by Gregory Kay
Follow him, Jake; you know it's the right thing to do. I'll be waiting when you find him.
“Then we’ll run after him,” Jake said with a sigh, rising to his feet, and making the same decision he would have anyway, even without the voice, “I won’t leave a wounded animal to suffer.” Scanning ahead them and seeing the scattered droplets, he gestured with a nod of his head. “Come on; it looks like he’s headed up the mountain. We’ll take our time and not push him. He’ll probably lay up in a thicket within the next couple hundred yards.”
They all silently reflected that Jake should have been right, as usual, but this time he couldn’t have been more wrong. They didn’t find the buck within the next couple hundred yards, or the next couple or the next. Two hours of exhausting climbing, zigzagging back and forth along the maze of trails, following the occasional blood spatter, brought them to the very top of Little Back Mountain, but the deer was not there either: just more red spots on the leaves, leading down the other side, toward the west.
They stopped there for just a moment, trying to get their breath, the wind full in their faces. It was blowing much harder and steadier now, especially up here, swaying the trees on top of the ridge, bending them eastward, making a mournful, moaning sound.
“Damn!” Joe Bob muttered, pulling his coat tighter around him. “It’s starting to get cold!”
It was indeed. Looking through the bare branches on the western slope, Jake could make out a solid line of dark clouds heading their direction, blackening the sky and obscuring the horizon. Thinking back on his mother’s warning about the storm, he thought, this is not good!
He knew the others saw it too, and both of them looked to him, waiting for his decision. He had a duty to the deer, but every ounce of common sense told him to get the hell off this mountain before the storm hit. He was trying to decide when he heard the girl’s voice again.
Come on down the mountain, Jake. Just follow the deer. It's waiting for you, and I’ll be waiting for you too.
Startled, he glanced at the other two, only to see the same looks of surprise on their face. Obviously they had heard it too, only he was certain each of them had heard his own name called.
No words were necessary now; seating their caps more firmly on their heads to prevent them from being blown off by the chill wind, they started down Little Back's western slope.
Going downhill was much quicker, but not necessarily easier. The way following the blood trail was more direct but steeper, and all of them slipped several times, sometimes sliding yards through the leaves before they could dig in their feet and arrest their progress. Even when the trail led them to the bottom of one of the deep hollers furrowing the mountainside like claw marks, they saw the blood spots going on.
Joe Bob shook his head in disbelief.
“Good Lord! How much blood can be in this damned thing?”
Jake was equally dumbfounded.
“More than this, evidently. Surely he can’t be much farther.”
“You’ve been saying that for the past few miles now!” Scott pointed out, “We’ve been walking for hours, and we’re clear the hell on the other side of the mountain!”
Joe Bob rounded on him.
“Don’t you even start bitching! You’re the one who screwed up the shot!”
“I couldn’t help it! I heard...” Suddenly Scott couldn’t blame the voice, because he knew he’d never hear the end of that from Joe Bob, so he changed what he was about to say. “He was running!”
“Knock it off, you two!” Jake growled, although he was angry with himself much more than he was with his friends. He knew ignoring the coming storm was stupid, stupid, stupid; in high elevations, winter storms could easily kill you. And yet, uncharacteristically, he paid no heed to it anyway, telling himself it was for the deer, but inside, knowing better; the buck wasn't the reason they were here; it was just their excuse.
It's not far now, Jake, the voice assured him.
He walked off down the trail without another word, not looking back to see if they were following. Scott and Joe Bob looked at one another, and fell in behind. All of them were dog tired, and they trudged along, making no pretense of stalking.
Be careful, Jake!
He promptly halted in front of the big patch of rhododendron he had been about to push through, and noticed the others had done the same.
“You heard her too?” he asked, and, seeing a pair of nods in return, dipped his own head. “Alright. Let's go around to the left.”
Once on the other side, he was glad they had, because there was an open mine shaft concealed by the bushes, gaping like a mouth.
Out of curiosity, Jake pulled a AA penlight out of his pocket and shined its beam inside. The entrance went back only a few feet, and then the bottom dropped out of it.
