Cold on the Mountain Read online

  Wren extended the remnants of his drink. The Bensons followed suit, clinking glasses with him.

  “To keeping our heads and getting the hell out of this place—and I mean all of us,” he said.

  They finished their drinks and Wren smiled as he glanced around the table. “It’s been a long day. Anybody up for some of Big Denny Wren’s famous spaghetti and meatballs?”

  The girls giggled. “I’m sooo hungry!” Carrie said, holding her tummy, actually coaxing a chuckle from her parents.

  Wren cleared the table and delegated the making of a salad and some table setting, and before long they were sharing a meal in the kitchen while the winds bellowed hard off the Sierra Nevada, buffeting the windows with occasional blasts of icy snowflakes.

  SEVENTEEN

  Kelli spent the day at the Bishop Library. She was interested in learning more about the topography of the Sierra Nevada, and she spent a lot of time searching for information on Adrienne. Hours of frustrating futility finally forced her back outside into the frigid afternoon.

  A light snow sifted down from a slate-gray sky. It stuck along the sidewalks, and folded into muddy slush in the streets. She rubbed her arms as she struck out for the warmth of a coffee shop—a little whole-in-the-wall spot called The Looney Bean. Before stepping inside, she called Bo.

  “How’s it coming?” she said.

  “Not bad, I guess. It’s another damned Latin Kings episode. You’d think Bernie would get tired of this thread, but nope—the guy keeps flogging the gangster angle.” He spoke in the New York accent of his character—a fish-out-of-water type named Anthony Rigelli who was still getting acclimated to SoCal.

  “Sorry, babe. I know it gets old for you.”

  Bo merely grunted in reply. Whatcha gonna do?

  “If it’s any consolation, I’ve managed nothing but strikeouts over at the library. I found some interesting BLM maps, but I’m not making much sense out of them.”

  “I’ll bet Tasket knows those mountains better than any map. And speaking of that—you ready for tonight?”

  “I think so. I’m going to put in another hour or two on the research. You want to go for an early dinner before we head out?”

  “Works for me, Kel. That’ll give me a chance to snarl a few more lines at the mirror.”

  “Okay, see you soon.” She hung up and ducked inside The Looney Bean. Its bright atmosphere was a welcome change from the dreary skies over Bishop and the fluorescent tubes illuminating the nonfiction stacks.

  Kelli bought a cup of coffee and a cheese Danish and retreated to a corner table to watch the snow fall on the mountains. She was just finishing when she noticed the woman studying her from across the room.

  Kelli flashed an awkward smile and turned back to her drink. She was in the process of pulling up the Internet on her phone when the woman crossed the room and asked to join her.

  “Sure,” Kelli said. She motioned to the seat. “I’m just about to leave, though. Heading back to the library.”

  “Oh, I wondered if it might be something like that,” the woman said. She had a kindly face—one that conjured visions of home-cooked soup and evenings by the fireplace in Kelli’s mind. She carried a paper cup trailing the string of a tea bag. “You just have that look about you.”

  Kelli laughed. “You know, you’re the second person that’s said that to me since I arrived here in Bishop. What, ah…what look is that, exactly?”

  “You’re the curious type. I can tell. I see it in your eyes, but it’s there in your posture, too. Have you met Miriam?”

  Kelli put her phone away. “I have. I suppose she’s a mutual acquaintance?”

  The old woman nodded. “Tell her that Jenny says hello the next time you see her, if you don’t mind. What is it you’re looking for exactly, Miss?”

  “Please, Jenny—call me Kelli. I’m looking for my boyfriend’s family. They got lost somewhere up on the mountain, and we haven’t heard from them in days.”

  She told their story while Jenny sipped her drink. When she was finished, the woman wore a frustrated expression. “Last Chance Mountain,” she sighed. “Pretty apt name if you ask me.”

  They circled the topic of all the disappearances—never quite addressing them directly—until Kelli finished her coffee.

  “What is it you’re looking for in the library, dear?” Jenny finally asked.

