Red Mountain

by Dennis Yates

  He hadn’t made a deal for a long time with the dark thing but it had appeared to him inside the freezer without much coaxing. Then it became anxious, like most dealers are when they want to get down to doing business.

  Mr. Frosty was going to have his revenge. He’d stare into the Will’s eyes while he cut him down. The dark thing would be there too. It told him it looked forward to the show.

  He stopped near the entrance to the barn as Will began to walk inside.

  “That’s far enough dead man… Now turn around.”

  Will obeyed, but his face was much too calm for Mr. Frosty’s liking.

  Where was the fear?

  This wasn’t going quite the way he’d imagined. He’d wanted to see the man begin pleading for his life. He’d assumed Will understood his time on earth was nearing the end. But more than killing him, he needed to see him suffer.

  Shoot him in the kneecap, boss. That’ll get him blubbering for you.

  Good idea…

  When Mr. Frosty took careful aim and was about to squeeze the trigger, a blast of hot white light shot out from behind his eyes. He saw some black raggedy object shoot past his head and plop on the ground several feet in front of him.

  Stupid fucking crow…

  He’d always hated birds. They woke him up before sunrise and shit on his car. The crows always sounded as if they were mocking him.

  He staggered toward it, wondering how in hell a bird could have been so dumb as to slam against the back of his head and kill itself.

  Except as he got closer he realized it wasn’t a bird at all.

  It was his bloody scalp…

  Mr. Frosty touched the top of his head and felt warm slick sponge beneath his fingertips. He fell to the ground and rolled over to his side. His face was turned toward Will in surprise. An opened eye gazed sightlessly into the sun.

  After several twitches he didn’t move again. And yet the dark thing he’d made a bargain with raged inside him, frantically searched for a means of escaping from its outsmarted host.

  Peggy stepped forward cautiously, keeping Wilbur’s revolver aimed at the dead man’s chest. She reached down and pried the gun from Mr. Frosty’s hand. To the thing inside him, she was like a ray of sun breaking momentarily through a bank of winter fog, and it savored her warmth during the brief contact. Later it would find itself being tormented by flies coming to lay eggs in the dead man’s body.

  Will moved into the light and she handed the gun to him.

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” she said.

  “I know.”

  ****

  Will held Peggy tightly in his arms and tried his best to comfort her. She cried heavily, to the point where he felt her warm tears soaking through his shirt. Robert had been so close, only to be torn away by the same man who’d arranged the kidnapping of her and her son in the middle of the night. Will placed a hand against either side of her head and gently lifted it up so she could see his face.

  “Don’t worry. I’m going to get him back.”

  Peggy nodded and placed her hands upon his. Will examined her face, noticing the bruises around her jaw and neck for the first time.

  “Holy shit. Did Marsh do that to you?”

  “Mostly. Wilbur landed one to my jaw, when he thought it would be a good idea to turn me over to Marsh.”

  “Well he’s just lucky now to be alive.”

  Will removed his hands. He turned and peeked into the house where he saw Betty cleaning the mess from Wilbur’s face with a washcloth. They’d found him behind the barn suffocating on his own blood. Jan stayed on the couch with the children on either side of her. They were quietly petting Nugget.

  “How’s Connor holding up?”

  “Not too bad, considering. He’s got his dog back. Now he just needs his dad.”

  “So what do you know about Marsh, other than the fact he’s been leading a group of psychopaths?”

  “It’s some kind of cult. They’ve had plans for Robert for a long time. I think they’re going to kill him.”

  “How many guys have you seen working for Marsh?”

  “I don’t know. There has to be a least four or five of them. They’d take off in the evening and wouldn’t be back until almost dawn. Except last night they never came back.”

  “And they won’t be either.” Will said.

  “What happened?”

  Will stared down at the porch. “Robert was supposed to fight a man down at some railroad tracks. When the two met they managed to talk sense into one another and not go through with it. They came up with a plan of their own. The overseers got really mad and started shooting. They killed the other guy and then tried to kill us. We had to protect ourselves.”

  Peggy’s face darkened. “Who was this other guy, the one that got killed?”

  Will realized what Peggy was thinking, and he moved her away from the window so Jan and the others couldn’t see them.

  “It was Robert’s great cousin. Steven Westlake.”

  “God… That’s Jan’s husband.”

  “Should we tell her?”

  “Not now. I don’t think she could take it.”

  Will nodded. He hugged Peggy once more. “If I’m going to try and save Robert I better get moving.”

  “You’re not doing this alone Will. We’re going with you.”

  “Bullshit you are. I’m not going to let you get killed too.”

  Peggy grabbed his collar and pulled his face closer. Her eyes so full of cold rage it sucked the breath out of him.

  “Yes we are…”

  ****

  Marsh hummed along with an old Johnny Cash song while the bundle of dynamite shifted on the seat between them. Robert concentrated on driving and tried not to think about it. He’d bitten his lip until he’d tasted blood.

  They passed carloads of casino patrons heading in both directions. Some drivers returning to Portland seemed buzzed and occasionally they swayed over the yellow median before making a sudden correction. Robert gave them a wide berth wherever he could.