“Damn,” Joe Bob muttered, “I'm glad we didn't fall in that son of a bitch! I wonder how deep it is?” Before he finished is last sentence, he'd already stooped, picked up a hand-sized flake of stone that had fallen from the entrance roof, and tossed it inside. They head it clip a wall, and then several seconds of silence before a faint thud. Then they all jumped back as one when several pieces of slate from the roof, some as big as their heads, abruptly let go, some shattering on the floor and others following Joe Bob's rock down the open hole, and all three shuddered, then forgot about it a moment later when Jake spotted blood a few feet away, on a path that seemed to begin at the shaft.
Jake noticed the trail led down what had once been an old road leading directly toward the shaft; the rutted indentation in the ground were barely visible, and trees grew in it with indifference. He didn’t remark on it; he was fatigued, irritated, and there was no point. Such remnants of roads – used long ago for logging or for horse-drawn wagons, or in this case, a rail bed for coal cars – were all over the place, and many hollers had them.
Finally reaching the base of the mountain, they came to a small, shallow stream maybe twenty feet across, and the blood stopped on their side, and from where he stood, Jake could see fresh deer tracks continuing through the mud on the other. Stepping into the water, which was barely over ankle-deep, he crossed over and they followed, their waterproof boots protecting their feet from the worst of the wet.
On the other side, the tracks gave way to blood spatters once more, and led into a thick growth of brush under a sycamore tree. On a hunch, Jake knelt and touched one of the spots, the turned to his friends, excitement in his voice.
“It’s still warm. Stay ready, because he’s close.”
Raising their rifles, they went into the chest-high growth. They listened intently, but could hear nothing besides birds, and the distant scolding bark of a red squirrel.
Scott stubbed his toe and nearly fell. Looking down, he saw the tip of a stone that seemed unnaturally flat, smooth and regularly formed. Curiosity piqued, he frowned as he looked closer and saw another nearby, and then another and another, all in a line and almost buried in the leaf-covered loam. Bending down, he brushed his fingers across it, and was startled to feel more than see letters carved into it.
“It’s a tombstone!” he hissed, “We’re in the middle of a freaking graveyard!”
Jake had been so intent of the blood spots and Joe Bob on scanning the surrounding brush, they hadn’t noticed. Looking around now, though, they could see bits and corners sticking out here and there, along with the telltale shallow depressions that marked where dirt had settled and coffins had rotted and collapsed.
“I reckon so.” He instinctively adjusted his cap: not quite a full tip, but more of a casual reflexive acknowledgment of those buried there. “Funny place for a cemetery, out here in the middle of nowhere.”
Scott was cold, tired, and already spooked by the voice.
“Maybe we ought to get out of here.”
Joe Bob grinned despite his own fatigue, never willing to miss a chance to rag him.
“What’s the matter, Scott? Scared of the bogeyman?”
“I ain’t
scared!” he said, a little too quickly. “I just...I don’t know.”
“I know; you’re chicken shit!” To emphasize his point, Joe Bob bent the elbow of his free arm, tucked his hand in his armpit, and flapped it up and down like a wing, making clucking noises the whole time.
“I am not!”
“Are too!”
Then Joe Bob changed tactics, putting on his best Night of the Living Dead voice.
“Ooh-oohoo...I’m coming to get you, Scotty.”
“Shut up, Joe Bob!”
“Why don’t both you all shut the hell up and help me find this deer!” Jake barked, before turning back to the trail.
Joe Bob wasn’t ready to quit just yet, so he gave Scott another “Ooh-ooh,” and Scott turned and shoved him with no real force, then Joe Bob laughed. It was infectious, and a moment later, Scott joined him. Ignoring them both other than shaking his head, Jake went another half-dozen steps, and saw that, what first looked like a dead bush, was actually a rack of antlers, and this close, he could readily make out the fur against the leaves. The buck was lying on his side, his head quartered toward them, and, after watching his ribcage for a few seconds, Jake could see there was no rise and fall.
“I think I’ve found your buck. Congratulations, Scott. He’s a big one!”