  Kelli winced. “There’s…there’s supposed to be this town up there. Only it’s not on any map. Maybe that sounds odd to you, but probably it’s not if you know Miriam. We were told that—”

  “Harkerson,” she interjected.

  “I’m sorry? Harkerson?”

  “If you want to learn more about Adrienne, search for Harkerson. You’ll find what you need if you look closely enough.”

  And with that Jenny stood, smiled warmly, and left the café—dropping her cardboard cup in the trash on the way out the door. After a quick Google search on her phone that turned up nothing of use on the name, Kelli did the same, following the woman out onto the street. At the end of the block, Jenny tipped a single sly glance back at the younger woman before disappearing around the corner, and Kelli felt a chill run up her spine.

  The afternoon was slipping away, those last hours where the light thins and the collar of the jacket needs buttoning against the chill falling fast on Bishop.

  She hustled down to the library and went straight for the reference desk.

  “Harkerson,” she said to the young woman behind the desk. “I’m sorry to be so vague, but does that name mean anything to you?”

  The woman nodded. “Of course. It’s a family name in these parts. There are loads of Harkersons scattered throughout the Inland Empire. Would you like access to our pioneer collection?”

  Kelli nodded and the woman escorted her over to a microfilm reading area. “We’re in the process of digitizing these files. I don’t think we’ve reached the ‘H’s yet, I’m afraid.” She turned on the machine and punched in a passcode. After showing Kelli how to work the machine, she discreetly closed the door and Kelli found herself in darkness, save the yellow light of the microfilm reader.

  “Old school,” she muttered, working the dial on the machine.

  According to the directory, Harriet Harkerson had written four journals. Their contents had been photographed, two pages to a slide, and arranged in chronological order.

  The first entry was dated April 12, 1883. Harkerson penned the short entry at her desk in the St. James Hotel, the finest lodgings in all of Enid, Oklahoma. They’d been on the road for nine days, having sold their farm near Skiatook Lake in the winter. They were headed for a town called Bishop Creek, a prosperous land of plenty out in California where government land could be had for next to nothing and there was always a growing season.

  They’d paused in Enid to provide the kids a night of opulence, and also as a way of bidding farewell to their lives in Oklahoma. The entry was brimming with optimism, and Harkerson expressed a palpable affection for her husband, George, and their children, William, Henry, and little Geraldine—their youngest, just two months shy of her seventh birthday.

  Kelli lost herself in the journal. Harriet was a decent writer, her precise handwriting chronicling the highs and lows of an arduous trip across the country in a train of settlers led by a coarse man named Alden Hand. He pushed the wagons hard, forever warning of winter in the high Sierra, and many in their party grew sick and exhausted by the pace. Still, with George, William, and Henry piloting their belongings and their spirits invigorated by the prospects of a new life on the horizon, the Harkersons largely avoided illness and injury. They cut a path through Death Valley before angling north, toward the mountains, just as the late-summer weather grew unpredictable.

  They lost Geraldine midway through the second journal. Caught in a September snowstorm near the eastern summit of the Sierra Nevada, the train had been forced to hunker down for four days. On the second day, William and Geraldine had gone in search of a berry patch
that they’d passed only days earlier, when the skies had been clear and the days were warm.

  Only William returned.

  The skin on Kelli’s neck prickled. It sounded like they might have found themselves just on the far side of Last Chance Mountain.

  They searched for Geraldine for three days—long enough to fall behind the wagon train. The weather warmed some and George looked high and low for the girl, driving himself to the point of collapse for his beautiful daughter.

  But there was simply no sign of the girl. She had vanished.

  William admitted to his parents that they’d briefly split up near a large granite outcropping they thought had been familiar, but they hadn’t been separated long.

  It was just…just one of those terrible things that happen from time to time. What was it Anna had told them back at the bar? People go missing up there all the time. Something’s just not right about that place.

