The Mountain

by David L. Golemon

  Before he could finish speaking a loud whistle sounded and echoed off of the stone and ice walls of the small valley in which they traveled.

  John Henry smiled as did Claire.

  “Well, looks like the Injun can fly,” Corporal Jenks commented as he spit a stream of tobacco juice from his bearded face.

  Before them stood Gray Dog. He was waiting for Taylor to move the column. He stood just at the base of the rise and then he simply stepped back and vanished.

  “What in the hell?” Jessy mumbled as Claire and John Henry stepped around him and followed Gray Dog.

  Once they rounded the small bend that was hidden by a large crevice, they saw a slim tunnel that had been left clear of avalanche debris by a fluke of Mother Nature. It was as if engineers had carved this especially for them. John Henry stood in awe at the size of the upward-sloping tube that had inexplicably covered the old goat trail. The falling ice was once a waterfall during the hotter months, and then it froze in mid-fall and formed this natural arch that was invisible from farther down the trail. It was a miracle that Gray Dog had found the opening because of its hidden location. Right in plain sight.

  “This is amazing!” Claire said as she removed her hood and glasses and stared at the beauty of the natural ice cave. “Hello!” she said loudly and John Henry cringed at the amplified echoes that returned. Even Gray Dog stepped into the middle of the ice tunnel to see what all the noise was about. The echoes finally died away and Claire giggled like a schoolgirl.

  “I am glad to see all of that educational training paid off,” Thomas said, smiling widely.

  “Maybe not, but its fun, Colonel.” She had said Colonel like it was a sour-tasting fruit in her mouth.

  “Well, in your education did you learn anything about sound amplification and its destructive nature in unstable environments?”

  “No, but I have learned something of late,” she said with the most radiant smile.

  “And that is?”

  “That you, Colonel, can be a total ass.” She smiled wider and then turned back to the tunnel. “Ass!” she shouted again creating an echo that seemed to be endless.

  “What was that? I don’t think they heard you in Spain,” Jessy said as he eyed both John Henry and Claire as he entered the cave. He stepped past and caught up with Gray Dog.

  “Miss Anderson … excuse me, Claire, was just clearing her throat.”

  “Uh-huh,” Jessy said, ignoring the two as they tried to stare each other down and joined the Comanche.

  “Go another way,” Gray Dog said.

  Taylor stopped and turned as John Henry and Claire finally made peace and joined him and Gray Dog.

  “What did you say?” Taylor asked as he stopped and turned. “You just saved us a full day of backtracking to another trail, and now you want us not to take a God-given route?”

  “What’s the matter?” Thomas asked as he and Claire saw what was going on.

  “Your Indian boy wants to take another route.”

  “Why, is this one blocked farther ahead?” John Henry asked.

  Gray Dog didn’t answer, he only turned and beckoned the three to follow. They did, exchanging looks that lent credence to their confusion. As they followed they noticed the ice walls seemed to become more transparent and Claire was still in wonder at what she was seeing. To her it was like being inside of a giant diamond of magnificent brilliance. They saw Gray Dog ahead as he waited. He was barely discernable in the weak light that filtered through the ice.

  “Well, I don’t see any block in the road,” Taylor said as Gray Dog looked at him. Without speaking he waited for John Henry and Claire. He struck alight a match and put the flame to a torch. As the flame grew in strength Gray Dog held up the torch and placed it near the wall of ice. Claire saw what he had seen earlier and then she screamed, and this time the echo never died, it went on to the ends of the earth.

  The men awaiting an order outside heard the scream and it was powerful enough that several large rocks were dislodged from the cliffs above them. All men, Rebel to marine to naval personnel, exchanged worried looks. They had been silent and apprehensive after stepping foot onto Ararat and now this. The column waited as the echo finally died away.

