RATTLEMAN: Praise for 18 Seconds 'Excellent! Stephen King

by George D. Shuman

  “Your problem isn’t that I’m married.” She drew her hand away. “Your problem is Sarah. You’re hoping she’ll come back and you don’t want anything to spoil it in case she does. You’re living in a dream world, Marty. You know that?”

  She began to walk away.

  “You’re not even close, Kirsten,” Marty yelled.

  “Bullshit.” She swung round and stood glaring at him. “You think Sarah will get tired of the big city and come crawling back and you’ll both live happily ever after. Well, I’ve got news for you. Sarah isn’t interested in small pond fish anymore. Sarah’s landed a much bigger trophy than you.”

  She turned and strutted toward the Suburban, stopping halfway to look over her shoulder, her voice suddenly silky. “I’m on evenings next week. Call me. I’ll slip out early.”

  “Jesus,” he said, pounding his fist on the cab. “Just what in the hell is that supposed to mean?” He took a few steps toward her, not caring that her partner was staring at them wide-eyed from the Suburban.

  “Just what I said.” She turned to face him. “I’ll meet you after work at your place.”

  “About Sarah,” he shouted.

  Kirsten groaned and turned to look at him again. “I saw her at the Holiday Inn last week at Vickie Patterson’s wedding. I was taking pictures.”

  “Sarah?” he said skeptically. “Here in Marion?”

  “She was with State Representative Stanton.” Kirsten put her hands on her hips. “You know, he’s a real handsome guy. Didn’t she intern with him after grad school?”

  Marty looked at her, unable to speak.

  “Give me a call, Marty. It’ll be fun.” She winked and turned for the car.

  He stood there in the snow, staring at her as she got in the Suburban, managed a U-turn and started back down the mountain. He tried to recall any conversations he’d had with Sarah about her internship at the state capital, but nothing came to mind. Not that it would; Marty was a lot like his father in that way: blind to the details going on around him in life. So blind he had come home one evening to find his engagement ring on the kitchen counter and all Sarah’s things gone from the closets.

  Marty spun round and kicked a chunk of ice that struck high on the wall of the woodshed, sending a cat yowling into the eaves. Then he started up the sidewalk, taking deep breaths and thinking it might after all be a good night for a beer.

  The door to the general store was swollen shut and he had to shoulder it open. Smoke was seeping from the seams of a blistering woodstove and it burned his eyes when he entered.

  “Got any chewing gum, Hattie?” He pulled off his gloves, stamping his boots on a pile of flattened cardboard. An old woman was stocking shelves behind the counter.

  “I’ve got Teaberry and Juicyfruit,” she said. “Which will it be?”

  “Juicyfruit.” He fished out a dollar bill and sat on a crude wooden bench.

  “They’re not old,” she said, “just brittle from the cold.”

  He grunted.

  “So how was your climb to the lake?”

  “Wet,” he told her, unwrapping a stick of gum that he pushed into his mouth. “What do you think about the head that Buc found?”

  “Not exactly friendly country up there.” She nodded in the direction of the mountaintop. “Not for city people anyhow.”

  “Who said she was from the city?”

  “I saw the girl’s hair,” she said. “Everyone did.”

  “You think it was an accident?”

  “She wouldn’t be the first or last to get lost in the Appalachians. I say a prayer every time one of them hikers goes by. They don’t like to follow the trails anymore. Not exciting enough. They want to pit themselves against nature. Act like them survivalists on television.”

  Marty looked at her, wondering what television she was talking about. There wasn’t a television within ten miles of Kettle Hollow.

  “What people, Hattie?” He made a face.

  “You know. Survivalist people. They go out in the middle of nowhere and see who can outlast the other.”

  Marty squinted at her.

  He considered the possibility of someone hiking to the lake and drowning. There were thousands of people on the Appalachian Trail each year and it was easy enough for them to see the Iron’s summit looming to their west; conceivable that someone might leave the well-marked trails if they were curious enough to climb it.

