Killer Mountain

by Peter Pinkham

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Is Hudson there?”

  “No. You never call this late.”

  “It’s about a client of mine. It can wait.”

  “Are you still taking people? I thought you’d retired.”

  “I am retired. This one is a damned old fool who just won’t accept it. Have Hudson call me,” he ordered. “No. On second thought don’t. I can’t talk about it.” He hung up.

  She held the dead phone for a moment. Then replaced it gently. She knew Hudson was fond of Carver; the two enjoyed the mental jousting that took place whenever they got together. Carver was the one person she knew who could give her husband a battle at chess. Her own feelings were somewhat different. If Wallace Carver had been born German, Hitler would have had to fight him for dictator. He seldom said `please’ or `thank you’ and never `good bye’ when finishing a phone conversation. The phone rang again.

  “Yes?” Her voice was cold, preparing for new instructions from General Carver.

  “Where is he?” Not Wally. A soft voice, almost a whisper.

  “What?”

  “Your father. Where is your father?”

  “You have the wrong number,” she hung up the phone. It rang again before she could turn from it. “Yes?”

  “Tell me where your father is and I won’t bother you any more.”

  “He’s dead. You’re nine months too late.” The phone went into its cradle with a little more force. She stood looking at it. Waiting. A moment later it rang again.

  “Don’t do that again. I only want to talk with him.”

  “Then see a channeler. Get off my line.” She hung up and unplugged the phone from the wall.

  She paused. Something about the voice. What was it? It was low, quiet and yet with an underlying strength. She’d heard it before. Where? Sometime before Christmas…? She shook her head. Bartlett, New Hampshire, was not a place where one expected crank calls. It also wasn’t a place where one’s home got invaded; Cilla couldn’t remember hearing of any other attack like hers. She hadn’t been quite honest with Hudson about it. Certainly no rational beings would make a second try at a house from which they’d been driven off - nearly captured - and which could no longer be taken by surprise. But there was something about the look in the eyes of the intruders. They revealed no rational thought.

  Chapter 9

  Surprisingly there had been no wind following the snowstorm, and the spruce the next morning carried armloads of white against a bright blue sky. But the plow had been through. Cilla had mixed feelings about the road being sanded; what a delight it would be to travel it by sleigh.

  Kurt Britton was jovial; he’d beaten three of the ski school instructors over the NASTAR course Thursday afternoon. Britton had only skied seriously the two years he’d been in the business, but approached the sport with the same intensity he brought to the rest of his life.

  “Coffee for Big Mama?”

  “Tea. What time did we start grooming?”

  “It was three A.M. before the temperature dropped enough.”

  “They must be still out.”

  “Just finishing on Wild West. Did Hudson tell you all the snowmakers are in working order?”

  “Great! That makes the new snow just a bonus.”

  “The real bonus will come next summer when we can hook the system up to the pond we’re building. The environmentalist weenies aren’t going to let us draw from the river much longer. We’ll be one of the few ski areas with self-contained snowmaking. And we’ll have the capacity to handle Big Haystack when we get to it.”

  “If we get to it.” Great Haystack Ski Area was actually built on Little Haystack Mountain, but the corporation owned another two thousand acres next door, some five hundred of them running up the side of Big Haystack Mountain to meet White Mountain National Forest near the top. The ski area could more than double its size if the land on the larger mountain was utilized. Plans had been drawn up for a new complex with four lifts, twenty-five trails, and a hotel and restaurant immediately abutting Forest Service land. All it needed was money, and with no mortgages on the existing business, funds were available whenever Cilla decided to take on debt.

  It was a Friday, so Cilla skied an assortment of the area’s thirty trails to assure herself the mountain was ready for heavy weekend traffic. Having grown up in Bartlett, she’d been on skis since she was three, and - as with all Mt. Washington Valley kids - skiing was one of her grammar school “courses”. Combined with a natural athletic ability, she was as home on skis as walking, and as knowledgeable about the on-snow side of skiing as grizzled veterans. She sent snowcats back up on three trails to flatten infant moguls in the new snow. These bumps, created by skiers all turning in the same places, were allowed to grow on several expert trails, but ninety percent of Great Haystack’s skiers wanted a smooth surface where turning locations were their option, not somebody else’s.