The graveyard and the feminine voices temporarily forgotten, all three gathered around and looked, shaking their heads in wonder. The thing was huge.
Scott finally managed to gasp, “Man! He is nice! I’ve never seen one that big.”
Joe Bob slapped him on the shoulder, genuinely happy for his friend. “Me neither. Congratulations, Scott!”
“Thanks.”
At that instant, an extra hard gust of wind came through, ruffling their clothes and sending leaves skittering across the ground, some of them adhering to the blood on the fallen deer. Jake looked skyward and frowned.
“I reckon we’d better get him dressed out and then start heading back. I don’t like the look of those clouds.”
The other two looked up too, and their expressions sobered. The sun was no longer visible, and the sky was gray and leaden. Jake was already kneeling and fishing his knife out of his pocket, and by the time he locked the blade in place, the other two were beside him.
While Jake expertly removed the testicles and stinking scent glands from the legs to prevent their tainting the meat with musk, Scott opened the animal’s gut with his larger, fixed-blade hunting knife. He and Joe Bob reached inside, hauling out kidneys and lengths of gray intestine that steamed in the cool air and twisted and contracted as if they had a life of their own. They'd done this many times before, and in just a few minutes, they were finished, and went back to the stream to wash their knives and blood and hair covered hands.
“Well, that’s done,” Scott said, then shivered. “Man, it’s getting cold!”
Joe Bob hugged himself, looking at the sky and rubbing his upper arms with the palms of his hands.
“No shit!”
Jake was staring at the clouds again.
“Boys, I hate to say this, but from the look of this weather, we may not get out of this holler tonight.”
Scott yanked off his hat and slapped it against his leg in frustration.
“Oh hell! Becky will be expecting me to call her tonight as soon as we get back. Man, she’s going to be pissed!”
Joe Bob looked at him in disgust.
“Damn it, Scott, you’re not even married yet, and she’s got you pussy-whipped already! Why don’t you just tie a string around your balls and hand the end of it to her? If you’ve got to check in every five minutes, call her on your damned cell phone!”
“I ain’t pussy-whipped! Anyway, what good would my cell phone do? You know they won’t work down in most of these hollers; I checked just a minute ago.” In fact, Scott had covertly checked several times after making sure the others weren't looking, and the fact that he already had over fifty unread messages from Becky's number before he got out of range told him loud and clear just how much trouble he was in. He hadn't had time alone to check them, but he didn't need to check in order to know what they said, and he shuddered at the thought, then pointed at Joe Bob. “Besides, unless I miss my guess, you’re gonna catch just as much hell from your mama for staying out all night and missing church tomorrow without letting her know anything.”
Joe Bob’s angry blush confirmed the truth of his words.
“Shit! Let’s at least try. If we can just get up to the top of Little Back, it’ll be downhill all the way.”
Jake shook his head.
“I don’t think we’re going to do it. Take a look at that sky; if those ain’t snow clouds, I’ll kiss your ass, and I don’t remember ever seeing any of them look that bad. There’s one hell of a storm moving in, it’ll be dark in a few minutes and we’ve got three-hundred pounds of deer and a good five miles to go to get back to the truck. To top it off, this mountain is between it and us.” His words were tinged with the guilt he felt; he was the one who had made the decision, and had gotten them into this predicament.
I'm the responsible one, remember?
Then, as if to confirm his statement, there was a distinct patter on the leaves all around as mixed snow, rain and sleet started falling, the amount increasing by the second. Jake held out his gloved hand and looked at the crystals falling on his palm.
“Great; it's a freaking ice storm!”
“So, what are we going to do?” Scott asked, looking at his trophy. “I hate to leave this deer; maybe we can quarter him up and at least take the mount and part of meat.”
“I don’t think it would make any difference. It’s going to be on us way before we get to the top of Little Back, deer or no deer, and it looks like it’s going to be a big one. This is a western slope, and that storm’s gonna be blowing straight onto us if we try to climb it. You know how steep it was coming down; I don’t think we want to try going up it while we’re getting hammered by freezing wind and snow. I reckon we’d better shelter up right here in this holler, and get a fire going before it gets too bad.” Seeing Joe Bob looking thoughtfully toward the south, Jake guessed his thoughts. “We can't go around it either; that would add a good five miles to the trip, and we'd still be in the middle of nowhere.”