  “Are you going to finally tell me what this is about?” Robert asked.

  Marsh waited until the song was over before considering Robert’s question.

  “Come on Robert. It can’t be any real mystery to you. You’ve known for a long time that something big was going to happen some day. Remember the ghost you saw back when you were a kid? How you wondered if it had all been a dream? The ghost is fucking real amigo. In fact I talk to him almost every day.”

  Robert felt cold sweat trickle down his back. “Whose ghost is it?”

  “Jared Horn. Your great grandfather.”

  “So why does he talk to you?”

  Marsh stuck the nub of a cigar in his mouth and chewed pensively.

  “I’d inherited Horn’s house from my aunt. I got drunk one night and was looking around the place when I fell through a trap door. Broke my back, I did. Lay there for days in a cellar waiting for help to come. Then Horn’s ghost made his presence known. At the time I thought I was hallucinating from the pain but after I was released from the hospital I could still hear his voice in my head.”

  “So you’re blaming a ghost’s voice in your head for all this?”

  “It’s the truth, Crain. I’ve been following orders.”

  “What’s in it for you?”

  “What’s in it for me? Horn’s promised a fortune in gold if I can deliver you to the place he wants you to be.”

  “Do you know what he’s planning to do when we get there?”

  Marsh spat a piece of the cigar onto the floor. “Hell if I know. He’s a goddamn ghost.”

  ****

  Will loaded some supplies into the SUV and siphoned off the remaining gas from his disabled pickup. They found a cell phone on the floor and Peggy left a message at the sheriff’s department. She couldn’t tell if the snide dispatcher believed her abbreviated description of events. She could only trust that the woman would let the sheriff know as soon as she heard back fr
om him.

  She turned off the phone and climbed into the passenger seat and shut the door. Connor and Nugget had already made themselves at home in the backseat. Will still looked unhappy about taking anyone with him but she didn’t care. They were going to do this thing together.

  “Do you have an idea where Marsh is taking him?” Peggy asked.

  Will looked at her with hooded eyes. “I only saw the map once. I think they’re headed for the glacier up near Starvation Point.”

  “Isn’t that the place his grandfather used to warn him about?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Robert said he could never get to the bottom that story. The old man would only tell him it was an evil place and that he should stay away from it.”

  Will couldn’t help but grin. “I believe it. I stayed the night a few times up at his cabin when Bobby and I were kids. He scared the crap out of me with his crazy stories. He was quite a character. Too bad you never got to meet him...”

  When they’d driven several miles clear of bone dry ranches and barbed wire fences, they passed through dark stands of ponderosa pine until the road crested a hillside and the land opened up onto a long stretch of rock and sage. Will pulled over to study his map and they all climbed out to see the view.

  Looming before them was the ominous blue cutout of Mt. Hood rimmed by setting sunlight. They smelled smoke and when they turned around they saw forest fires burning on a distant plateau while a harvest moon waited somewhere offstage for the first sign of night.

  Peggy turned back and stared at the mountain.

  We’re going to find you Robert. I know we will...

  CHAPTER 55

  Deep inside the glacier Marco and the crew used torches to extract the coins while Carol tended a fire in the pit and kept watch for potential cave-ins. She couldn’t stop herself from becoming distracted by the rising mound of treasure. How much money in gold had they taken so far? A million? More than that? The size of the frozen robber’s horde was staggering…

  Her three graduate students worked harder than they had all summer and Marco was pleased with how fast things were going. He glanced at his watch and smiled, comforted by the fact that they would be able to finish up well before sunrise. Unless they encountered some early climbers on their way to the summit, they’d have plenty of time to return to base camp before anyone took notice of their haul.

  So far they’d removed about two thirds of the treasure, including the corpse of the man who’d taken it down into the mountain with him nearly a hundred years earlier. Marco had them set the body down as far from the fire as they could to avoid melting. He didn’t enjoy having the corpse watching them so he covered its face with a piece of groundsheet. The expression on the dead man’s face had given him the creeps.

  It wasn’t the first time Marco had been involved in taking treasure from the hands of the dead. There’d been many others over the years that he’d done the same to, millionaires whose planes disappeared into the mountains and were never found or men who’d decided to take up mountain climbing as a hobby and then vanished without a trace. Marco loved the challenge of cracking a mystery, especially if there was money to be had. He’d scour a hundred different newspapers and websites to find his next lead, and he had a knack for breaking open long-closed cases.

  This opportunity had dropped into his lap unexpectedly. On a flight to Peru to follow up on some leads with a corrupt government official regarding a missing drug cartel’s plane he’d met a passenger from Portland. Several cocktails later his friendly chat with the man turned to the subject of treasure hunting and maps. And although he never saw him again he did receive a fax copy of a map the American claimed to have found in some old family heirloom—a mysterious carved wooden box that no one in his family recalled the significance of. Marco wrote the man and told him he’d get back to him if he ever gleaned something useful from it. After studying it for a few days he put it away when another prospect stole his attention.

