Black Stump Ridge (7 page)

Strange silver shapes formed the ring on top of the stone. They were bright enough in this moonless night to illuminate the steel cover and its pad-locked center door. He reached down and touched one of the designs. It felt cool and slightly greasy. It shimmered as his skin made contact. He withdrew his hand. For a moment he felt as if he was suffering from a hangover. His stomach felt queasy. His head ached – a dull throb in his temples and at the back of his neck. The feeling left as quickly as he broke contact with the strange symbol.

Intrigued, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a folding knife. He opened it and scraped at one of the shapes. His efforts separated one of the designs into two parts. The glow immediately faded from all of them. From beneath the steel plate he heard a scraping, shuffling noise that sounded like something large and flat slapping at water. Just as suddenly all was quiet. He looked at the metal fragments hanging from the edge of the blade, but there was nothing unusual about them.

Shrugging, he folded the knife, put it into his pocket, and headed back to the house. He’d ask Fred about the strange markings in the morning.

 CHAPTER SIX

Perdis watched from behind the screen door as the Jeep backed away from the store. The brake lights flared bright red as the truck stopped and then faded as it turned onto the gravel road leading into the hills. He had a bad feeling. Those boys were headed for trouble. Bleeding trouble. Killing trouble. He should have kept the keys, promise be damned. He should have turned them out; sent them packing back to the city. He shook his head as he turned the sign in the window from OPEN to CLOSED. What was done was done. It could not be undone.

Suddenly, the hairs on his neck bristled as he heard the skritch of a match head being dragged across a coarse surface. He turned around. In the far back corner of the store a tall dark figure lit a cigarette. The brief flare revealed a ghastly face. The match’s flickering light was reflected from the figure’s one good eye. Deep lines and creases radiated from the crater of his right eye socket. A shock of white hair hung lank over a deeply furrowed forehead.

The light went out as the shadow waved the match in the air. The cigarette tip glowed briefly, intensely, as the shadow drew in a deep breath.

“Good job, Purdie.” The shadow’s deep rumbling voice sounded like rocks rubbing together. Acrid smoke surrounded the man’s head. “Think they’ll stick to Lawyer’s place?”

The familiar voice did little to settle Perdis’ composure. “Mebbe. Cain’t say fer sure. I reckon it’ll depend on th’ huntin’. If’n it’s good enough, they’ll prob’ly stick close by. If not …” He let the rest hang in the air.

The shadow took another deep drag. The flare of light threw his face into sharp relief, accenting the scars and furrows like a gruesome Halloween mask. “I hope you’re right. They’re city folk and that means they might get bored pretty easy. If they get bored they might go explorin’. Folk like that always stick their noses where they don’t belong.”

“One of’em’s kin.”

“Not to me. Not to mine.”

“I promised his mama I’d keep an eye on him.”

“Maybe you better make sure he don’t go wandering where he don’t belong, then. I ain’t beholdin’ to any promises you make.”

“If you an’ yer boys keep back an’ leave’em alone, then it won’t matter if they stay put or go wanderin’. Won’t be nothin’ fer’em t’see.”

The shadow stepped away from the curtain that divided the back storeroom from the rest of the shop and into the light. Jake Harper was an imposing figure of a man despite his facial disfigurement. Well over six feet tall, his two hundred and ten pounds included very little fat. His blue chambray shirt and khaki trousers always sported sharp creases.

“Well, we’ll just have to see how it all plays out, won’t we.” Jake’s smile, unnaturally white, chilled Perdis. He squeezed Perdis’ shoulder as he walked by on his way to the door. “Yessir, we’ll just have to see.”

Perdis heard the screen door slap shut. The porch boards creaked marking Jake’s exit into the gathering darkness. He shivered, but did not turn around.

When he was sure that Jake was gone, he stepped outside. It was full dark in the cul-de-sac although the sunset glow still backlit the mountain. Overhead the stars shone in cold brilliance. The moon would be rising soon, not that there’d be that much to see. Tomorrow night would be the first night of the new moon. Tonight it would show only the faintest sliver. This was when most of the folks around here locked their doors early and kept them locked until daybreak. Livestock had to fend for themselves if they weren’t inside when the sun went down. A knock on the door by a neighbor in distress was more apt to be answered with the charity of two barrels of double-ought buck than with aid or compassion.

