a knife in his hand, the other a handgun. An automatic Cilla noted, having learned all she wanted to know about guns at an early age.

  The one with the pistol pointed it at Cilla. “You.” He gestured toward the door.

  “What are you doing here?” Cilla glared at him. “What are you doing in my house!”

  “You,” the man repeated. “Come. Or we cut you.” His accent was thick.

  “If you put it that way. Where are we going?”

  “Move.” He gestured again at the door.

  Cilla meekly bowed her head and walked through the door ahead of the men. They indicated the stairs; she went down them. They were old-farmhouse stairs with a sturdy railing on one side and narrow enough to force single file. As she reached the bottom, Cilla turned. “I need soduatem mosiker.”

  “What?” The man with the gun leaned closer to her to understand. Cilla knocked the gun hand aside with her left arm. With her right hand she jabbed stiffened fingers to his throat. The gun fell as he brought both hands to his neck. She pushed him into the man following and ran through the darkened living room to the kitchen, opening a drawer that held knives. She took the sturdiest and sharpest and flattened herself against the wall next to the swinging door she’d come through. She could hear the man she’d hit choking and the sound of running feet coming toward the kitchen door. Suddenly they stopped. For a second there was silence, then the crash of a body hitting the floor. She opened the door a crack. Hudson! In the dim glow from the second floor lights, her husband was reaching down to man number two who was on his back on the living room floor. She ran around him toward the stairs. The choking man had found the door to the glass-enclosed porch; it was wide open. Cilla looked out, and an arm encircled her neck. Only the size of the intruder - shorter than Cilla’s 5’ 9” - preventing him from pulling her off her feet. A strong jab of her elbow was ineffective against his heavy coat. His knife was at her throat as he dragged her toward the porch door. She kicked him in the ankle. The man erupted unfamiliar words. They were half out the door when he gave a loud, “Oof!” and his hands released. She fell to the porch floor as Hudson came over her for a second blow. This was enough for the man, who scurried out the door and over the hardened snow to the road. Hudson turned back for man two, but he’d recovered enough to get out through the kitchen, and could be heard crunching across the yard.

  “You okay?” Hudson asked his wife.

  A car started up down the road.

  “Does furious count?” Cilla turned on lights.

  “Who were they?”

  “Foreigners. The one who had me on the porch screamed something about a sin when I kicked him. Sounded like a Swede.”

  “Did they use any other words?”

  “Suke? Is that a name?”

  “Suke…”

  “Yes… I suppose it could have been ‘Luke’.”

  “I heard a crash.” Andre’s head appeared around the corner of the stairs. “Are you all right, Cilla?”

  “We had visitors,” said Hudson.

  “Oh?” Andre looked at Cilla’s pajamas.

  “Unexpected,” Hudson answered. “And unfriendly. Made any new enemies, Andre?”

  “Every day. They haven’t taken to housebreaking yet, though. Is that what happened? Someone broke in?”

  “They didn’t need to break. We never lock anything,” said Cilla.

  “Shouldn’t we call the police?” He took a step toward Cilla. “You’re sure you’re not hurt?”

  “Yes. They’ll be long gone now.”

  “And no damage done that I can see,” added Hudson.

  “Probably just some damn fools who got the wrong house.” Andre yawned. “Then I guess the excitement’s over. Good night all.” He went back up the stairs.

  When he’d gone, Cilla turned sharply to her husband. “Hudson, they were upstairs! They walked right into our bedroom. I am going to start locking up.” She stopped. “God, I hate the thought of that. We might as well live in the city.” She paused, “They wanted me to go with them.”

  “Like out of the house?”

  Cilla shook her head. “My chance was on the stairs where I only had one to deal with; I wasn’t going to wait to see what the invitation included. Maybe they just wanted me to show them where the family jewels are.”

  It was a measure of their confidence in local police that neither gave any thought to calling them. Chief Solomon was an acquaintance, but hadn’t impressed them on their one experience with him.

  “Are we invaded? Did I wake up in the wrong decade?”

  “To echo our guest, you’re sure you’re not hurt?”

  “Scrub the frown, lover. I’m OK, and they’d have to be out of their minds to come back again after tonight.”

  “It’d help if we knew why they were here in the first place.” He looked out the window across the sleeping valley where Great Haystack loomed in the darkness. There was no moon, but he could see the summit beacon that burned all night.

  At breakfast, Andre asked Cilla if the Wallace Carver next door was the Wallace Carver, attorney, who had been one of the most prominent figures in Suffolk and Essex County courtrooms.

  “Probably,” said his hostess, “this Wallace Carver wouldn’t have allowed himself to be anything less, and I could perhap
s have found a stronger word than `prominent’.”

  “I know what you mean. I’ve been in court with him a few times, usually on the other side as it happens, but I’ve developed a great deal of respect for his legal abilities. We’ve never formally met and I’d really like to talk with him under circumstances where we aren’t adversaries. Could you do a big favor and provide an introduction?”

  Cilla would as soon have introduced a hungry lion, but Andre was owed, so she walked him down to the Carver house, quickly excusing herself so as not to be spattered by environmentalist blood.

  To her surprise, when she returned from the ski area that evening, she found Andre had not only survived, but was still in a cheery mood, with enough energy to ask to borrow her cross country skis for his daily exercise. Maybe they’d enjoyed growling at each other. She had her own schedule, attending a town planning board meeting. As a surveyor’s daughter she knew it was important to keep regulatory boards informed, and it didn’t hurt to have the general manager herself do the informing, so it was well after eleven when she drove home. Six inches of snow had fallen, and she was glad she had four-wheel drive as she turned into Swallow Hill Road. From a ski business point of view, it was good consistency: wet snow that packs well, and the evergreens were heavy with it. Soon the wind will come up, she thought, and spoil the beauty of the living Christmas card captured in the glow of her headlights. Theirs and Carver’s were the only houses on the gravel road. With no streetlights to illuminate it, she could have been driving through middle Alaska.

  Hudson was out again with the snowmaking machines, equipment that was becoming less urgent the more snow that fell. She closed the garage door and went into the house through the kitchen door, a few steps from the garage. The telephone was ringing.

  “Wallace Carver, Cilla.”