  She left a little earlier than usual to take Andre for his swimming therapy at the club. Cilla had also been swimming since she was three, usually in the Saco River. Now, during the winter, she tried to use the club’s pool at least once a week, each session for a hundred or so laps. Her one-piece bathing suit was as conservative as could be found in the malls of North Conway, but she was aware of Andre’s eyes on her more often than on the female swimmers in smaller pieces of cloth. The attention made her uncomfortable. Damn Loni, wherever she is. She left the pool area as soon as she’d finished her routine, breathing a sigh of relief, when Bob Gold appeared from the weight room, suggesting to Andre they try the new Indian restaurant on the “Strip”, as the three mile commercial stretch south of North Conway village was known.

  The Rogers were having a guest of their own for dinner, which was rare. She and Hudson were private people, who neither needed nor wanted a social circle. But Jim Evans was a local physician who’d shared some of the couple’s short history together. He’d doctored both Cilla and Hudson the previous fall for wounds not commonly associated with the peaceful life of the north country and become a friend in the process.

  Cilla greeted him at the door as he stomped his boots. “Susie Tardon, how is she?”

  “I’m sorry, Cilla. She didn’t make it.” He hung his coat in the mudroom.

  “Oh no! That’s terrible! What happened?”

  “She never regained consciousness.” The doctor headed toward the glowing fireplace rubbing his hands.

  Cilla followed him in. “So… What did she die of?”

  Evans gazed into the fire. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know? Doctors are supposed to know.”

  The doctor nodded wearily. He turned to face her. “That’s what I used to think. You remember Annie Cross?”

  “Sure, ran into her last week at the grocery store. She lives on River Street.”

  “Lived. She died two days ago. Her niece found her sitting at her dining room table looking as if she was just waiting for dinner to be served.”

  “Annie must have been eighty-five.”

  “Seventy-four and last week as healthy as sixty. You probably know Henry Callow?”

  “I saw him last night at the Planning Board meeting, looking like death warmed over. Don’t tell me…”

  “His daughter found him this morning. Sitting in his car in the driveway as though about to drive to the store. He was seventy.”

  “I would have guessed him older.” She paused. “But seventy’s not young.”

  “Old age isn’t a cause of death. It’s a reason why parts sometimes fail.”

  “What parts failed with these?”

  “That’s the point; none that I can tell. They should still be alive.”

  “Like Susie?”

  “She went the same way. Mind you, people die all the time, we just usually know the reason.” He was lost in thought a moment. “Both Annie and Henry were found with peaceful looks on their faces and their mouths open, as if they were just about to greet their Maker.
Susie, who didn’t yet speak, looked the same.”

  “Is that unusual?”

  The doctor shrugged. “No, not really.”

  “Something’s bothering you,” said Hudson.

  “Talking with my colleagues, there may have been two others.

  “Older people?”

  “The youngest was sixty-one. Except for Susie. She’s the only child.” He grinned. “Don’t make a big deal about it. This isn’t China or India.”

  “Where the people are more disease prone?” asked Cilla, with an edge to her voice.

  “More densely populated. We’re breeding too much, Cilla. There are getting to be just too many people on earth. Why should humans be any different than, say, the Gypsy Moth?”

  “Who die off after a few years?”

  “Each species has it,” said Evans. “A built-in control triggered by overpopulation that thins out the numbers. Sometimes wipes them out completely. When was the last time you saw a raccoon? Yet twenty years ago they were all over the Valley. We’re already seeing a substantial drop in human birth rates. So far we’ve been able to survive diseases. But we’ve only been around a short time and we’ve multiplied so rapidly that unless we peel back voluntarily it will get done for us.”

