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CHAPTER 1
Part One
The Detour
Mist was developing and thickening rapidly as Rick's light blue four-on-the-floor Mustang followed the mountain road upwards. A strange kind of twilight was coming on and he was beginning to think that maybe his decision, made an hour ago, was not such a good one after all.
Everything had appeared to be going well: the autumn brought out amazing colors, which could be seen every fall in that part of the country and wherever there were broad-leaved deciduous trees. The firs and pines were still the green or grey-green displayed all through the year, but the yellows, oranges and reds and all the shades of the colors between, were a truly spectacular sight, and at least there was no traffic on the road to prevent Rick from spending time enjoying the views from the higher slopes. However, a strange feeling started invading his mind and body as he drove further along the road through the now-densely wooded area on the mountainside.
*
Rick thought back a few weeks to when the small engineering company, for which he worked as a salesman, had folded. The president had grown too old to run a business in today's world, and he had lost control and, more importantly, the firm's finances. Rick had been let go along with the rest of the staff. He had many debts of his own and badly needed a job – money did not grow on trees and he had a mortgage to pay, as well as a car to run, - to say nothing of the alimony. The divorce had been acrimonious – to say the least.
In the good days, when he and his wife had both been very young, the marriage had been a happy one, but as he made more money, his wife, now of course, his ex, had become more and more demanding. He had run up more debts than he could handle, and of course, when the money ran out, so did his wife. She wanted just about everything from the divorce settlement, and he had become ill with worry and depression, and this lead to something he had never experienced before – panic attacks. However, if you asked him after he had managed to get his life together again how he was getting along he would have told you that things were definitely on the up. He was a stoic, pragmatic kind of guy which, although he did not know it, would prove to be of immense value.
However, what happened was in the past and now he was employed once more – lucky really, he thought. He was a good salesman, perhaps too good for the small manufacturing engineer's business for whom he found himself working, but needs must, he thought. The problem with the post was that the territory was more widespread and diverse than any he had covered before. It took in farms and lumber companies way out in the country and backwoods, as well as engineering works in the small towns.
He did not mind that, it gave him a chance to visit places new to him, particularly the mountain area. He was a footloose type of guy who loved to experience and see the open country and mountains – they were so majestic he thought.
Most of the places on his itinerary were located in the lowlands or the valleys, but there were a few logging bases that could possibly need new equipment or spares, and being a go-ahead type, he would seek them out.
*
Around lunchtime on a pleasant, sunny day in mid-October, he stopped for a snack in a small restaurant in a town hitherto only known to him as a place on a map, miles from anywhere, it seemed. The town itself nestled in a valley with mountains rising on either side: their steep slopes clothed in trees. To Rick, it felt as if he were in the back of beyond and somehow back in the past. He scanned the slopes as he drove along Main Street and wondered how many bootleg stills there might be operating up there even today. It has to be moonshine country.
He had seen the surprisingly large parking lot at the side of a timber-built restaurant. It must be popular to need such a large lot as that.
He parked up, went inside, and ordered a beef burger and fries. The coffee from the ubiquitous bottomless coffee pot was excellent and the staff, he found, were the helpful, friendly types, typical of the country people in most other places where he had been. Whilst there, he fell into conversation with a man who appeared to be one of the locals. Rick was also the gregarious type who enjoyed meeting and talking to strangers.
The man's Southern accent and clothing seemed to fit in quite naturally with the surroundings. A typical hillbilly, Rick thought. He looked rather old and a considerable time past his best-by date, but he was friendly enough, not off-hand like so many local people he had come across in his travels.
The man admitted to being sixty-something; and then some, Rick thought. His tanned, deeply lined face, suggested he had spent the vast majority of his life outdoors He had a prominent chin, and when he grinned, displayed not only a distinct lack of teeth but inevitably lot of gums. Gray hair protruded from under an old, brown broad-brimmed felt hat and he wore a black and white check shirt under his blue faded bib overalls.
"Where ya'll headed then, young fellah?" the hillbilly wanted to know.
"Charlesburgh – is it far from here?"
"No siree. It ain't that far, 'bout forty miles, but did ya'll know there are two ways to get to it from here?"
"No. So what's the difference and what's the advantage?"
"Well, one way is by this road outside here, and th' other is up along the ridge."
"So what are you telling me?"
"Well," the hillbilly said, "They's a whole lot of road works between this place and Charlesburgh on the road outside. They's blasting the rocks close to the road and you can't use CB radios or the like. You can get caught up in long traffic holdups about twenty miles from here, in one of the places, so you gotta wait 'till they're good and ready to let ya'll by. Sometimes it can be a long time, a real long time."