  Inside the tunnel John Henry had taken Claire into his arms as they saw the horrific sight. There were six men in the ice. The face of each was frozen in a grimace of horror as they had obviously drowned. The sheer shock of how they died locked into a mountain was startling to Taylor and Thomas. It was Ollafson who entered the tunnel and was not shocked but saddened at what he saw. He stepped up to Gray Dog and pried the torch from his hand. He held it to the ice wall and examined each face as best as he could.

  “I do not know him.” He shifted the torch as McDonald entered the area and gasped as he saw the frozen bodies suspended in an animated fight for their lives. “I do not know this man either.” Again he shifted the torch to another body. This one was situated about four feet over the professor’s head, so he reached up to place the torch as close to the tortured features of the well-dressed European man as he could. “Professor Antanov.” He moved the torch to the next frozen body. This one had severe damage to his skull as if he had been hit in the head by a large stone during the avalanche and flood that killed him. “Professor Ali Kasseem. I know both of these men. They disappeared three years ago. Both men are tenured professors at Oxford University.”

  “Well, it looks like they may have lost that tenure,” Jessy said as he removed the torch from Ollafson’s hand and then handed it to Gray Dog. “Continue. We will still go this way.”

  Gray Dog looked from Taylor to John Henry, who only nodded his head.

  “All these men are old soldiers. The colonel is right; we move forward through here.”

  Gray Dog didn’t reply. He simply turned and vanished once more.

  “Still, it may help to forewarn those that follow us,” Claire said as she eased herself out of Thomas’s embrace. She looked embarrassed as she replaced her hood. “I apologize for my womanly hysterics. I have seen dead men before, I assure you.”

  “Should I start moving the men in, Colonel—Jesus Christ, the saints be with us!” Sergeant Major Dugan said loudly and started crossing himself when he saw what it was that had held up everyone and the reason for that lingering scream. Even Dugan’s exclamation was still echoing. John Henry turned to Claire with a smile.

  “Yes, you may have seen dead men, but it looks like the rough and tough Irishman before you may have made wee-wee in his pantaloons.”

  As Dugan turned away from the frozen bodies staring back at him he failed to see what everyone was snickering about.

  * * *

  The incident with Sergeant Major Dugan made the passage past the frozen explorers a little easier for the men to take with a brave front, thanks to the rumor spread by Colonel John Henry Thomas, a man Dugan would never, ever forgive for spreading it—after all, he only lost control of his bladder a little.

  The laughter made everyone forget where they were, if only momentarily.

  The column was a day and a half from the summit.

  20

  ONE HUNDRED MILES NORTH OF TRABZON HARBOR, THE BLACK SEA

  The crew of the U.S.S. Carpenter knew the late-arriving Yorktown could do her no good in her fight to keep the tow barge, Argo, afloat. The Chesapeake was docked at Trabzon, where she was off-loading her contingent of marines for transport to the rail link at Talise for their rendezvous with Lieutenant Parnell, so she could not come to the aid of the battling Carpenter.

  The problem was the same as they’d had in the Atlantic: The swells were nearly swamping the large barge, so much so the captain of the Carpenter was close to ordering the Argo’s crew off the ship. The barge sailors were already tired from bailing, pumping, and keeping the flotation bags filled, and that meant constant use of the man-powered billows that supplied the air bags with the necessary air to keep the Argo afloat.

  The captain, a young lieutenant, J.G., kept
his eyes glued to the binoculars as he scanned the Argo’s high-water mark. It looked as though the hard work of not only Argo’s crew, but of the barge’s navy riggers was finally paying off. He took a deep breath and lowered his glasses.

  “The damn cargo is just too heavy, Captain. That barge was designed for calmer seas than we have shown her. Ericsson didn’t figure on the winter swells in the Black Sea.”

  The captain nodded his agreement and then smiled.

  “I’ll let you mention that little bit of information to Ericsson upon our return.”

  “No thank you, I value my head too much.”

  “There, Carpenter is signaling,” the captain said as he once more raised his glasses. The signal lamp blinked off and on several times, lasting a full five minutes. He soon lowered the glasses feeling far better than he had a moment before when he thought they were about to lose Colonel Thomas’s prized possession.

