Black Stump Ridge (5 page)

Dave groaned.

“Is there any place we can stop before we get to the cabin?” Johnny Carlyle fidgeted, stuck in the middle between Peete and Charlie Dobbs. The latter feigned sleep. At least, his eyes were closed as he sat curled up with his back to the door. “My ass is screaming from the bumps and I gotta pee like you wouldn’t believe.”

“You should have gone when we stopped for gas.” Fred eased to the right as another big rig blew past. The Jeep jolted once and then again as the wheel returned to the pavement.

“You did that on purpose, didn’t you? It’s bad enough my kidneys are singin’
Anchors Aweigh
. Now my tonsils are throwin’ out the life boats.”

“Tie a string around it. There’s a store in Flowersville. I have to stop there to pick up the keys and to get a few things. I think there’s an outhouse. You can take a piss there.”

•

Long shadows stretched across the highway towards the Jeep as Fred slowed. Just ahead a narrow reflectorized green sign read FLOWERSVILLE in four-inch high white letters. An arrow pointed left to a gravel road that ran up the mountain. The track disappeared as it curved behind a rocky shoulder. It reappeared farther up as a pale line among the darker rocks and tree trunks and then vanished again.

Fred drove across the highway and into a wide gravel parking lot. Three ancient gasoline pumps leaned like battle-weary soldiers atop a low concrete island. Two buildings – one a grayed and weathered frame house and the other a combination gas station and grocery store – nestled in a cul-de-sac. The mountain rose steeply behind, overshadowing both structures. The house peeked shyly from under the trees at the rear of the lot. A thin structure, barely wider than its slightly ajar front door, stood almost hidden in the shadows. The store rested on splintered logs, oddly shaped rocks, dirt-stained bricks, and cracked cinder blocks. Oily jack stands leaned perilously beneath the corners of the wooden porch that spanned the front of the building. An overstretched spring drooped from the upper frame of a battered screen door. The gray mesh billowed outward like a curtain in a haunted house. The lower screen was gone. He stopped in front of the porch and turned off the engine. The hot motor ticked in the ensuing silence.

Soot-darkened windows leered from either side of the doorway. Lights burning within cast a faint corona through the glass’s patina. Pale wood, pitted with dry rot and stained by exposure to too much rain, too much sun, and too many insects supported the corrugated porch roof. The gray, rippled metal sloped toward the parking lot adding a brow ridge and completing the building’s skull-like appearance. Reddish-brown stains spattered the dull metal face like rust or dried blood. The walls emerged from tall weeds. The boards looked dark and damp halfway up. Above that they rose, sun-bleached, to the roofline. Several slats bowed outward from the corner join.

“That must’ve been the high water line,” Dave snickered.

“What are you talkin’ about?” Peete looked around.

“The Great Flood. This place looks like it’s been here since Noah.”

The Jeep’s doors creaked as the men climbed out. The cool afternoon air promised an even colder night. Fred stretched. Johnny shot out of the back seat like a cork from a bottle, pushing Peete aside. As soon as he felt the cold air he winced. His right hand went to his crotch, as he looked around frantically.

“Hey, look!” Dave pointed at a wicker chair on the sagging porch. “There’s a scarecrow sittin’ up there.”

A gaunt form, dressed in a red and yellow long-sleeved plaid shirt and bib overalls, slouched on the chair’s faded straw. The sun-bleached pant legs stretched straight out and ended in a pair of scuffed brogans. A thatch of dark red hair shot with gray crowned a lined and stubbled face.

The others followed Fred onto the porch. When his foot touched the top step the scarecrow slowly rose, stretched, and shuffled towards them.

“Evenin’.” The scarecrow extended a gnarled hand toward Fred. Arthritic knuckles bulged. Thick veins twisted like blue ropes just beneath the tan, leathery skin.

That must be agony in the winter
, Fred thought as he gingerly reached for the scarecrow’s hand. Arthritis or not, the man’s grip was pure steel.

“Y’all mus’ be th’ bunch thet’s gonna be stayin’ up at ole Lawyer’s place.” Blue-gray eyes examined Fred’s face closely. “Yep. An’ you must be Lawyer’s great nephew. You got th’ fam’ly nose an’ cheeks.”

“Yessir.” Fred resisted the urge to rub his nose. “Name’s Kyle. Fred Kyle.”

The scarecrow nodded. “Thought so. Guess that makes us kinfolk. Perdis Flowers, though mos’ folks just calls me Purdie.” He spat a stream of tobacco juice over the porch rail. “Your mama left th’ keys with me. I s’pose y’all might be needin’ them ’fore y’all go any farther.”

Perdis looked at Johnny closely. “Son, either you’re standin’ on a ant bed or you gotta go sumpin’ awful. It’s ’round back. Got a half moon carved on th’ door. If they ain’t any paper, they’s a catalogue on th’ floor.”

Johnny turned and half ran, half shuffled around the building.

Peete shook his head. “Five bucks says he has to change his pants before we leave.”

Perdis looked closely at Peete, then at the others. Peete recognized that particular glance; he’d grown up knowing it. Until that moment he’d allowed himself to forget his difference, his blackness. He was with his friends. There was no need to guard against racism, condescension, or veiled hostility. It was a new age, a better time. Perdis’s look yanked him back to bitter reality. Fred, Johnny, Dave, and Charlie – despite their friendship Peete felt alone in a way they could never understand.

“Well, c’mon in.” Perdis pulled the sagging door open and led the way inside. “’Tain’t much by city standards, but it does fer folks ’round here.”