  “Meaning?”

  “It’s already been happening. The Black Plague decimated Europe. Influenza wiped out more than twenty million in this country and over there before it ended. And look how nervous scientists got over Swine Flu.” He folded his arms tightly around his chest and leaned on the chair arm. “Smallpox, TB, AIDS. And when we find a cure for one, it mutates and a resistant strain develops. There’s no dearth of people who feel the whole planet is on its way up the chimney. Whether or not they’re right at this time, they will be someday very soon if we keep adding to our numbers the way we have. If not a giant collapse through increases or decreases in global temperature, or destruction of the ozone layer, a bacterial or virus outbreak we can’t control in time. Probably starting with our older people.”

  “And Susie.”

  The conversation over dinner was muted.

  Chapter 10

  February 20-26

  The New England weather gods were in a good mood. It snowed Tuesday and again Friday, and though the sun wasn’t always as ready to appear, there was little wind, and daytime temperatures nudged into the thirties. February will set records, thought Cilla, though the size of the crowds emphasized Great Haystack’s weaknesses. Food service areas were inadequate as was parking. They’d have to do something about both if they got the new quad.

  She was at the mountain each morning at six and didn’t break away until nine at night. Kurt Britton had the mountain crews working straight through with no days off. Those who walked into his office left running; he had that effect on employees. His eyes were always on her, daring her to make a mistake or let down from the furious pace he set.

  On Wednesday Bob Gold announced that his new walk-in freezer was finished, and he again had a room for Andre. Cilla tried, not completely successfully, to hide relief at her guest’s departure.

  “You’re very private people, aren’t you?” Andre echoed her thoughts.

  “Hudson and I didn’t have a formal honeymoon, so I guess we’re still on it,” she said by way of apology.

  “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your taking me in.” He pulled at his chin. “It’s been stressful for me, too, sitting across the breakfast table from what could be the girl who walked out on me.”

  “Have you heard anything from her?”

  “Nothing. One day she was gone and that’s all. No note, no calls.”

  “Andre, are you sure she didn’t have an accident, and that’s why you haven’t heard from her?”

  “I checked hospitals after she left. But that was while I was still allowing myself the fiction that her departure might be due to something beyond her control. No, she’d been jumpy for a week or two before she left. I didn’t catch the signs until after she’d gone. Then I realized she’d obviously been in the process of making her decision; I was too wrapped in my work to notice. I’m still old fashioned enough to do most of my research in libraries rather than the Internet. I’m often there long into the evenings.”

  After he’d gone, Cilla stood looking out the kitchen window at the mountains but hearing the whispered voice. The library, that’s where she’d heard it. It had come from the stacks next to her, unseen. Someone discussing a book with a friend. When they’d left she’d seen only the backs of their heads. Two men. There was something unusual, though… yes; one was wearing a cowboy hat. Was he the one with the whispering voice? She tried to remember who else was there at that time that might also have seen him. She looked up the library phone number and asked for Florence Stone.

  “Miss Stone? This is Cilla Wheaton Rogers. Do you remember me? You taught me English at Kennett High School eleven years ago.”

  “Of course, Cilla. I remember you in class. Any day the skiing wasn’t good.”

  “I’m surprised you passed me, I cut so often.”

  “Oh you were bright enough. Didn’t I see you here at the library before Christmas?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, that’s what I’m calling about. Could you get away for lunch today?”

  “Why, I guess so. Want to catch up on what you missed at Kennett?”

  “No, I want to see if your eye is as sharp as it always was.”

  Lunch, at Cilla’s suggestion, was at Eastern Slope Inn. With food ordered, Florence sat back and studied Cilla with an appraising eye.

  “Your hair’s a little shorter. You used to have it all in a big bun on the top of your head. You look happy. I didn’t see that very often back then.”

  “It wasn’t there at all. You remember I was different than the other kids.”

