Cold on the Mountain Read online

  “What happened, Jasper? Can you…do you ever talk about it?”

  “Oh, I do,” he said. “It helps, from time to time, to think about why I’m stuck out on the floor with you and not sequestered somewhere in a back office, making everyone else miserable. Anybody ever tell you that life’s not fair, Phil?”

  Phil laughed. “Christ. My brother’s famous, Jasper, so I only heard that about every other day growing up. He was the popular one—had all the girls. I had to scramble for every good thing that’s ever happened to me. And don’t mistake me—I’m not complaining. I’ve done damned well for myself, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But for Bo? For Bo, everything just came naturally.

  “He’s off making movies and television shows in sunny California while I’m just barely holding on to a shitty little job in a backwoods Oregon county with twelve-percent unemployment. I love my brother, but I’m just saying that I’m pretty damned familiar with the phrase.”

  “So you got the shit sandwich when they were handing out lunch, did you Phil?” Jasper replied, though his tone was jovial. “Ah, well…them’s the breaks, buddy.”

  They clinked glasses, and it was like they’d cleared a hurdle together. Whatever tension had existed between them had vanished.

  “Anyway, it’s true that I killed,” Jasper continued. “You’re damned right I did; you would have too, I’d wager. But I didn’t kill out of boredom, or perversion, or any of the other dozens of excuses all these assholes make when they end up here. I had legitimate reasons to do what I did, Phil.”

  “Revenge?”

  “Bingo,” Phil replied with a curt little nod. “Damned straight I did it for revenge. Get a look at me, Phil. What race would crazy-ass Jennifer San Marco have me check on one of her bullshit employment applications? What race, if you just had to guess? ”

  “White, I suppose.”

  Jasper shook his head. “Not even close. I’m 100% authentic Unangax. People refer to us as Aleuts now, but we’ve always been Unangax. We’d lived peacefully on the coastlines of the Aleutian Islands for centuries before the Russians came and scattered us to the sea in a span of a couple of decades.”

  “Why?”

  Jasper shrugged. “Shit, Phil. You’ve already met Goebbels. It’s not likely that you’ll see them, because they mainly keep to themselves, but most of the supreme baddies are still here. The really bad ones don’t go back nearly as often, and that’s a good thing. That kind of evil should be rare, don’t you think?

  “But anyway, why did the Russians try to erase the Unangax from the face of the earth? Because we didn’t just roll over for them. Because we wouldn’t let them fuck our women and plunder our resources. Because we pushed back when they tried to take our homes, when they desecrated our lands, when they defiled everything that we held sacred.

  “There was a man—one terrible, terrible hombre in particular. He was absolutely brutal. He liked to disfigure our women after raping them. He’d cut their faces—slice their noses and ears off. He hobbled them when they didn’t do just exactly as he said. Hell, he killed some of them just for making eye contact with him. We’re talking a monster of the highest order, Phil.”

  “Was he ever here in Adrienne?” Phil asked. “I mean, he had to have passed through here, right?” It seemed like a logical question, but Jasper threw his head back and barked a bitter laugh.

  “Oh, yeah. Of course he was here, Phil. For all of a few months, and then he transitioned. Asshole shipped out on his first try. We died so close together in terms of the timing that it was almost inevitable we’d see each other again—that is, if I ended up here at all. You see, freedom fighters don’t actually get stuck here very often. There are a few, but the rules are different when we’re talking about justice. You’d be hard pressed to get some folks to admit it, but there is such a thing as a just murder, Phil.

  “So anyway, he was here, and of course I wanted to end his life in Adrienne as well. I didn’t care if it damned me to this place forever, as long as that monster would never, ever get the chance to repeat the things that he’d done to our people.