  Iron Mountain was not named for any mineral deposits, but for its physical resemblance to a flat iron. The western face was a sheer wall of stone that climbed to four thousand, seven hundred feet. The north, which was pretty jagged, dropped vertically to the Silver River gorge. To the south the mountain was a virtual boulder field that descended to the Monongahela National Forest.

  If someone did approach on foot they would most likely come from the east. That is where the summit sloped to Lake Nawakwa and it would be one of the first things they would see. Who would dare swim in the lake he couldn’t imagine. Nawakwa was frigid mid-summer and the shallow waters were covered with dead trees. As anyone could see, it was not a lake for recreation.

  “Gaudineer Mountain is just up range too,” Hattie was saying as if reading his thoughts.

  “They get tourists up there by the busload to see the leaves turn each fall. Come to see the Virgin Spruce. Buy them I SLEPT WITH THE VIRGINS T-shirts from the locals. You know, they take in more money on them T-shirts than the state gives them each year in preservation funding.”

  “Hattie, no offense, but where do you get all this stuff?”

  “I read.” She shrugged. “You know I read.”

  He shook his head, rolling the pack of gum back and forth in the palms of his hands. An image of Sarah and Representative Stanton crept into his thoughts ... Sarah interned with him the summer she graduated.

  “Gaudineer is one hell of a hike from here, Hattie.”

  Hattie shrugged. “Well if she wasn’t a hiker she must have come from a city and got into a bad situation and someone brought her up here and dumped her body in the lake. Would have had to have happened last fall before the lake froze over.” Hattie split a box down its spine with a buck knife and clucked with her tongue.

  “But you haven’t seen any strangers up here?”

  “Everyone’s a stranger.” She folded the box and dropped it on the floor.

  Just then his mind wandered to something that happened last year, about a month after he had taken the job as Sheriff. A woman went jogging near Durbin, West Virginia and was never seen again.

  “Got a state map, Hattie?”

  She pointed with the tip of the knife. “Shelf under the cinnamon sticks.”

  He laid the map out on the counter and put his finger on Durbin, forty miles from Iron Mountain by road, or closer to eight as the crow flies.

  Police there had found the woman’s car parked in a lot behind the fire station the day after a Thanksgiving 10K. She and seventy other runners had come to Durbin to compete in their annual Turkey Trot benefiting the local volunteer fire department. Police would later find her purse, wallet and clothes locked in the trunk. No one could recall seeing her cross the finish line after the race.

  Marty folded the map. “How’d the winter go, Hattie?”

  “Kelso boys drove me crazy. I could hear them trying to break the lock off my door every couple of nights. I’d put the light on outside the trailer and they’d run off in the dark. One night I just came down here and locked myself in. Sat right there and waited in my chair with my shotgun. Once they got it open a crack I let ’em have both barrels full of rock salt. Didn’t see them for a month after that. When I did, the one looked like he had the measles.”

  Marty turned to see a rough circle of holes embedded in the wooden door.

  Hattie shrugged. “Other than that, it was business as usual. You want a pop?”

  Marty nodded. She opened a bottle of root beer and handed it to him.

  “Why are you still up here, Hattie? Winters a
re getting a little rougher all the time.”

  She looked at him amused. “You sound just like your father, though him I should have listened to.” She ran a hand through her hair. “Back when there was still time.”

  “It’s never too late to do anything, Hattie,” Marty said.

  “Oh, don’t be silly, boy. Some things you’d be a fool not to accept. Acceptance is part of life too.”

  “Yeah,” he said absently. “I suppose it is.” Sarah’s landed a much bigger fish than you ...

  “You need anything special from town?” He took a drink from the bottle.

  She shook her head. “They’ll be bringing up stock this week – if it doesn’t snow.”

  “There’s none in the forecast.”

  “Take some books and magazines next time you come around.”

  “I’ll talk to the girls at the library,” he said.

  “Don’t you have a wedding coming up?” she asked.

  Marty set the bottle on the counter. “We’re not going to do that anymore.”

  The old woman laid the knife on the counter, and looked at him.

  Marty shrugged.