  “What does she say?” the first officer asked.

  “They’ve controlled the flooding in the inner hull area and have added the last four flotation bags to her hull. She’s stable for the moment, but they’re fearful of any gale that may spring up. They say they cannot reinforce the hull again. She will founder.”

  The first officer raised his own glasses and scanned the towline, and from there his eyes traveled to the barge. She was riding extremely low in the water.

  “Damn dangerous,” he said.

  “The Argo’s crew will not come above decks. They refuse to allow the sea to take a hold of their vessel.”

  “Ericsson’s boys. They would rather die and go down to Davy Jones’s locker than to face Ericsson after failing to keep his baby afloat.”

  “Can’t say as I blame them,” the captain said as he moved his glasses around to make sure their end of the towline was taut.

  “Ship ahoy!” came the call from the Carpenter’s crow’s nest and her two-man lookout.

  “Where away?” he called out.

  “Two points off our stern!”

  The captain swung his glasses around and fought to clear the mist behind the towed Argo.

  “Thank God, it must be either the Yorktown or the Chesapeake,” the first officer said as he too raised his binoculars.

  The captain finally spied a tall mast through the haze of the late afternoon. He smiled. It was a frigate, more than likely the Chesapeake on her way to meet them after discharging the marines ashore.

  “Ah, there she—”

  “Second vessel ahoy, a thousand yards behind the first!”

  The captain lowered the glasses for the briefest of moments when his heart skipped a beat. One American ship he could believe, but both arriving at the same moment in the middle of the Black Sea was a little too convenient. He raised the field glasses again.

  “Two French frigates, can’t make out their class!”

  “Damn,” the captain said as both he and the first mate saw the battle flags of the two French warships simultaneously. The captain zeroed in on the bow of the fast-moving frigate in the lead. “That’s the frigate Especial. Thirty-two guns and an oaken hull.” He now concentrated on the second, even larger frigate. “This is not good, Lieutenant. It’s the Osiris. The two newest class of warships in the French navy.” He lowered the glasses and shook his head. “It seems someone is out to impress us with their firepower.”

  “Yeah, all we need now is for the British to show.”

  “Now would be a good time for Chesapeake and Yorktown to arrive. I’m feeling a little naked out here with just our guns and a floating weapon that will sink if one of those French sailors even sneezes against her hull hard enough.”

  “Tell me, why are we here again?” the first officer asked jokingly.

  “Yes, it does make boring blockade duty seem more attractive, doesn’t it?”

  * * *

  In just a few hours their worry would be multiplied when the British warship, Westfield, slowly pulled into the eastern Black Sea. As it stood, the Americans were outgunned ninety-six guns to thirty-two. Even the American navy couldn’t pull a battle like that out of the fire. They needed help and they needed it fast before someone realized they could call their bluff and blow the American ship and her tow barge of equipment to pieces.

  Colonel John Henry Thomas’s expedition was fast running out of time.

  MOUNT ARARAT, THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

  The storm hit the expedition moments after they had started erecting the shelters for the night’s camp. They would settle in for the snowy, windy night with hot food in their bellies thanks to the United States Navy and their foresight to include coal in their supplies. They had enough coal for five days of cooking and heat, after that they would have to rely on the sparse trees of Ararat. Grandee handed out plates of hot beans and corn bread. How he managed to bake corn bread no one dared ask. They accepted the hot meal gratefully after the strenuous march up the mountain.

  John Henry Thomas stood on a small incline and watched as the men ate and erected their shelters. He’d called this halt not only for sleep but to also confront Ollafson about the route they were taking. After certifying that this was the fastest route, Gray Dog had reported that they could cut their time in half by changing direction. He wanted the column to veer to the left and take the glacier route. It was smoother and had far fewer crevasses for men to fall into. They had nearly lost four men already when the ice they were walking on gave way. That was when Gray Dog reported the alternate route.

  Grandee walked up to John Henry and held out a plate of food. The colonel nodded and accepted it. He immediately spooned beans into his mouth and was pleased with the rich taste.