  “But I was never able to finish what I’d started back home. I could never get close enough to him. I could never get him alone, and then he won the lottery and he was just…he was just gone. It’s been centuries, Phil. Who knows how many times he’s cycled back through Adrienne in all these years? Hell, he could be sitting here in the bar with us right now and neither of us would have a clue. Energy just passes through, remember? Anyway, I’m over all of that. Now, I just want to get the hell out of here. I just want my own opportunity to finally get some rest, wherever that may be.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Ivan Solovief. He was a monster unlike any the world has ever seen. Of course, I’m a little bit biased, right?” Jasper said with a wink. “There are, arguably, much worse people here in Adrienne.

  “Look—I was a very young man when the Russians first showed up on our island. They came in these huge ships, and they were terrible to us from the very start…they took our women and children hostage, and handed out traps to the men of the villages. If we didn’t make our quotas, they slaughtered the hostages. Look it up…it’s in the history books, if you have the nerve to look.

  “And even if we did bring back the assigned number of pelts, they often still raped our women. They burned our villages to the ground. Their numbers were too great for us to withstand, and they came every year, dating back to about 1750. Until…”

  “Until,” Phil gently prodded after a minute had passed. In the interval, he caught just the briefest snippet of the chorus the big man was belting out.

  …and you’ll know that I was here, by that bloody trail of tears, girl

  Oh, you’ll know me by that trail of bloody tears…

  “Until I killed them,” Jasper said. He wore a fierce grimace—all gleaming white teeth—and his blue eyes shone like topaz. “I killed that fucking monster, and I looked straight into his eyes while his life’s blood was flowing through my fingers, and do you know what I saw there?”

  Phil merely shook his head.

  “I saw glee, Phil. Even as he sputtered for breath, his steaming blood gushing fast over my wrists, I saw glee. It was pleasure for all the misery he’d caused—for all the lives that he’d destroyed. It was a sickness—a sadistic sickness, and that’s what separates me from the rest of these…these dark ones. I killed to protect the ones that I loved. I killed to protect my people, and I took no pleasure in it.

  “No pleasure in it, except for Solovief.”

  They sat in silence for a long moment. Will pointed to the empty pitcher and Jasper shook his head. “Got work in the morning. Besides, we’ve still got a little left yet, eh Phil?” he said, hoisting his half-filled pint glass.

  “A little left, yet. Thanks, Will,” Phil said. He turned to Jasper. “I still don’t get it. History is filled with figures that stood up to tyranny. Why would someone like you—someone who tried to do the right thing—be stuck here with the rest of us wayward travelers?”

  Jasper laughed. “Christ, Phil! What do you think we’re talking about here, buddy? Life. Is. Not. Fair. Let me put it into context for you, okay?

  “Back on the island, we had this beautiful set of waterfalls on the world’s most productive salmon stream. We gave it a simple name—Silver Falls. It was stunning, Phil. Eighth wonder of the world stuff. Anyway, every fall, just before they’d bed down for the season, the Kodiaks would show up in droves; they grew positively fat on the salmon making their way through those waters.

  “Those poor fish would spend two or three years out there in the ocean, evading all sorts of nasty predators. Getting nice and big—just waiting for the opportunity to return to their home and expand their bloodlines. They’d finally make it back and they’d head upstream, but those Kodiaks—oh, they’re wily creatures, Phil. Wily sons of guns. They understand how the sun casts a shadow, and they know just where to stand so that shadow isn’
t visible to the fish. And those salmon—those battle-tested, world-weary warriors…well, they’d take that leap of faith, never knowing that an open set of jaws was waiting on the other end. That a set of razor-sharp claws was ready to pluck those fish right out of the air.

  “Do you see what I’m saying, Phil?”

  It was a pretty elegant analogy. “I suppose I do. You’re saying those bears are like Adrienne, and people like you and me are the salmon, right?”

  “Close, but not exactly right, buddy. Life is the bears, Phil. Fucking life is the bears. The people you see here in Adrienne? These assholes are just the claws.”

  There was a commotion in the corner. A table exploded in a tinkle of broken glass as two huge men sprawled on the floor, trading haymakers. The band fed on the violence, ratcheting up the tempo and playing louder—the big man nearly shouting now into the microphone.