"And what's the other way? The ridge?"
"Yep."
Rick could see in his mind's eye the advantage of bypassing the holdups.
"What's that road like?"
"It ain't bad. It was used a lot by logging companies when lumber was big business around here. It ain't used very much at all these days. There are some small logging sites up there but they's few and far between. Ya'll see some clear-cutting if ya'll decide to go that way. The road's got a good enough surface and it's wide too, on account of a lot of big trucks that used it back then."
"So it could be quicker that way, then?"
"A lot quicker, yes siree. A lot quicker!"
"How do I find this ridge road?"
"Well, siree, ya'll drive along this road here for about ten miles. When ya'll see a road on your right, with an area of clear cutting on the mountainside way up on your right and three real big pines on the left – take that road. Ya'll pass through a little place called Spiller. It gives great views. If that's the sort of thing ya'll like. Like I say, it used to be busy when logging was going on, but it ain't now. Ya'll'll get a clear run to Charlesburgh that way. Yes sir, no doubt about it."
Rick nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, that's the sort of thing I like to see, for sure." And interesting too, I'll bet.
He finished eating, unwound his six-foot frame from the table in the booth, and stretched.
"I have to be going," he said, "Thanks for the chat."
He paid the check, and in doing so, settled the amount the old man had run up.
"My pleasure," the hillbilly replied, "And thanks for the coffee."
The old timer followed him out of the restaurant and to where Rick had left his car in the middle of the parking lot.
"Ya'll remember the way I told ya?" he asked.
"Yeah, thanks again," Rick replied.
He climbed into the car and gunned the motor. As he pulled away, he dropped the window to give the old man a wave. He looked into his rear view mirror, but the man had gone. He moved fast, Rick thought, moved fast for an old guy. That's a big parking lot and he just disappeared.
*
When he reached the turn off, he took the ridge road. In half a mile or so, he passed through Spiller. The old man was right, it was a small place but there were signs of life and it appeared there was a place to eat. He made a note of it, perhaps for future use.
It was a steep climb at first and there were sharp hairpin bends. Not a place to meet a truck, he thought. He reached the level at which the road turned and ran along the ridge, roughly parallel with the main highway down in the valley.
Mists were drifting across the road as he drove. Rick felt strange: the mist seemed to be like fingers – long, vertical fingers – not like the normal patches, and when he reached them, they just seemed to open up like curtains as he passed through.
Time seemed to have passed by very quickly, and Rick felt he needed another break. It was then he saw the sign advertising the remote, rather run down, mountain truck stop, which said 'Black Ridge Motel and Restaurant' on an old board, with paint peeling off it, swinging from a post at the edge of the road, and decided to pull in.
The main building was of white clapboard and looked decidedly shabby. The paint on it was, like the sign, peeling badly and the chalets at the back, although apparently useable, were, to say the least, uncared-for. The forest was crowding up close to them.
Motel and Restaurant seems a bit pretentious to me, he thought, but he needed a comfort stop before pressing on to his hotel in Charlesburgh for the night, so he pulled onto the blacktop parking lot. It was large, but then it needed to be to cope with the eighteen-wheelers that had once frequently used it. While deserted, the place looked as if it was still open, and as it was getting quite late, he decided to have a light meal. That would save him having one in Charlesburgh.
He picked up his document bag off the back seat and took it with him for security's sake; even out here, you could never be certain, and for sure, the place felt a bit spooky.
Pushing through the door, he went into the bar. Like the parking lot outside, it was deserted, but immediately, a middle-aged guy appeared from an open doorway behind the bar. The windows of the restaurant were large and there was a round glass panel in each of the two bat wing doors leading out back, presumably to the kitchen. The man was heavily built and badly in need of a shave. Rick thought that his scruffy appearance matched the surroundings rather well, but in a truck stop in the back of beyond, perhaps appearances did not really count for much.
"Yeah, what can I get you?" he asked, gruffly but politely enough.
Rick ordered cheeseburger, fries, and a coffee, black, with sugar. The coffee came straightaway. It was good, very good indeed, and he finished it whilst sitting on a barstool waiting for the food. The smell of good cooking wafted into the bar from the kitchen out back, and he thought that perhaps he should have ordered something a little more than a snack. He reminded himself that there was no way truckers, in any part of the world, would ever accept food that was not good and at the right price.
When the food arrived, he ordered another coffee, picked up the loaded tray, and carried it towards the table area, which, he noticed, was an L-shape. Just then, he saw another customer sitting at a table around the corner, where Rick could not have seen him when he walked in. He paused briefly; puzzled, because when he had entered the truck stop, he was sure the place was empty, but perhaps there was another entrance, crossed his mind.