  “My wife couldn’t boil the water to cook the beans,” John Henry said to Grandee with no preamble. The large black man listened politely as John Henry chewed. “She had to learn how to cook like most soldiers have to learn how to fight.” He lowered the spoon and looked at Grandee. “Only they learned far faster than she did. Many a night when I was close to home while on patrol I would stop in and she would fix me dinner. You could imagine how good an actor I had to be when she fed me chicken that had looked as if it had got caught in the P. T. Barnum museum fire. It was horrible.” He scooped another spoonful of beans into his mouth, chewed, and then a sad look came to his face. He handed the plate back to Grandee, who accepted it without comment. He turned away, figuring the colonel had lost his appetite while thinking about his dead wife.

  “Thank you, Mr. Grandee.”

  By the time Grandee stopped and turned, John Henry had vanished into the falling snow. The mess steward turned away and saw Claire looking at him.

  “The colonel not hungry?” she asked.

  “Well, Miss, he is and he isn’t.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, a man has certain appetites, and the colonel’s just not hungry for what old Grandee’s cookin’, is all. That’s one lonely man. I figure that’s what he’s hungerin’ for.” He laughed lightly. “Yes, sir, that’s what I figure.”

  She watched Grandee turn away with the plate of food. She saw the activity around her and she pulled her thick coat tighter. With the absence of light the mountain took on a far more ominous tone. The men were in a jovial mood, but every now and again she would see them looking at the crevices and cracks as if there were some beast ready to spring at them from the mountain.

  “I see our intrepid leader has no appetite this lovely evening.”

  Claire turned and saw Steven McDonald standing next to her. She made no attempt to answer his observation.

  “I have noticed your recent proclivity for avoiding my company since our French friend was asked to leave us a few days back.”

  Claire turned and faced the Englishman. “Since Colonel Thomas is no man’s fool, and since he shook out Renaud so easily, I thought it best we keep our distance before he suspects the French fool wasn’t the only one he had to worry about.”

  McDonald smiled as he leaned into her shoulder. “Such high praise fo
r a man that you clearly despise. Imagine that, Madame Claire Richelieu, cowed by a man.” He laughed lightly and then started to turn away. “Do not get too close, my love, unless you would like to take up permanent residence here with him when this idiocy is concluded.”

  Claire watched the British officer vanish into the tent he shared with Ollafson. When she turned back she felt that deep-seated chill once more. She decided to take a brief walk to shake out the cramping in her legs. She knew she wasn’t fooling herself about John Henry; it seemed he hated her and her chosen profession so much that he could not see her as anything other than an underhanded woman playing men for information. She didn’t know why his opinion of her meant so much. But it did.

  As she slowly walked around the large camp she heard the soft sounds of a harmonica and then the strings of a violin start up as the men settled in for some much-needed sleep. The light mood of the men actually made the camp seem less cold than it had when they first arrived. She started humming the tune the Rebel soldiers were playing. It made her think of home and how much she would miss it if this expedition failed. She hummed and walked as the tune “Oh Susanna” bounced from ice to rock and then back again.

  She was humming so loudly that she failed to realize that she could not hear the sounds of the camp any longer. She stopped walking and suddenly saw that she had strayed so far from the men that she could not see the camp at all. The darkness was almost complete as she found herself inside a small cutout in the stone and ice. It was like a small box canyon. She turned and hastily started back. Before she could get clear of the boxed-in area, she saw a dark mass block her path. It was huge. The blackness towered over her and looked as if the blur of deep darkness had spread its arms wide to block out the terrain beyond. It was only her and the dark shape. She froze, as did the entity.

  “Help!” she called out, but soon realized that no word escaped her mouth. There was only the empty hiss of air as she became so frightened that she lost her voice. She stumbled backward when she saw the dark shape move. It came on slowly, and as it did Claire had a blurred vision of men, women, and children screaming as if from a great distance. She heard the crashing of waves against a solid object, more screams, and the cries of animals.