  That moon!

  That moon!

  That low winter moon!

  The time is nigh and the time is right!

  Gates’ll swing open soon, son…

  I said the gates’ll be open soon!

  “So,” Jasper said nonchalantly. Will and a few other staff members had rushed out from behind the bar to separate the brawlers. “I remember you saying you had a few questions for me. Go ahead, then. I’ll answer what I can.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Phil hustled home. The alcohol had warmed him, and his talk with Jasper had lit a fire in his gut. He better understood what they were dealing with, and it felt good to have some perspective on how to get out of Adrienne.

  Things were definitely ramping up. He’d never seen so many people out on the streets. A trio of musicians strummed guitars on a street corner, the flames from a rusting burn barrel casting leaping shadows over the assembling crowd.

  He stopped briefly at the Sierra Sunset Grocery, attracting a couple of jeering catcalls from a group of teenagers smoking cigarettes near the front entrance.

  Those damned trench-coat kids were among them, and the blond one grinned while he exhaled a thick cloud of smoke directly in Phil’s path.

  “Your little girls like that school, don’t they Mr. Benson? Well, they’re not safe everywhere, are they?” he said, tipping Phil an ominous wink.

  “Fuck off,” Phil said. His reaction drew surprised laughter from the rest of the group, so Phil took an aggressive step toward the smoker, cutting his voice. “You just fuck off and stay the hell away from my family, you malignant little shit,” he hissed.

  The doors slid open and he stepped inside, turning once to catch the blond kid staring at him with unbridled menace. Phil flipped him the bird and the kid’s expression changed. A hint—just the smallest hint—of uncertainty clouded his features.

  Phil headed straight for the wine, a smile on his face for having stood his ground. If everything Jasper said was correct, then the threat the dark ones represented was severely dampened in the days leading up to the lottery. Nobody wanted to jeopardize a chance at getting back out there in the thick of it.

  After the lottery had passed, though? Criminy, all bets were off…

  He grabbed the cheapest bottle of cabernet that he could find and marched it up to the lone clerk. The old man, his wrinkled skin like gnarled driftwood, flashed an almost-toothless grin. He scanned the bottle and began paging through a thick ledger. “That’ll be twelve,” he said, placing the book down so he could alter the total.

  “Whoa, whoa…wait a second,” Phil said. He had his wallet out. “I’m paying cash here. See? Here you go. Good old U.S. currency.”

  The old man peered through his glasses at the money like it was a steaming pile of dog mess. “Oh, I’m afraid not, Mr. Benson. You’re in the ledger now. You pay just the same as the rest.”

  “Actually, I don’t think I’m going to. You know the rules, old man, and now I do too. Take the currency, or I’ll be forced into a little chat with Sherriff Rader.”

  With a cluck of the tongue, the clerk closed the ledger. Looking as though his dog had just cut a fart, he made change and placed bills—bills so worn with age and closed circulation that they felt like silk—in Phil’s hand. “Come again, you fucking twit. When that little bit of scratch runs out, you’ll be in the book like the rest of us.”

  With that, he turned his back on Phil and busied himself with a magazine.

  Smiling, Phil bagged the wine and headed home.

  The teenagers were gone when he stepped outside; their absence brightened his spirits.

  They could deal with Adrienne. It might be rough, but they could figure the damned thing out.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Tasket drove aggressively, stoic for most of the trip. Both Kelli and Bo tried to discuss what they’d just witnessed with him, but the sheriff wasn’t having it, responding only with terse, one-word answers.

  By the time he’d pulled up to the Best Western, they had given up on the idea of getting anything out of him, so it was a surprise when he put the cruiser in park and turned to face them. “So I have to ask—do the two of you really believe in it?”

  “How can’t we?” Kelli responded. “I admit, Sheriff—before I came up here to Bishop, I was just as skeptical about stuff like this as the next person. But after everything we just witnessed, how can’t we believe in it?”