  Years later, while reading a book on famous bank robbers of the West, Marco had come upon a story describing Charlie Maynard and his violent history. The man’s name had jogged his memory, and when he dug the copy of the map from his files he was finally able to piece it together.

  Plagued by visa problems, Marco knew he wouldn’t have enough time to properly search the mountain. It wasn’t until he searched the websites of universities who had summer mountain research programs that he came up with an idea. Carol had played perfectly into his plan…

  CHAPTER 56

  Marsh bitched at him for not driving fast enough. He told Robert to turn off the highway onto an old service road. Robert didn’t know where he was at first, but a few miles later he began to recognize certain boulders next to the road and the thick stands of blue fir. It was the same short cut his grandfather sometimes used when he went up for Christmas trees. The road also worked as a quick route to the timberline, where the trail they sometimes took to the glacier dipped down to a campground often used by climbers as a base camp.

  Robert hoped Will would recognize where to turn off before recalling how his friend used to come up here and bow hunt in the fall.

  He’ll remember how to get here. If he’s still alive…

  When they’d gone several miles up the dusty road, Marsh ordered Robert to pull up between some trees heavily bearded with bright green-yellow lichen before tying his wrists together with a piece of rope. They got out of the truck and walked. Bats zipped past their heads catching moths and an owl hooted from a canyon below them.

  After twenty minutes Marsh found two men back under the trees. They were sitting next to a fire smoking and drinking whiskey. In the dying light Robert noticed that the ground around them was littered with empty Vienna sausage tins and beer cans. When Marsh approached the campfire the two men almost fell out of their seats.

  “What the fuck?” A man named Billy said. Marsh’s appearance had caused him to spill his drink down his shirtfront.

  The other named Chester raised a gun and pointed it at Robert and Marsh. He was obviously drunk but trying his best to appear sober.

  “Who the hell are you?” Chester demanded.

  “It’s Marsh you dumbshit.”

  Chester settled the gun at Robert. “And who’s he?”

  “He’s the big winner. The one we get to trade for a fortune in gold.”

  “Oh...” Billy lowered the gun and peered at Marsh. “What… What happened to you?”

  “I got burned. What the fuck does it look like?”

  “How’d it happen?”

  “Long story Chester. One I don’t have time for now.”

  The drunk shook his head in amazement. “Damn that’s got to hurt … You’re one hell of a crispy critter, aren’t you?”

  Marsh didn’t reply. He turned away and grabbed something out of the fire. When he spun back around the end of a flaming branch appeared in Chester’s face. Chester jerked back and clutched at his singed nose.

  “Why the fuck did you do that for?”

  Marsh waved the branch in front of both men, until he was sure he had their full attention.

  “We’ve got work to do gentlemen. A lot of work.”

  Billy peered up, his bloodshot eyes watering. “It’s too late Marsh. Some people already got to the gold.”

  “Why wasn’t I told about this?”

  “We tried to call you. When you didn’t show up we thought maybe something had gone wrong.”

  Marsh withdrew the burning branch and let the fingers of his free hand play in the flames. He couldn’t feel a thing. Nothing. The two men stared fearfully as they began to sober up.

  “You wouldn’t be shitting with me now, would you?” Marsh said.

  “It’s true,” Chester said. “These scientific types have been hanging around up there all week. We didn’t think they’d be anything to worry about. But we got up closer and watched them climb down inside the glacier today. It was like they knew what they were looking for.”
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  “We saw them raise up burlap sacks and pack them on a sled,” Billy added. “It just had to be the gold they was bringing up.”

  “Are they still at it?”

  “I think so. We never saw them go back to their base camp, don’t imagine they will until they’re finished cleaning us out.”

  Marsh lowered the branch and helped himself to a bottle of whiskey sitting on a stump. Robert shook his head when he offered him a drink.

  “Don’t drink Crain? You surprise me.”

  “I’m a tequila man.”

  Marsh grinned. “Sorry. It doesn’t look like the boys brought any up with them. Well I suppose we have no choice but go up and crash our thieves’ little party. No assholes are going to take what I’ve sold my soul for.”

  Billy spit into the fire and frowned. “Come on Walker. We can’t go up there now. It’s not safe.”

  Without warning Marsh jabbed the end of the branch against Billy’s face and it sizzled and smoked into his flesh. Billy thrashed wildly with his arms and screamed. When Marsh pulled the stick away Billy’s cheek had a hole almost all the way through it.

  “You don’t seem to remember that you’re working for me. The next time you back talk me boy I’m going to jam this here firewood down your throat.”

  Billy nodded and bit into his hand to keep from crying.

  After packing up supplies, they headed for the trail Robert and his grandfather used to get near the glacier. The horizon glowed orange through the trees, but the moon was still hiding somewhere below the eastern haze.

  A chill breeze came down from the mountain to welcome them. It’s going to be much colder up on the glacier, Robert thought. But at least it was still summer, and the moon would be full.

  ****

  Will pulled the SUV behind some trees and they got out, careful not to make much noise. Nugget ran ahead, sniffing at the needle-packed ground. She caught something almost right away and led them through the woods. They found Marsh’s empty truck and then the campsite littered with sausage tins and empty beer bottles.