  “Ah, Marty, I’m sorry.”

  He nodded. “Me too, Hattie. She said she wanted to try the city for a while.”

  “So did you, not too long ago.”

  Marty nodded. “Yeah. Once upon a time.”

  “Well, it just means God has something else in mind for you.”

  He laughed. “No, God thinks I’m a cat. He likes to dangle things in front of me and then snatch them out of my reach.”

  He set the root beer down and walked to the door, rubbing his hand across the pockmarks in its warn wooden surface, wondering how many kids were walking around town with rock salt in their butts.

  “It just means something else is going to come along,” Hattie said. “Things work out. Just you wait and see.”

  “Yeah, thanks Hattie,” he said quietly and closed the door.

  By noon Marty was back in his office in the county courthouse. His first call was to the Pocahontas County Sheriff about the jogger who had gone missing in Durbin last fall. Marty had him fax a copy of the original missing persons report and a few minutes later he held it in his hand. Her name was Annie Myers and a notation under a block marked ‘jewelry’ read ‘five gold studs/each ear.’ It was hardly conclusive, but the matching holes in the ears of the victim was enough to let loose the first butterflies in his stomach.

  He dialed Kirsten’s number at K Troop, but the line was busy. Then he returned the call to Chief Douglas from Quills Landing across the river.

  “Douglas,” the voice growled.

  “It’s Marty, Doug.”

  “Heard you got some head this morning,” the Chief guffawed.

  “Very funny.”

  “I’m surprised those loony tunes didn’t make soup out of her. Caught a couple of my citizens boiling a baby pig in an alley one night. Liked to scare the bejeezus out of me. I was ready to shoot someone until I realized it wasn’t human.”

  Marty rubbed his temple. “Sam said you called. What can I do for you, Doug?”

  “Looking for some head of my own actually, except mine’s still alive and attached to two feet. She’s a red head and not the natural kind either. Looks like she did a handstand in a bucket full of Kool-Aid. She’s got a barbed wire tattoo around her neck and needles sticking out of both eyebrows. Shouldn’t be too hard to spot her over there in Mayberry.”

  “What’s she wanted for?”

  “For pissing me off! Girl ran out on a dope charge. Sam knows all them hopheads hang out in Marion. Tell him if he sees her to give me a call. I’ll meet him at the bridge and take her off his hands.”

  “Sam’s not putting anyone in my car until I hear the words ‘probable cause’ or ‘arrest warrant’.”

  Douglas belched. “You keep that probable cause shit on your side of the river, Marty. Things aren’t quite so volatile over your way.”

  Marty heard a beer can snap in the background.

  “What’d this girl do anyhow?” he asked, rolling a stick of gum into a ball and tucking it into his mouth.

  “I arrested her around the corner from Tiny’s place on the river. Searched her pockets and found a gram of cocaine. Told her I’d flush it if she’d go back to Tiny’s and buy another with marked money.”

  Marty narrowed his eyes. “Tiny’s out of prison?”

  “Monday a week and they’re already lined up at his door. Don’t seem a year’s gone by, does it, Marty? Goddamned revolving doors of justice, eleven months for narcotics possession and a firearm to boot. Now does that make a bit of sense to you?”

  Marty took the chewing gum out of his mouth and tossed it in the wastebasket. Feeling a stab of pain over his left eye, he began to rummage through his desk drawers for a bottle of aspirin. “They said the gun wasn’t operable. Didn’t have a firing pin.”

  “Doesn’t need to function,” the Chief said. “US versus Rivera.”

  Marty laughed. “I thought you didn’t care about the law, Doug?”

  “Time and place for everything,” Douglas said.

  “What happened to the girl?”

  “I threw her dope in the storm grate and sent her back to Tiny’s. When she got around the corner she took off like a jackrabbit. I should have put the cuffs on her when I had the chance.”

  “I’ll tell Sam to ask around, but if he finds her, you’re coming here to get her. She is not going into any of my cars.”

  “Suit yourself,” Douglas said.