Seated fairly near to the other customer he nodded an unspoken greeting. The man was rough-looking with long, lank, black hair. He was unshaven and his blue denim shirt and greasy jeans marked him up in Rick's mind as a trucker. In front of him on the table was a plate of food and a glass of beer. A lighted cigarette was burning away in an ashtray next to the beer glass.
"Hi," said Rick. "Nice evening."
"Yeah, nice," the man grunted, almost in grudging agreement and there was something in the tone of that voice which seemed to ring warning bells and make Rick feel decidedly uncomfortable. Rick was not a timid guy by any means, but his grey suit, white shirt, and blue and grey tie, set him well apart from the other man, and he felt somehow different.
Something here did not seem quite right. Indeed, when he sat down at his table, he felt a coldness surround him, but discounted it, thinking that the cold air of the autumn afternoon was descending off the mountain and coming in through an open window somewhere close by.
At that point, and to his utter amazement, he noticed an old Kenworth truck parked outside. It was just around the corner from where he had parked his car. Again, he was sure that when he arrived, the parking lot was empty. After all, a Kenworth was big and hauling logs too, so he felt he must have made a big mistake. Surely, he would not have missed a damn big rig like that. Logging was obviously going on somewhere nearby on the mountain.
During the meal, the men fell into an uneasy, stilted conversation. The trucker had very strongly held points of view; ultra right wing Rick quickly recognized, on the 'goddam' police, the 'goddam' government, and the 'goddam' everything else in the world, and these views he aired very aggressively, irrespective of the personal views of Rick, a total stranger. The fact that many of those views were racist convinced Rick that the most diplomatic responses should consist of nods and a few platitudes. It was obvious that the man would be prepared to back up his views with what Rick perceived to be very large fists.
In the cold, dim lights of the restaurant, Rick saw the trucker had a large, vivid scar running down his face from beyond the hairline above his left eyebrow, down across his left cheek and jaw and onto his neck, disappearing beneath his collar in the direction of the back of his left shoulder. The man said he had hauled lumber in the area for many years and always called here whenever he passed, on account of the good food on offer. He referred to the owner as Mack, and said he was a good family friend.
They talked until Rick finished his meal.
"You were certainly right about the coffee and the food," Rick said when he got up to pay, glad to be able to agree wholeheartedly about at least two of the subjects covered.
The trucker said, "I gotta go too." And, getting up quickly, left.
Had he left without paying the check? Rick thought. Did it really matter? He knew Mack, the owner, and if he hadn't paid, the chances were he would pay the next time he called.
Rick paid for his meal, marveling how cheap it was, and made a mental note to call in the next time, if he came by this way again. His thoughts were interrupted when he heard the truck's engine outside roar into life and looking through the window, he saw in the gathering gloom, the black exhaust billowing from the vertical smoke stack behind the cab of the tractor.
Just then, he noticed the man had left something behind on the table which he had occupied. Quickly crossing to it, he saw a very old camera. That's ancient, he thought, but picked it up, pushed it into his bag, and ran out into the car park.
Dusk was falling fast – too damned fast, what's going on? he thought, and by then, the truck had turned around and was out onto the blacktop. He saw its rear lights disappearing down the road on the mountainside, its brake lights flicking on and off as it approached the first curve.
He leapt into his car thinking he would soon catch up with the large, slower moving vehicle, but it soon became apparent that the trucker knew the road much better than Rick ever could. There were sharp bends and curves as the road followed and crossed the contours of the steep mountainside, and it took Rick some time to get close. He knew he would have to wait for an opportunity to pass or get the driver's attention, and flashing his main beam lights would most probably only annoy the man. He also knew it was not wise on this sort of road to blast past a log-hauling truck, and downhill at that.
The gradient of the road was becoming steeper with more curves and bends, many of them, sharp and dangerous. On one of them, the truck disappeared completely from sight. When Rick rounded the bend, the other vehicle was nowhere to be seen – no truck, no rear lights, no brake lights - nothing. It would have been easy to see rear lights on this stretch of the road, but all was dark.
He continued driving on for a few more minutes, thinking that the truck must have stopped somewhere. But where? There were no pull-off points!
Perplexed, he slowed, made a K-turn at a dirt pull-in, and drove back to the truck stop so he could leave the camera with Mack.
When he went back into the bar, Mack was there and surprised to see him. Rick related everything that happened in detail, and when he finished, realized that Mack was staring at him with a strange look on his face.
"Are you sure what ya'll are telling me is absolutely true?" Mack asked, somewhat suspiciously.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Witches' Mountain"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Gerald R. Wright.
Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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