He paused and looked around for a solution, and his eyes coming to rest on the graveyard. “I don’t know anything about this place, but if there's a cemetery bigger than a little family plot and that mine shaft up the hill, there must have been something here once. Have either of you every heard of anything over this way?”
Both of them were shaking their heads, and then Scott’s eyes widened and he snapped his fingers.
“Wait a minute! I remember hearing my great-grandma talking one one time, back when I was a little kid. She said something about growing up in an old mining town somewhere around Little Back mountain, up towards the head of a big holler; she said it closed after some kind of disaster or something, and there ain't been anybody lived there since. I’ll bet this cemetery was part of it! Shoot, if it is, it can’t be very far away from where we’re standing right now.”
Joe Bob slapped his arms and shivered. Although taller than Jake, he was the most slender of the trio, and the cold was affecting him badly.
“I hope so; where I’ve been sweating so hard with all this walking, I’m freezing my ass off now! Maybe we can find an old building or a solid mineshaft or something to at least get the wind off and keep us dry.”
Jake nodded his agreement.
“Sounds like a plan. Scott, let’s just leave the deer here for right now. As cold as it is, he’ll keep till morning, and we can pick him up on the way back.”
Nellie Estep was sound asleep in her living room recliner, her right hand resting on the TV remote that lay in her lap. The set was dark and silent, and the only sounds in the house were the gentle whooshing of the furnace blower, the soft creaking of the maples in her front yard as they swayed in the wind, and the almost inaudible
peppering of the icy precipitation on her roof. Together they combined into a relaxing lullaby...not that she needed one. She always took a nap this time of day, after her “story,” as she referred to the soap opera she followed, was over. At her age, after a husband, eight children, twenty-four grandchildren, and she wasn't sure how many great-grand-children without sitting down and counting, she figured she'd earned it, along with the peace and quiet of living alone.
Not that she didn't have visitors everyday; only this morning a daughter and granddaughter came to visit and help with the cleaning...at least that was their excuse. In reality, Nellie knew they were checking on her, seeing if she was alright, and she was, so she shooed them out when it was time for her story. She wasn't going to die yet; someday, but not yet. She knew that, just like she knew other things.
Without any warning, the remote went flying and her arms were waving as she sat bolt upright out of a deep sleep and screamed at the top of her aging lungs, yelling with so much raw terror she aspirated saliva and choked, hacking and coughing. As soon as she got her breath back, she grabbed for the phone on the stand beside her, her mind full of horror, death, and blood...lots of blood, a great, raging, dark red river of it, belching out of a mountain holler as black as a mine and carrying her great-grandson Jake along with it.
Chapter 10
I hope Jake gets back soon!
Kathy was fixing supper: fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and homemade rolls. It was her son’s favorite and she fixed this meal as a sort of magical ceremony, trying to insure his safe and early return. She knew it was silly; more than likely, they would end up at Scott’s house playing that new game system his dad had bought him, or at the home of whoever Joe Bob’s latest girlfriend-slash-conquest happened to be this week, meeting her friends and bragging about their day. Still, she couldn’t help but worry. The bad feeling had not alleviated; instead, it had gotten worse.
Maybe the worst part, the part that scared her the most, was that she knew Frank was getting worried too. Oh, he’d be the last one to show it, but she knew the subtle signs. Instead of doing his usual and staying in their attached garage working on whatever project he had lined up for Saturday until she called him in for a meal, he had appeared about every hour at first, then every half hour. He never let on, but always had an excuse of some sort: a drink of water, a snack, a trip to the bathroom, or looking for something she was pretty sure was in the garage. She knew he was fishing for news, but at the moment, she had none to give. Jake hadn’t called, and the last radio weather report an hour ago was simply more of the same: take shelter and be ready, because it’s coming.