Second Solace

by Robert Clark

  ‘Just out for a stroll,’ I said. ‘Figured I should get the lay of the land since I’m going to be living here.’

  ‘If you’re going to live here,’ he snapped back. ‘Courts undecided yet.’

  ‘Cage seems pretty happy to grant me a visa,’ I replied.

  He huffed and looked at his buddy, then back at me.

  ‘Just stay out of our way,’ he snapped.

  So I stuck right behind them and followed in his literal footsteps. Cage was right. The rock walls surrounding the settlement were a climber’s worst nightmare. They stretched up so high, I couldn’t see the top. There were so many jagged rocks, it looked like it had been crafted by mother nature to be the world’s best line of defence. No way was I getting up or down them in a hurry.

  South wasn’t much better. The nearer I got, the louder the sound of rushing water became. Then I walked round a line of trees and nearly fell off the side of a riverbank. The snow hid the signs. One minute there was a mound of blindingly white snow, the next there was a whole lot of empty space about ten foot above a torrent of cascading mountain water. I looked down into it. You fall in that, you’re dead. Simple. The patrolmen sniggered as they saw me make my mistake.

  So I redoubled my efforts to annoy them by getting close enough to ruin their private conversation and followed them along the southerly stretch of the patrol past the entrance. Unlike to the north, there was only a guard tower, and a collection of parked vehicles. The man in the tower didn’t pay us any attention. He kept his eyes trained half a mile down the road, ever vigilant for intruders.

  Last but not least, we headed north along the eastern wall. I spotted the place the satellite phone was buried. The ground looked no different to the billion other trees surrounding it. A foot of fresh snow saw to that. I slowed and drifted back from the patrolmen as we neared the north-eastern corner and stared up at the wooden barrier between me and the Dawsons. I pretended I was admiring the mountains in the distance, which was only half true.

  In the dark of night, the grandeur of the wall up close had been hard to grasp. Now, that was less of a problem. Constructed from the trunks of the surrounding trees, the wall towered above the patrolling guards. Getting over that would be almost impossible without being spotted.

  But while that worked as a solution for ninety-nine percent of the wall, it didn’t for the whole thing. Namely, the spot where wood met stone. The jagged nature of the mountainside made for a difficult finish. The ground rose too sharp and disfigured for a lovely slab of felled tree to slot in nice like a Tetris piece. To counter it, the plug had been fixed with a series of smaller planks. Probably offcuts from the nearby houses. A problem solved, but not brilliantly. As I approached, I could see dozens of nails sticking out of the planks where they had been hammered into the last full section of the wall. Not noticeable if you were on the outside trying to get in. But for a guy trying to get out, it was perfect. I surveyed the bodged job from as far away as I dared, and tried to figure out how long it would take to disassemble, and reassemble from the other side. I needed to get back, after all. Sophie’s life depended on it.

  I bent down and removed the broken blade from my boot and eased it in behind the first board. The nail was old, and built in a time when nails meant serious business. I dug the blade in deep, and forced my nails in behind it. The steel cut into my finger and I let go. No dice.

  Which was when I realised something monumentally stupid. The boards of wood were attached to the wood. Nothing held them to the rocks. A small groove had appeared where the wood had rocked across the stone in the wind. It was fairly wide. I moved to that side and yanked on the boards.

  And they came free.

  Thirty seconds later, I was on the other side with the board wedged back in place and the knife back in my boot. In stark contrast to the side I came from, the woods ahead of me had thinned significantly. A mass of severed stumps was all that remained of the dense cluster of trees.

  But from what I could tell, clearing them was only half the battle. There was another main reason the wall had been erected. Massive boulders littered the landscape. Whether they had dropped free of their own accord, or blasted loose with a bit of dynamite, I couldn’t tell. Slabs as big as houses protruded out of the ground. I counted thirty, then gave up. There were just so many. A hundred, maybe. Possibly more. Most bigger than me. Some bigger than my first home.

