King of the Dark Mountain

by Galili Black

  Ellie on the top of one of the White Mountain peaks needed him, of that he was more than certain. Irena Griffin had confirmed it to him. She wouldn’t have given him directions so easily if she hadn’t been worried herself for Ted’s sake. All the rudeness had really been a mask for desperation. She was the kind of person who would never admit to feeling desperate, some pact she’d made with herself at some point, he guessed. He would do his best for her sake as well as his own. Maybe that would make things go a little easier, if he wasn’t just striving on his own behalf. At least that’s how it had gone for him in times past. He was headed east; the sun finally came out and lighted his path. He thought again about Ellie’s favorite song and drove on.

  Chapter Five

  Ellie and Ted had been rousted early by the agents for the journey into the White Mountains. The sun was barely peaking over the horizon when they headed out in a grey sedan, belonging she assumed to whatever nameless agency the two worked for. A feeling of unease settled over her as they drove. Ordinarily, she would have appreciated the opportunity to take a road trip into a national forest. She had actually camped in one of the outlying camp sites during her college years, when she was dating a man who wanted to work for the forest service.

  The relationship didn’t last, and he didn’t even end up working in that field, migrating to New York’s financial district instead. Well that was another type of wilderness she supposed. She hadn’t thought of her college boyfriend for a long time, and it brought a slight smile to her face. He was probably safely ensconced in some Connecticut neighborhood, making the daily commute, dreaming of the big score rather than giant sequoias. During their time together, they had talked about going out west and camping among the giant red woods, another dream they hadn’t realized. She sighed deeply. Ted turned to her and gave her a discerning look. “The older I get the more I realize that it is best never to look back.”

  She nodded and cast a glance in the direction of the two men in the front of the vehicle. “I want to stay focused on the here and now,” she said.

  Ted patted her hand. “There’s no reason for trepidation. We are on a marvelous adventure that will bring new hope to many of our fellow humans, who now literally sit in darkness. In a hundred years, we still haven’t managed to illuminate the entire globe. Today’s activities could change all that, lead to truly affordable clean energy for everyone.”

  “Ted, I want so much to believe what you’re saying, but it’s hard to believe that bureaucrats from some dubious multinational organization are going to provide that. I’d say the odds are they’ll provide more for a few and continuing enslavement for the masses.”

  “The old ways can be mended, my dear.”

  She smiled at the expression; it reminded her of some quote from a book whose name she couldn’t recall right at the moment. How strange that I can’t remember the name of a book that I’ve read a half dozen times, she thought with some consternation. The scent of rosemary again. “Rosemary is for remembrance,” she said out loud. Ted didn’t hear her because he was speaking to Ian about some question regarding their location.

  “We should be coming up on some signs that say the road is closed. Those were arranged some time ago. According to my calculations, we ought to be close to them by now. Oh look, there is something.” Ahead there was a big blocky sign stating that the road was closed for repairs. “I guess we can park over there,” he said to Aleister.

  Ellie got out of the car, glad for a chance to stretch her legs. The mountain lay in front of them, reclining away to the north, touched at the summit by a few wispy clouds. She took a deep breath and stretched her arms over her head, first to one side then the other. Ted and the two other men were conversing near the front of the truck. She walked around to see if she noticed any significant markers. There was the gravelly road winding off behind them. Around them were beautiful pine trees, but her eyes were drawn back to the vision of the mountain in front of her.

  It reminded her of a time when she had been climbing a mountain in Mokpo, a Korean port city. During that climb she had passed men wearing traditional costumes who had set off a cannon, midway up the mountain. Afterwards, as she got higher up, the climb got easier and it felt almost like she was flying for the last stretch of the trail near the top. It was as though the noise of the cannon had diminished gravity somehow.

  She had never experienced anything quite like it again on any of her other mountain jaunts. Maybe it had less to do with the cannon and more to do with the proximity of the ocean. Now even though the ocean was a fair distance away, she felt that this mountain had some kind of relationship with the sea as well. Something about it reminded her of billowing waves and blue water. Perhaps it was the color of the granite summit, rising over the tree line, shading off in graduated hues of blues and greys until it was nearly white at the top. Was that the source of the name of the chain?

  “The spot we’re heading for is a good two hour hike up the western slope,” Aleister said and handed her a backpack. “There’s water and some other supplies inside,” he added. Ted gave her a grey hoodie. She put the backpack down and slipped it over her head. She was glad she was wearing her good walking boots Hez had given her for Christmas. He ordered them special for her because he knew she had trouble finding shoes that fit her wide feet.

  “Did I tell you Irena is back from Spain?” Ted asked.

  “That’s sudden, isn’t it?”

  “She is unpredictable in her comings and goings.” Ted said looking at the two men in front of them.

  “I guess she can afford to be,” Ellie said wistfully

  He turned to her, “Money doesn’t nearly solve all the problems people imagine that it does.”

  Ellie shrugged. If Hez did end up coming up, she would be there to fill him in, she thought. “Does she know much about the project?”