  Harriet was devastated, but she maintained a brave facade for the sake of her sons and husband. Her writing grew sporadic, but she didn’t let the journal go. They made it into Bishop Creek and settled on a large spread bordered by a lake. There was a natural hot springs on the property, and the boys adored bathing in it.

  It was the paradise they had been searching for, except that it wasn’t—not without Geraldine.

  Much of the third journal was given over to chronicling daily life in California, but at least an equal amount of space was devoted to Harriet’s worries about her husband’s health. Geraldine, she wrote, had been the center of his heart, and he grieved deeply for her loss.

  He farmed the land. He smiled in all the right spots during family meals, and he was kind and attentive in his dealings with Harriet and the boys.

  But it wasn’t him. His boisterous laugh had vanished, and he grew gaunt, the flesh wasting on once-sturdy bones.

  Tis possible for a human heart to break, Harriet wrote. I know, for I see it happening with my dear George…

  Kelli glanced at her watch. 3:10 and she still hadn’t found anything on Adrienne. Perhaps Jenny had misunderstood her. The Harkersons were an interesting slice of local history, to be sure, but the connection wasn’t emerging.

  “Twenty minutes,” she whispered. She shifted in her seat to restore the circulation in her legs and plowed forward.

  About a third of the way through the fourth journal she found it. Dated June 14, 1888, the entry read:

  Oh, the valleys of sorrow and the peaks of happiness these pages have witnessed! Once again our family finds ourselves at the summit, however, for our dearest angel Geraldine has returned to us!

  Her poor, anguished father! He fainted dead away when the sheriff opened the door to his office and little Geraldine was sitting there, a tattered wool blanket over her thin shoulders. When George revived, he took our daughter in his arms and watered her cheeks with his tears and kisses. In time, she returned his embrace—first faintly, and then fiercely.

  George told me that she did not recognize her father at first glance, and it pains me to think it, for the man loves her so.

  Though once she did discover him there in that lank frame, she gripped him so hard he could scarcely breathe! She wept like the very child that she is, you see, for she hasn’t aged a minute. It sounds like a passage from a fireside tale, but tis true!

  She was a child of seven when we lost her, and a child of twelve she should be. Alas, not a freckle has faded on our dear daughter’s cheek! She is the very vision of the girl that had vanished while searching for berries, all those many years ago.

  Tis a miracle of some sort, though Geraldine speaks of something different. Her stories…they are difficult to hear, and even harder to believe.

  She speaks of that night. She lost sight of William and became confused, and then she stumbled toward a green light that shone over a meadow in the snowy distance. As she made her way toward it, she stumbled into a town, just a speck of a place high in the mountains that the sheriff has assured us is only a figment of her addled mind.

  We all believe her, of course. How else could she know her letters and numbers so well if she hadn’t had lessons in her absence?

  How else could she have learned to sew so expertly?

  How, how, how could she have aged not a day?

  Oh, tis a miracle indeed, for she was filled with fright for the people she said lived in that little town (she calls it Adrian) that was her temporary home. The worst, and I can only imagine such a nightmare should her tales prove authentic, was none other than John D. Lee!

  Yes, the monstrous John Lee, of terrible infamy.

  She claims the man ruled the town with anger and spite, and she was well pleased to get shut of him when they finally let her leave.

  Of course, we know that Lee died more than a decade ago, but his crimes are as clear in our minds now as they were when the newspapers out of Oklahoma City first reached us on the farm.

  George has dismissed it all. He’s…he’s happier than I’ve ever seen him. Happier than the day she was born.

  We all are.

  She’s the same Geraldine, the same sweet, kind little girl. Though William is now a man and Henry is near to joining him, their sister has been somehow preserved in her innocence and wonder. Though occasionally, only occasionally, mind you, when I study her in a private moment, I see a shadow cross her face. A momentary shadow born of fear and sorrow.

  Still, those moments grow scarcer with every passing day. Geraldine is overjoyed to be home, and in the last ten days has found herself warming to life in Bishop Creek.