  “And you, Bo?”

  “I’m with Kelli. I’m not sure just what’s happening up here, but I know that I can’t find my brother and his family, Sheriff. I won’t stop until we learn what happened to them, and if Miriam can help, then I’ll go along with it.”

  Tasket nodded.

  “What do you think we should do?” Kelli asked gently. “Can you put your trust in Miriam and visit the clearing with us when the time comes?”

  Tasket sighed; he touched his thinking spot “Family’s a hell of a thing, isn’t it? The connections we make. The things we’ll do for our loved ones. You know, my brother works in law enforcement, out in Colorado. He had a case a few years back where this woman, she was basically insane with grief over losing her daughter in a hit-and-run accident—well, she took some kids hostage. The perp made these kids’ mom trek one hundred damned miles in hip-deep snow to save her kids.

  “One hundred miles! Can you believe it?”

  “What happened?” Kelli asked.

  “That ol’ mama bear made it in time. She saved their damned lives. There was some frostbite, of course. Minor amputations, to hear my brother tell it. That, and the kids’ dad died. But that woman…she simply willed herself all that way, through all of that snow, and now she and her kids are together and making a go of it.”

  “People will go to the ends of the earth for the ones they love,” Bo said. “Phil would do the same for me and Kelli. I can’t give up on him, Sherriff. I won’t.”

  Kelli nodded, and the sheriff frowned.

  “Oh, I believe that,” he said. “I’m sure that he would, and I’m positive that you won’t give up, and I guess that’s why I’m willing to help. So…tomorrow morning?”

  Kelli beamed. She darted forward and kissed Tasket’s cheek; the lawman blushed.

  “Tomorrow morning,” she said.

  Bo shook Tasket’s hand and they watched him go before heading inside for the warmth of a hot shower and the comfort of a soft bed.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  They took their time getting the girls down for the night, but the anticipation was almost more than Wendy could stand. There was a bottle of wine and two glasses on the kitchen table and, better yet, her husband knew things—things that might get them home.

  Still, careful not to disrupt their routines, they read to the girls from a collection of stories that Cammie had brought on the trip; they chatted about the day ahead, and they assured the girls that the house had been secured.

  Carrie was snoring lightly by the time Phil eased the door shut, and Cammie wasn’t too far behind. She waved at her father and nestled down in the pillow.

  It was comforting, the girls finding ref
uge in rest.

  “So,” Wendy said, after they’d clinked glasses and moved to the ‘70s-era couch, “gimme, gimme, gimme! What’d you learn?”

  Phil grinned. “Hmmm…maybe there’s an opportunity here that I hadn’t considered. Tell you what, I’ll trade you some information in exchange for…”

  Wendy gave him a playful swat. “Plenty of time for that later, buster. You’re not the only one that could use a little stress release. But c’mon, Phil—don’t torture me! We had a deal.”

  “Okay, okay. So, I guess I’ll start with the lottery itself. Jasper’s not quite sure just when this year’s version is going down, but it’s coming right up. Things are definitely changing around town. He said it’s like this every winter.”

  He described Jasper’s past—glossing over what he had done to the Russian traders—and told her about the festive atmosphere that permeated Adrienne. He explained the Dowager’s role and the toll she exacted for people like them to take a turn at escape.

  “And it’s just…just an honor system? Seriously?”

  “Yes and no. In essence, we are working for a wage. There’s a ledger. Jasper reports my work, and Bennington keeps track of yours. We still have to pull our share. Of course, I’ll never look at a pair of Levis the same when we get out of here, but if I don’t make my quotas, we don’t get out of here. And when we go to the grocery store, they’ll make deductions, of course. They already will dock us for staying here—that’s a done deal.

  “But if we actually wanted to stay in Adrienne—and as crazy as that sounds, Jasper says there are some normals that have actually made that choice—then we might actually become pretty wealthy. It’s really like indentured servitude. You pay a fee to pull a yearly lot and then you start all over again.