  “Enough, but she thinks it’s chasing the chimera, same as you perhaps.”

  “Ted, if it was anybody but you, I wouldn’t give this project one chance in hell. But I’ve had a feeling for a long time that we would do some important work together. I hope that doesn’t sound too pretentious or anything.”

  A big smile lit his face and he patted her on the back. “No, it sounds like the Ellie that I used to know. Come on let’s go catch up with those fellows.” He headed off at a quicker pace; she had to do the same to keep up. She kept her head down and tried not to think of Hez and how difficult it would be for him to find her.

  They had driven a long way into the forest. From what she had gathered, this particular mountain was chosen for two reasons, its high mass of granite at the summit and its remoteness. How in the world would he ever find it? Would he be willing to wait patiently at Ted’s house for them to return? She doubted that. Would Irena be able to give him directions? “Does Irena know the exact mountain we’re headed to?” she asked Ted.

  “Yes, for a while we had played with the idea of using Irena in the experiment. Some preliminary tests were run, but the numbers were off. They thought the problem was with using a spouse. They said there was too much flat space, as they called it. They thought our long years of intimate contact, not just sexual but living together and all that goes with it, made us unresponsive to certain stimuli that needed to be engaged for the process to work. Aleister thinks the fact that you and I have been out of touch will augment the experiment for the same reason.” He threw her a glance, “Sounds rather intriguing, doesn’t it?”

  She smiled and shook her head. “I’ll say. It reminds me of pheromones. I heard that they put them in perfume back in the day; you know bottling something that has always just been a mysterious force between people.”

  “I never thought of it like that. I remember when that was a minor craze back when I first met Irena.” He looked, suddenly chagrined, “Not that I would ever resort to, or needed to resort to … I think those things are silly,”

  She laughed, “Yeh but you’re willing to go traipsing off searching for magic energy
sources with dubious quasi-government agents.”

  “They’re not a bit dubious, but highly credentialed. They both have Ph.D.’s in their field.”

  She gave him a startled look, “And what fields would that be?”

  “Oh something you haven’t heard of, new fields.”

  “Where did they get their degrees?”

  “I believe Ian went to a famous college in the middle of England, Newcastle perhaps. Aleister in the U.S. I forget exactly where, but it is all on the up and up.”

  “That’s funny I thought they were both Swedish or something.”

  “Aleister is from a little Norwegian fishing village originally, as for Ian Germany I think. I don’t know; it doesn’t matter. The people I’ve met who are doing serious research in the field of alternative energy sources tend to have affiliations with various nationalities. It’s the world we’re moving in to, where many people will have spent time living in more than one country, like you Ellie. It’s part of the whole globalization process, I believe. It’s a good thing. It may even have the effect of moving us away from war mongering and such.”

  “I hope you’re right. Those two,” she motioned with her head towards them, “they seem oddly un-cosmopolitan, especially considering what you’ve just told me about them.”

  He shrugged, “The consequence of spending so much time in the laboratory, no doubt.”

  “Well, there’s always a price to pay, isn’t there?” she asked. “We probably should stop talking about them; they might have super hearing skills or something.” He laughed.

  Ian suddenly stopped and turned around. “We have to check the GSP to make sure we’re still on track,” he yelled down to them. Ellie and Ted caught up to him.

  “This looks right to me,” Ted said, “We never ventured off the trail the last time we were up here and got there just fine.”

  “But that was several weeks ago and there’s some debris ahead. It’s probably okay, but it’s better if we check to make sure.” Aleister had the portable GSP device out. He was squinting down at it. After a moment, he nodded at them. “Okay let’s go ahead, then.” The four of them kept closer together, so Ellie did not question Ted any further about their companions.

  She was beginning to feel hungry. She would have liked to stop and search the backpack for food, but she didn’t want to slow them down. They managed to get around the rocks in the road in front of them, afterwards it seemed to her the trail got rougher and harder to discern as a trail at all. It was also getting steeper.

  She held onto Ted’s sleeve to help stay balanced. She noticed a hawk circling in the sky above them; soon it was joined by another. Hawks were a good sign. Her old boyfriend had once told her that if you saw one, you should remember to take a look at things from a wider perspective. What a mystic that future Wall Street maven had been. The wider perspective now was difficult to obtain.

  The mountain seemed to be closing in around them and that was the way her future felt, closed off from view. Unsettling as that was, it was good to be able to spend time with Ted again, at any rate. Their old rapport seemed completely restored. In her undergraduate days, she had thought he might be a great man, a visionary even. When she became his employee, her esteem had diminished somewhat, but that had more to do with her own need to feel like an adult who could not be easily impressed perhaps. Now she thought her first impression regarding him might be right.

  It would be wonderful if he and the foreign guys in front of her really were onto some brand new thing that would transform the world. If it were the case, it would be an honor to have even a small part to play. It might even be the case that she would have a sizeable part to play, the way they were all behaving. With that cheerful thought she once again put her misgivings aside and quickened her pace.