  The locals have taken to calling the peak where we lost her Last Chance Mountain, though the name seems hardly apt, for we have certainly been granted a second chance in the return of our miracle daughter Geraldine!

  Kelli tagged the entry and saved it. The remainder of the journal was largely given over to Geraldine’s rapid assimilation into life in Bishop Creek. Indeed, the girl began to age and mature and the Harkersons’ farm flourished. George regained his laughter and the boys never let their sister out of their sight while they were together on the farm.

  The only other mention of “Adrian” showed up in an entry dated January 16, 1889:

  Geraldine endured nightmares of Adrian again last night. I attempted to comfort her, but the grip of her troubled dreams was mighty. She spoke in her sleep of a fallen cabin, a place she called a gateway between worlds. She’s doing so much better overall, but these dreams! My, how they trouble her…

  Kelli added the entry to the folder and emailed it to herself. She checked her phone to ensure that the documents had transmitted, then added the cell-phone picture that she’d snapped of the art Cammie had drawn to the folder.

  She powered down the machine and checked her watch. 4: 15. Time to call Bo.

  “Hey,” she said, her voice muffled in the library, “you hungry?”

  “I’m starved. Meet you at the Silverdust in ten?”

  “Sounds good. I…I could really use a drink, Bo.”

  “Yeah? Some decent sleuthing take place over there at the library, did it?”

  “I guess you could say that. I’m pretty sure that Adrienne is real, and I have a good idea about where to look for it.”

  EIGHTEEN

  The house on Hampton Lane was going to work out fine. Wendy took the kids to school while Wren accompanied Phil over to the place for a quick tour before work.

  A middle-aged woman stood on the front steps, a cup of coffee in her hand, her suit neatly pressed. The sun was just rising, and the morning was bitterly cold.

  “Keep your guard up,” Wren muttered as they trudged through the snow, their hands plunged deep in their coats. “She’s a tricky sort.”

  Phil opened his mouth but promptly shut it as the woman plunged down the steps to meet them, her hand extended. “Hello, Mr. Wren! So nice to see you again! And welcome, Phil, to your own little slice of paradise up here on the hill!”

  Phil started to extend his hand but Wren deftly elbo
wed him, and he tucked it under his armpit in what he hoped wasn’t too obvious a snub.

  The women caught his reaction, though, and she tipped the big athlete a sly grin. Her hand fell to her side and Phil watched as she casually wiped her fingers on her pants.

  “Still suspicious of me, huh Denny? After all these years? Oh, well. One thing I’ve learned throughout the years is that you can’t please everyone, so let’s just get this done. You both have long days ahead of you, I’m sure, and I need to get back to the office.”

  She turned to Phil, an aggressive smile plastered on. “Mr. Benson, I’m Rose Gutierrez. I handle most of the commercial and rental properties for the town trust. If you’ll just follow me inside, I can show you around and we can get this paperwork started if the place suits you.”

  “Can I have a quick word with Phil, Rose?” Wren cut in. “Like you said, I’ve got to get out of here and head out to work.”

  “Of course,” she said. She rummaged in her handbag until she found a cellular phone just a shade bigger than that Gordon Gecko model from Wall Street. She punched in a few numbers and stood discreetly off to the side, Wren grinning at her act.

  “Some of ‘em just can’t let it go,” he chuckled, putting his arm around Phil’s shoulder. “Listen, you can probably actually haggle with her. Try to work the figure down as best you can, and just refuse to rent with her if she asks for a deposit. It’s not like you can skip town or anything, right? I have to hustle on out of here—I’m running behind as it is. I’ll drop by after work to help you get settled in.”

  “Haggle with her?” Phil hissed. “How?”

  “Beats me. Flatter her. Turn on the charm. Just don’t…don’t take anything that she offers you. Try not to touch her, okay?”

  “What the hell did she do?”

  “She poisoned an entire open house before taking her own life. Twelve dead, a bunch more in really bad shape for whatever time they had left. She’s a supreme baddie, but aren’t they all? See you, Phil. Have a good day, and don’t be late. You know the way?”