  Florence wrinkled her forehead. “Well, whose fault is that? You used to wear those dreadful Indian clothes all the time.”

  “My mother was Abenaki.”

  “So? That wasn’t a criminal offense even then.”

  “You wouldn’t know it from the way people treated us. Growing up, there wasn’t anyone lower than an Indian in Bartlett, New Hampshire.”

  “So that’s it.” Florence looked around at the room. “Do you know this is the first time I’ve ever been in this hotel?”

  Cilla was puzzled. “So?”

  “I’m originally from Newton, Massachusetts. In the late nineteen-forties, my family made a reservation here at this Inn for a summer vacation. I was just a kid. The week before we were scheduled to arrive, we received a letter saying that they were sorry to have to let us know that our reservation had been cancelled. The letter went on to say in rather blunt terms that the hotel policy was not to take Jews, and that they had learned that our family was Jewish.”

  “Did hotels really do that?”

  “Yes, many did.”

  “But Eastern Slope Inn! I’ve always thought of it as…”

  “Oh, it all changed here a few years later. A man named Sherrard, who owned the Parker House in Boston, bought it and opened it to everyone. Did you ever read the book no I suppose I should ask, did you ever see the movie - Gentlemen’s Agreement?”

  “No to both. Why?”

  “It was about a hotel that didn’t allow Jews. Some people back then thought it was written about this place.”

  “That’s dreadful! Old bastard WASPS. What did your family do?”

  “Oh, that wasn’t the first time it happened, or the last. We changed our reservation to a hotel in Jackson.”

  “And they took you?”

  “They didn’t take anyone but Jews. If you had a Christian name, I understand you never got through the front door.” She smiled brightly. “It wasn’t just the WASPS who were particular with whom they associated. But I’m sure you didn’t suggest luncheon to compare ethnic slights.”

  “Miss Stone…”

  “Florrie. I don’t need to feel older than I am.”

  “Florr
ie, that day in December when I was in the library, there was a man wearing a cowboy hat, do you remember seeing him?”

  “Yes I do. We don’t see many hats like it here. Particularly in winter. He had an oddly quiet voice with just a trace of a foreign accent. He and his friend were looking at a display of grade school Christmas drawings. And then they laughed.”

  “Laughed? At kid’s drawings?”

  “Yes, I thought it was a little uncouth.”

  “Foreign accent. What did they say?”

  Florence wrinkled her forehead. “Let me see… Oh, I know. The other man, the one not wearing a hat, pointed to a drawing of the three Wise Men and said something about there being three bearing gifts to a field in Bethlehem. And the man in the cowboy hat said, `just change one little word.’ That was when they both laughed.”

  “Did they say anything else? Take out any books?”

  “No. They went out right after that. I’m sorry, is it important?”

  “I don’t know, Florrie. I wish I knew.”

  On the Monday evening after the holiday week and a day spent catching up on sleep and laundries, Cilla and Hudson brought after-dinner tea into the living room.

  “I’m going down to have a bite with John Krestinski tomorrow,” said Hudson. “Be back late.”

  “About our Swedish thugs? I wondered if you’d talk with him about that.”

  He nodded. “This’ll be a quiet week. Kurt’s covering for me in the afternoon.”

  “It will be quiet if Spit and Polish allows it. I wonder if he’d be this difficult for a man to supervise.”

  “Probably. He’s a DI from PI. What’s the latest?”

  “My filing system.” She saw his look and went on quickly. “Oh I know, you can barely see my desk. He calls it the landfill. Humor. Yesterday he decided I needed a lecture. The worst part is he’s probably right; I should look more organized, set a better example for the others. But I know where everything is.”

  “All on your desk?”

  “Don’t you start. Then he went on I don’t have the respect of the crew. The mountain needs more of a leader. Him presumably.”

  “Do you think so? He’s a great captain; I can’t see him as general. He can use a hammer, I’m not so sure about a gavel. It’s a toughie, Cill. You’ll have to earn his respect, in the things important to him.”