  *

  Hez was driving along, thinking of the probable price of soybeans that year when he got the unpleasant surprise of blue lights in his rear view mirror. He glanced down at the speedometer which registered 60, five miles over the speed limit. These New Englanders knew that 55 really meant 60 didn’t they? He pulled over and took a deep breath. The cop pulled in after him and bounded out of the car. “Please exit the vehicle,” he said.

  Hez got out, “What’s the problem, officer?”

  “Place your hands on top of the vehicle,” he replied. Another officer joined him and he proceeded to frisk him. He stepped away and the first cop said, “Turn around,”

  Hez took a deep breath, “What’s this all about?” he asked, straining to sound calm.

  “We have to take you in to answer some questions.”

  “About what?” Hez demanded.

  “All of that will be explained once we get to the station. Please follow us.” They took him by the arms and led him to the police car.

  “I need to lock the vehicle,” he said as they were about to pull out. The car stopped.

  “Can you lock it remotely?” The driver asked.

  “No, it’s old fashioned. I have to go and do it in person,” he answered. One of them, Officer Perez from his name badge got out and opened the door. They walked over to the vehicle. Hez thrust his key into the driver’s side lock and turned it. He threw a regretful glance at the plant sitting on the floor board on the passenger side. He hoped it wouldn’t die before he got to return for it. “Will you be towing my truck?” he asked, but he didn’t get an answer.

  When they got to the station, he was kept waiting for forty-five minutes before being led into a room with a stenographer and someone who must be some kind of detective. “Mr. McCane is that right?” he asked, motioning for him to have a seat.

  Hez sat down at the wooden desk and stared at the man. “Can you please tell me what this is all about?”

  “We’ve had some reports of a person matching your description and driving a vehicle with out of state tags holding up a liquor store in Quentin late last night.”

  “It wasn’t me.” Hez said simply.

  “What has brought you to our neck of the woods, Mr. McCane? You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?”

  Hez nodded, “I’ve come to find my sister.” The detective nodded for him to continue. “It’s hard to explain. She came up here to see an old colleague of hers and I want to find her and make sure she’s alright.”

  The detective regarded him over his reading glasses. He took them off and rubbed his eyes. He replaced the glasses and looked at Hez with deep sincerity, “We will have to check you out. This will take a little time. In the meantime, I have some paperwork I need for you to fill out.” He slid papers toward him and a pen. “Just fill it all out to the best of your knowledge.” The cop and the stenographer got up and left the room.

  Hez did as he was told, realizing that he was in no position to argue. The world ran on paper work and when an official slid some your way, you just filled it out. Even as a farmer whose job was ostensibly hands on and practical, he had spent hours filling out papers to satisfy some bureaucrat or other. He heartily hoped that in some unforeseeable future paradise he would never have to fill in little boxes with his social security number again, but that paradise was not today. Ellie was out there on a mountain top, probably getting probed by aliens or God knew what else and some paper pushing cop wanted him to fill out forms and he was doing it because there wasn’t anything else he could do. The entire weight of western civilization rested on such actions. It reminded him again of the story they told of how it was the paper in all those offices that actually provided the fuel to bring down the twin towers. He had often thought that there was a terrible metaphor in that fact.

  After completing the paperwork, Hez got up and paced, his mind filled with foreboding. He thought of all those wacko videos on YouTube about government conspiracies that he sometimes clicked on when he just wanted a diversion after a long day outside mending fences or other necessary tasks. Usually they just made him laugh, but one of them stuck with him. It wasn’t particularly well made or even believable, but at the end
it posed the question, “Who is really running the show?” And he admitted that he didn’t know and he doubted anybody else did either.

  As a boy he had loved stories about King Arthur, read them out loud to Ellie who seemed mainly interested in the descriptions of horses. He even made drawings for her of different colored horses that the knights rode on. He thought of how what was great about those stories was that you knew who was in charge. Whatever strange adventures the knights had to pursue, they knew who ran the show. What a gift that was, and he bet they didn’t even appreciate it one bit. The last thought brought a faint smile to his lips. The detective burst into the room. He picked up the papers and looked at Hez with a startled expression. “You’re free to go. We think we have the right guy. We apologize for the trouble,” he said looking much younger than he had during the previous encounter.

  “That’s it?” Hez asked, astonished. The cop nodded. “I’ll have one of the officers drive you back to your vehicle.” Hez nodded.

  “I’d appreciate that,” Hez said and followed him out of the little room. He didn’t say anything to the cop who drove him the few miles out of town to his truck. He felt exasperated at the senseless waste of an afternoon. He looked for the sun and saw it was nearing the western horizon. He got in the truck and decided to go back to town. It was no good driving around in the dark trying to find some mountain road. He would just have to get up very early tomorrow morning and start the search. “I’m sorry Ellie,” he said, looking at the rosemary plant. “I’m afraid I’m not much of a knight errant, rescuing the lady in distress.” He turned on the radio and punched the buttons trying to find some kind of rock station. At last, he found “Glass Onion” playing. It was rare to find anything from the White Album broadcast and he left it there. The whimsy of the song made him feel a little better.