  I trudged through the high snow towards the closest and hid behind it. The gate was still a fair distance from my hiding spot, but that wasn’t what worried me. Maddox Cage and his band of merry men had put blood, sweat and tears into Second Solace. No way were they going to leave a massive expanse of easily concealable spots go without some kind of added security. But what that amounted to, I had no idea.

  I peered out from behind the rock. There were no signs of patrolling guards. None that I could see, at least. So I turned my gaze to the north. The ground rose steadily for a couple hundred yards before it reached the distant tree line, which looked like a giant pine skirt on the enormous mountain ahead. Snaking up into the hem of the skirt was a thin dirt track. It looked too big and too worn in to be a casual hiker’s track.

  Bent low, I hustled across to the next boulder. It was shorter and wider than my previous spot, but it did the job. I looked around again. No alarm bells screaming. No alerted guards. Maybe Maddox wasn’t as careful as I’d thought.

  Or maybe he was doubly so. Maybe I’d tripped a dozen silent alarms, and was front and centre in a sniper’s scope. But my body remained bullet free, so I carried on. I scuttled from rock to rock, putting as much distance as I could between myself and Second Solace. As I neared the trees, I looked around to see my progress. The settlement sat like a miniature play set on a blanket of glistening snow. It looked like something Cage’s mice project would live in. Beyond it lay a vast expanse of ever-stretching beauty. What felt like hundreds of miles of America, all within my sight. Amazing. I drank the view in and savoured it. Then I turned around and headed into the trees.

  Pine trees swayed high above me, the noise sounding like gentle waves on a calm ocean. They were packed in tight, with low-hanging branches often making traversal next to impossible. I pushed through as far as I could, but without a determined point to head towards, I was wasting time.

  I tried to think where the path I’d seen from the boulders would be. It had been on my left as I climbed, maybe a quarter of a mile away. So long as I hadn’t drifted from my course in the trees, I guessed it couldn’t be too far away.

  So I shifted left and stopped climbing up and started shuffling off in that direction. The thick snow had soaked into my trousers and boots and left my toes feeling like they’d been replaced by daggers. My fingers were hardly any better. As were my ears, and eyes, and nose, and just about everything else. It was impossibly cold. Even the vigorous exercise didn’t make it better. Without proper hiking attire, I was doomed.

  But sitting around and complaining wasn’t helping either. I had to make the trip count for something. So I shook some life back into my hands and set off again.

  It took a couple of minutes ducked low with branches clawing at my frostbitten face before I started to see progress. I squeezed through a particularly tight gap, and collapsed out the other side onto what was undoubtedly a track. Snow had been ploughed, leaving a large mound snaking up the left-hand side. The southerly track wormed steadily back down towards the settlement, and in the distance I could see the gate, and the courthouse beyond it. To the north was an ever-climbing path.

  Doubt flooded my mind. Was I going the right way, or was this track just a leisurely hiker’s path for those brave few who dared to stand at the pinnacle of the world? It wasn’t impossible to think it could be the latter. The residents of Second Solace obviously had a penchant for the higher climate. It stood to reason they would enjoy the thrill of even greater heights.

  But why would someone plough the track? That kind of action required some serious heavy duty e
quipment, especially at these heights. It had to mean something.

  ‘If you say so,’ said the Wolf.

  I looked at him. He was worn out, which probably meant I looked as knackered as he did.

  ‘You do, just for clarification,’ he said.

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked him. ‘Keep going or turn back?’

  ‘Keep going, obviously. We didn’t make it all this way to give up. And don’t forget about Sophie.’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Then keep going.’

  I sighed and looked at the path ahead. Keep going. I took a step forwards, then I stopped.

  ‘Who were you talking to?’ a voice called out.

  I jumped and spun around. A figure appeared through the trees. Gail. She watched me with a quizzical look on her pretty face.

  ‘Oh, you know,’ I panted. ‘Just giving myself a bit of a kick up the arse. It’s been ages since I climbed a mountain.’