The cold air brought a sense of urgency to Perdis’ bladder. It happened increasingly often as he got older. Moving as quickly as his seventy-eight-year-old legs would permit Perdis headed for the outhouse. Although his house had indoor plumbing — his father had put in a septic system and hooked up an electric pump on the well more than twenty years ago — he didn’t think he could make it up the steps and through the door in time. Best to be sure; best to take the shorter route.

Perdis emerged from the outhouse a few moments later feeling much better. He looked skyward and frowned. He’d best lock up the store and call it a night. Normally, he’d just close the door and let the sign stand guard – not that anyone in these parts would let a CLOSED sign keep them from knocking on his door if they needed something. Theft was not a worry; kin didn’t steal from kin and nearly everyone in these parts was related in some way despite what Jake said earlier. Travelers on the black top that ran past his store were rare. Hardly anyone dared the narrow road through the hills after dark unless driven by desperate need.

Dark of the moon, however, was not a normal time. Although he was miles from Black Stump Ridge he locked up tight when the moon was black.

Of course, the dark of the moon didn’t bother Jake and his boys. That was
their
time. Perdis often wondered if they worried about the stories that kept decent folks off of the mountain and out of the woods during that time. He suspected they might, although he doubted that either of Jake’s boys would admit it to their old man.

Perdis looked at the night sky one more time. He shook his head and headed for the store to lock up. As he walked up the sagging steps and into the store he debated taking the cash out of the drawer. It had been a slow day despite being the day before Thanksgiving. Not many folks were out looking for last minute items. Fred and his friends were his biggest sale of the week. Still, there was no sense in tempting anyone. He scooped out the bills, folded them, and slipped them into his pocket. As the register drawer closed, the overhead lights went out.

He froze.

The darkness was nearly total. Only a ghostly radiance from the coolers lit a small area at the back. It wasn’t a power failure, then, or the darkness would be complete.

He heard a scratching noise, like claws on wood, coming from the area near the curtain that separated the shop from the storeroom. Something had come into the store while he was in the outhouse. Heart pounding, he tried to penetrate the darkness with his eyes as he reached for the twelve gauge double-barreled shotgun he kept beneath the counter. Given the opportunity, most creatures around here would avoid a man. He was between whatever it was and the door, however, and if the creature felt trapped or cornered it might attack. He relaxed somewhat as his hand closed around the stock.

“Wasamatta, Coozin?” The voice was high-pitched and child-like.

A small hunched figure leaped onto the counter. A jar of hard candies fell, exploding as it hit the floor. Although the light was dim Perdis could still make out the distorted, goblin-like features in the creature’s full-moon face. Feral green eyes glittered beneath a mop of unruly black hair. A smile of sharp, stained, and broken teeth stretched from cheek to chubby cheek. It wore a wrinkled shirt so stained and dirt encrusted that Perdis couldn’t tell with certainty what the original color had been. Bare feet stuck out of the bottom of a pair of ragged, muddy blue jeans. The creature’s stink – the acrid stench of a long-unwashed body – assaulted Perdis’ nose like a physical blow. Hands slightly larger than a child’s reached toward Perdis from the squatting form. Perdis shivered. Only one child he ever saw had hands like those. Instead of rounded fingertips, these ended in elongated digits that sported sharp, talon-like claws.

“Levi! Getcher ass outta my store! Does your mamma know yer out here after dark?”

“Nope,” the boy giggled. It was an unnerving, hyena-like sound. “Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Mamma don’t know where I’m at. ’Sides, she knows th’ dark don’t bother me none.”

“You know you ain’t s’posed t’ be down this far. Now, git outta my store. Git on home t’ your mamma’s.”

“Whatcha gonna do iffen I don’t? Kin cain’t hurt kin, Coozin.” Levi giggled again.