  “Goodbye.” Marty replaced the receiver. He took three aspirins and tried Kirsten’s number at the forensics office again. The line was still busy so he grabbed his jacket and shut off the lights.

  It was dark by the time Marty arrived at his home on Emmet’s Fork Gap. He tugged off his boots and left them by the door, dialing up the thermostat on his way to the living room. He built a fire and called forensics again, but Kirsten had gone home for the day.

  A stack of bills lay on an end table; yesterday’s newspapers were strewn on the floor. He picked one up and started turning pages. A minute later he went to the kitchen and got a Coke from the refrigerator. He snapped it over the sink, staring at photos stuck to the refrigerator door. Sarah, tall and tanned in a short black dress at a friend’s wedding; Sarah wearing a green halter-top at Spruce Knob Lake; Sarah in a bikini on water skis; a yellow knit cap throwing snowballs; denim overalls in a pile of orange leaves. He reached out and gently ran his finger over them.

  How long does it take, he wondered? How long before an hour could pass without thinking about her?

  He tugged the photos from the refrigerator and took them with his Coke to the living room. Then he sat on the rug and stared into the flames.

  He tried to recall the telephone conversations he’d had with Sarah when she was working at the state capital. He tried to remember the return addresses on letters addressed to her on the dining room table each night. He hadn’t thought much about it at the time, but yes she had seemed distracted by the mail. Had he really been that naive?

  He wanted to lay her pictures on top of the burning embers. He wanted to watch them curl into black ash and disintegrate into smoke. But instead he laid them on the rug and put his head next to them and fell asleep, reflections of the fire flickering across the ceiling.

  When he dreamed it was of a deep blue lake. Sarah was just offshore floating on her back and calling out to him to join her. He could see the sun sparkling on the water all around her. He began to take off his shoes and jeans, but then the water turned dark beneath her. Something was rising to the surface. He yelled, “Sarah!” but she couldn’t hear him and he screamed her name again, running toward the water as a great toothless creature broke the surface and with its maw gaping wide open, swallowed her whole. He saw a green-gray fin as it arced to make its dive and it was matted with weeds and old fishing line and nets. The creature plunged into the depths, leaving an oily slick on the w
ater.

  The phone rang, startling him awake.

  “Yes?” he said groggily.

  “The head.”

  “Kirsten?” He pushed himself off the floor. The logs in the fireplace had burnt out, embers smoldering orange.

  “The report on the woman missing in Durbin last year. She had five piercings in each ear.”

  “Gold studs,” he said.

  “You’ve read it.”

  He grunted.

  “There’s more,” she said. “Those cuts on her lips. I was wrong about the ice. Something sharp was inserted in her mouth. Her gums and tongue are all cut up and it looks like someone pried the fillings out of her teeth.”

  Chapter 2

  Blood Mountain, Georgia

  April

  Bands of pink and orange light stretched across the craggy bluff on Blood Mountain, Georgia, the last rays of sun setting on the hunt for thirteen-year-old Megan Lawson. It was day five of the search and authorities were beginning to lose hope.

  Jane Cameron, a veteran Vogel State Park Ranger and Georgia State Search and Rescue Instructor raised her binoculars to study an aberration on the bluff, wondering if she was looking at an entrance to a cave or a trick of the diminishing light.

  She removed a small camera from her backpack and took a picture. Then she checked her cellphone for a signal, found none and slipped it back into its holster. The batteries of her park service radio had expired nearly an hour before when she sent her search team down off the mountain.

  She looked at her watch and then at the waning sun. Most of the others would be at the shuttle busses or the command center eating Red Cross sandwiches and waiting for the press conference that aired out of Blairsville each evening. Tonight the Lieutenant Governor would announce an end to the official search. Tomorrow morning volunteers and legions of Girl Scouts from across the country would board busses for home, leaving the park service with what would be termed as a recovery.

  Cameron knew that before she decided to investigate the bluff, she should get help, but it was a forty-minute descent to the Ranger Station and by the time she assembled a team with fresh radios it would be dark; locating a man-sized opening on the side of a mountain would be improbable using artificial light.