  ‘Was that what you were doing?’ she asked. She was wrapped up tight in a thick winter coat. It looked tantalisingly warm.

  ‘What else would I be doing?’ I replied with a smile.

  ‘Sneaking away,’ she said. ‘Trying to make a break for it.’

  ‘If I wanted to do that, I’d go down, not up.’

  ‘You wouldn’t if you had any sense. Daddy has people watch the road down. He doesn’t like intruders.’

  ‘So I’ve guessed. Doesn’t he have anything up this way?’

  ‘Just the mines around the boulders,’ she said with a shrug, ‘but no one comes down this way. Not even the wildlife. They can sense the activity in the camp so they stay away.’

  ‘Mines?’ I asked, trying to keep my cool.

  ‘Yeah, daddy bought a load off some contact he made when he was in the Army. They’ve been planted around there for years. Every now and then, one detonates and gives us all a shock.’

  ‘I bet.’

  ‘What were you really doing up here?’ she asked.

  ‘I told you, I wanted to climb the mountain.’

  ‘Nobody wants to climb the mountain.’

  ‘I do. I used to climb them all the time back home with my dad.’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ she said. ‘You come out of a meeting with my pop and ask questions about the Dawson brothers, then decide to go for a hike? Bullshit.’

  ‘How did you know I asked about the Dawsons?’

  ‘Cherie told me,’ she said. ‘She’s the store owner. The woman you bought apple juice from.’

  ‘She tells you everything she gets asked about?’ I asked.

  ‘No, but I went in to get some toothpaste, and she mentioned she’d seen you. Then I saw you hiking up here.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘What did daddy want you to do?’ she asked.

  ‘I can’t say. It’s between me and him.’

  ‘Then I’ll ask him. We don’t keep secrets.’

  ‘By all means. Ask away.’

  She watched me for a moment. Curiosity ablaze in her eyes.

  ‘You’re a funny guy, James,’ she said. ‘Have fun with your hike. And come back through the main gate on your way back. I’d hate for you to trip one of the mines.’

  She smiled and headed back down the mountain. We watched her go, the Wolf and I.

  ‘She’s weird,’ he said.

  ‘Coming from the manifestation of a crazy man’s brain, I think you’re unable to make a call like that.’ I replied.

  I climbed for another thirty minutes. One cold, exhausted step after another. No one else appeared. Nothing out of the ordinary appeared before me. Just snow and trees and ever-depleting oxygen. At thirty minutes, I felt no closer to the top of the mountain than when I’d started, and I just couldn’t keep going. I turned around and surveyed the magnificent view before me, and wondered just what the hell I was doing.

  Which was when I saw it.

  Down on my right, maybe halfway up the forest, a small column of smoke drifted through the trees. Not a forest fire. It was far too cold for one to start spontaneously. This was something else.

  I abandoned the track and moved into the woods on my right. I kept going until I was vaguely on the same longitude as the smoke, then I started pushing south, back down the mountain.

  Going down was much easier than going up, and I felt my lungs expand a little wider with every step. It felt good to breathe again, even if it was mostly psychological relief. I pushed further and further, kicking snow up as I moved. Then it happened.

  Just as they had when I reached the mountain track, the trees parted once more. But what they gave way to was far more interesting than a recently ploughed path. Smoke billowed up out of an old oil drum. Flames flicked and danced as they lapped up oxygen. Huddled close were three heavily-dressed men. They bounced on the spot, desperate to bring some life back into their cold bodies.

  None of them noticed me. I slid back into the trees and used the density to skirt around the clearing. No one noticed. The fire was their sole focus. I moved around so that I was parallel to them, and looked around. There didn’t seem to be anything else nearby, which seemed absurd. What kind of person hikes halfway up a mountain just to huddle around a fire?

  I moved a little further, hoping the change in perspective would uncover their purpose. It did. As I shifted around to the south, I saw it. Buried into the side of the mountain was a door.