“Your momma shoulda drowned ya right after ya squirted out.” Perdis felt his disgust rising like bile in the back of his throat. “An’ quit callin’ me cousin. Only thing you’re cousin to’s one o’ them apes like ya see in th’ zoo. Yer just one tick this side of an animal. Git back t’ th’ woods where you belong. Don’t be comin’ down here an’ upsettin’ decent folk.”

The creature’s green eyes narrowed; his nostrils flared. Then, just as quickly, the vacuous smile returned. “So I’m a ape. A animal. You decent folks is jus’ jealous ’cause I’m stronger an’ faster’n y’all.”

“You ain’t faster or stronger than this,” Perdis lifted the shotgun but did not put it to his shoulder. “I ain’t gonna tell you again. Gitcher ass outta my store an’ back up th’ mountain where ya belong.”

The creature looked at the shotgun, then back at Perdis. His lip curled contemptuously. “One o’ these days, old man, I’ll show you who’s a ape. Y’all know who m’daddy is. One o’ these days
he’ll
come down an’ show all o’ y’all what fer.”

The creature dug into a pocket. He extended a grimy fist. The hand opened. A nickel and three pennies clattered to the counter. “Only reason I’s down here t’night is t’get somethin’ fer Ma. T’morra’s her birthday. She likes sweety things. ’Spesh’ly them choklitty things. So, how much o’ that there candy can I get with this?”

Perdis put the shotgun away and relaxed. A twinge of guilt tugged at him for the way he treated the wretched creature. It wasn’t the boy’s fault he was the way he was. Beneath the filth and deformity he was, in the end, mostly human. Perdis pulled a gallon jar from a shelf behind him, opened the lid, and extended it towards the boy. “Tell ya what. Since it’s fer yer ma, take out three pieces ya think she might like. Keep yer money.”

The boy looked at Perdis, and then extended one clawed hand. He deftly extracted three foil wrapped chocolate kisses, but made no move to pick up the coins. “Ain’t no beggar an’ I ain’t no thief. I pays fer m’stuff or I does without. Y’all thinks cuz I’s ugly I ain’t a man. Someday I’ll show y’all I’s as much a man as any o’ y’all. Mebbe more.”

 CHAPTER SEVEN

Jake watched the Jeep’s taillights disappear and reappear as it followed the curves near the top of the ridge. Why were they here? Purdie said it was for some Turkey Day hunting. One was kin to Purdie and Lawyer. That might be so and then maybe it wasn’t. The others weren’t kin. Could they be something more? Could they be Treasury men? Agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms? Jake and his boys would have to be careful until they knew for sure what was going on.

The timing of their visit was suspicious to say the least. Jake had a large batch of shine up at the still in the cave. It was almost ready to send to Atlanta. He and the boys just needed to bottle the last run and bring it down from the mountain. Suddenly, five men show up for a Thanksgiving hunting trip at just this time and in just that place. Maybe it was true, but Jake wasn’t about to have his freedom depend on maybe.

In the old days he’d know what to do. Catch them nosing around where they weren’t wanted and they’d simply disappear. The hills held more unmarked graves than people knew about. You couldn’t do that any more. If anything happened to any of them nowadays there would be an army of federal agents combing the hills. Killing a cop was bad enough. Killing a
nigger
cop guaranteed a whole new level of manhunt and prosecution. Definitely bad for business.

Jake crossed the road and disappeared into the darkening forest. Nighttime in the woods didn’t bother him. He’d been walking these paths most of his life. His feet knew where every root and vine waited to catch the unwary. He instinctively avoided the dried twigs and leaves as he moved ghost-like through the trees. His mind drifted back to his days in the army and his two tours in Viet Nam. Those were good times, although most might disagree. Politics were never Jake’s strong suit. The rightness or wrongness of war were for other folks. Jake was a hunter. Stalking a deer or a Cong were all the same to him. Most of those he served with thought him odd or worse. To them it seemed he actually enjoyed finding and killing the enemy. What they could never understand was that it wasn’t the kill he enjoyed. It was the hunt. He had no special dislike for the Viet Cong. In truth, he held them in high regard. Like him, they were hunters and, like him, very skilled at it. Silent Death they’d called him back in the ’Nam.