  Twelve

  A Candlelit Dinner For Two

  It had been barely visible from every other angle. Tucked deep into the landscape, the door looked like the hatch to some old bunker. The type that was built in the age of world wars when everyone and their gran thought they were going to be witness to a nuclear holocaust. It had a resounding sturdiness to it that I was sure meant nobody was getting inside without permission. And with three guards huddled close by, there was no way I was getting any closer to observe it.

  But that didn’t mean I had to give up so soon.

  I slid in behind the largest tree I could find and settled in to wait.

  Not much happened for the first hour. The three men stood and talked and jumped around for warmth. Then they took up a small patrol to get feeling back into their aching legs. Just a short journey that circled the small enclosure. They got within six feet of me, but never noticed. They weren't expecting guests. Then they moved back to their fire and resumed their conversation. They repeated the process every twenty minutes or so. Nobody came in or out of the door.

  Hour number two was a little less pleasant. A breeze picked up through the trees, turning my stationary body into an icicle. I tried to keep the snow from drifting up my legs, but it was like sitting on an ant pile and trying to keep them from crawling all over you. It just never stopped.

  The guards carried on their routine right up to hour number three, by which time I was pretty certain I'd frozen to death. It was absurdly cold. Late December up in the mountains felt like I was lying naked in the Antarctic.

  Two of the men nodded at the third and headed for the door. I perked up and tried to get a little closer so i had a clear shot through the door. The first guy reached it and fumbled around in his pocket for something. A set of keys, I guessed. A moment later, he pulled open the door and let his partner go in first. Then he swung the door shut behind him, and the world went back to complete silence. The final guard stayed by the fire, watching everything and nothing.

  I stuck around for a little while longer. The time ticked closer to hour four. My stomach rumbled. The breakfast I'd eaten at Gail's was a distant memory. I wondered if she was going to host me again tonight. I wondered a lot of things about her.

  At hour five, the door opened again. I'd slipped into a frozen coma, wherein my eyes had sealed open and my mind had turned to ice. I watched four men come out and wave to the final guard. He hustled over and patted one of the men on the back and headed inside. The guy smiled and shut the door behind him.

  The four men talked and smoked for a few minutes, before taking over t
he spot around the fire. One of the men took his hat off and held it over the fire to dry it out. I recognised the man immediately.

  One half of the Dawson brothers. Carl or Jack, I had no idea which. He smoked and laughed with his friends, completely unaware he was being watched. Then when he was done, he nodded to his friends and walked away. Not towards the door, but into the trees.

  I shuffled out of my snow cocoon and followed him. He walked a small path I'd not seen before that headed back down the mountain. With his hat back on his head, he whistled like he hadn't a care in the world. Lucky for some. I shuffled along, but it became quickly apparent that his path was much easier to traverse than mine. He didn't have a billion twigs in the way, or two foot of fresh snow under his boots. He wasn't suffering from hypothermia, either. I did the best I could, but it wasn't enough. His whistle died on the breeze, and he was gone.

  But I kept going. No point heading back to the door. I needed food and warmth and rich air. I trudged on until I appeared at the bottom of the forest. The world greeted me with a wonderful vista of midday Montana. Beneath me was the boulder and mine field, then Second Solace, then the rest of the world. But no Dawson siblings. Not anywhere in sight.

  I trekked right until I was at the point Dawson's path should have appeared, but there was nothing. The trees had swallowed him up. I sighed and tried to think what to do. My brain felt like it had been carved out and served up to an ice giant for breakfast. It wouldn't work. I needed to recover.

  I found the ploughed track and headed back down to Second Solace. The guards on the gate saw me approach, but as I passed them, they said nothing. Maybe Gail had told them. Maybe they weren't the same guards that had watched the gate five hours ago. Maybe I was completely within my rights as a pseudo-Second Solace citizen to come and go as I pleased. I didn't know, and I was beyond the point of caring. I just kept going and trudged the path back towards Gail's house like the zombie I felt like.

  Shotgun Joe was waiting outside her house.

  ‘Where've you been?’ he hollered.