They followed Perdis into the dimly lit interior. Bare bulbs dangled from the ceiling by long braided cords. Their pale yellow glow fought a holding action against the darkness that tried to fill the room.

“This must be the first place Thomas Edison wired,” Dave whispered.

Rows of tilted, sagging shelves offered canned goods, hardware, jars, and boxes to the narrow aisles. Four pairs of clear glass doors lined the back wall. Many of the labels – in the coolers and on the aisles – were a faded, off-white color. The black lettering was now pale gray. Some labels, both in the cooler and on the shelves, looked to be at least a decade old. Yet, the store was spotless. Age-darkened floorboards shone in the meager light. The corners, even at the juncture of the walls and ceiling, were cobweb free. There was no dust anywhere.

Charlie stopped just before the threshold, his eyes wide and searching. Peete turned and looked at him.

“What’s wrong?”

“Probably nothing.”

“What do you mean,
probably
nothing?”

“There’s something missing here.”

“Like what?”

“There ought to be a shotgun leanin’ against the rail and a hound dog sleepin’ on the porch to go with this rockin’ chair. And, where’s the bald, cross-eyed, banjo-playing kid? You know,” Charlie mimed playing a banjo as he nasally intoned, “Nar-nar-
Nar
-nar-
Nar
-nar-
Nar
-nar-
Nar
…”

Peete yanked the baseball cap from Charlie’s head and slapped him across the shoulder. Both men laughed loudly as they stepped inside the store.

Fred turned. “What the hell set you two off?”

“You had to be there.” Charlie looked at Peete. Peete looked quickly away, but not before he muttered, “Just don’t sit next to Dennis.”

Charlie slapped Peete with his cap as both men erupted again.

“Mr. Flowers…” Fred began.

“Jes call me Purdie. We’s kin an’ even folks thet ain’t calls me that.”

“Right. Um, Purdie. I figured we’d pick up a few things here before we go up to the cabin. I’m hoping maybe you can help me out with something else, too.”

“I don’t know if I got ennythin’ y’all couldn’ta got back in the city, but hep y’selves. As fer ennythin’ else, like I said, we’s kin an’ kin allus helps kin. That’s th’ way it’s s’posed to be, ain’t it?”

“Charlie! You got your list?”

Charlie always had a list. He claimed it was because he used to be in the Quartermaster Corps in the Army. The others just called him anal.

“Got it right here.” He pulled a folded paper from his breast pocket.

“Thought you might. Why don’t you see what you can find while I have a chat with Purdie?”

While the others searched, Fred pulled Perdis aside. “I need a little help with directions. I’ve only been up to the house twice in my life, as far as I can remember. When I was eight or nine, I spent the summer up there. The other time was this past July when I came up with Mom to see the place. She drove so I’m not too sure I can find it. I got a map when we rented the Jeep, but I don’t know how good it is once we leave the main roads. I figured you could give me some directions I could trust since you’ve lived up here all your life.”

Perdis smiled, showing more gaps than teeth. Those that were still resident were cracked, brown, and leaned like old tombstones in a forgotten cemetery. “You come to th’ right person, son.” He led Fred towards the back of the store. “They’s lots o’ folks lives ’roun’ here that knows th’ hills an’ woods hereabouts. I reckon no one knows’em like Purdie Flowers.”

He pointed to a large rectangle of dark paper fastened to the back wall. To Fred, it looked like some sort of makeshift patch. He stepped closer for a better look. The dark paper consisted of grocery bags taped and glued together. A small pencil-drawn square marked the approximate center. Lines drawn in different colored pencil and ink covered the coarse surface. Some of the black lines ended at other squares.

“It’s a map.”

“Yep. Made ’er m’self. Started it nigh on seventy years ago.”

“You must have the whole county on here.”

“Pert near. Didn’t have no bicycle or nothin’ when I was a boy, so, after I done m’chores, I’d go explorin’. When I got home, I’d draw in all th’ places I’d been to. As I got older, th’ map got bigger. We couldn’t afford reg’lar paper fer me t’waste. But, we allus had th’ store, so we allus had paper bags. When I needed more paper I jus’ grabbed another bag.” Perdis pointed at the square in the center. “This here’s th’ store. An’ up here…” the finger followed a curving black line upward, “…that’s ol’ Lawyer’s place.”

“This is incredible.” The more Fred studied the crude map, the more sense it made. The black ink lines were paved roads; the pencil ones were trails or unpaved roads. Curving blue lines had to be creeks. Red lines formed rudimentary elevation lines. Fred traced one narrow blue line past the square marking his uncle’s house. It had to be the shallow stream that flowed down from the mountain and curved to run just behind the front gate and fence. Perdis had even drawn in some of the property lines. Fred could see where his uncle’s land continued on over the ridge and part way down the other side. Behind that ridge was another — and if Perdis’s elevation lines were halfway accurate — steeper and higher ridge. Near the top it looked as though something had been drawn and then rubbed out. It was the only smeared place on the map.

“What’s this?” Fred touched the smudge.

The smile left Perdis’ face. “’Tain’t nothin’ y’all need t’ worry ’bout. Uster be a minin’ camp, that’s all. Mine played out. Camp dried up. Ain’t nothin’ there no more ’ceptin’ some broke rocks an’ such.”

Perdis’ finger moved to the square marking the store and the line running upward from it. “Now, y’all jus’ foller this here gravel road up t’ th’ two lane blacktop. That’s called Drayson Creek Road, ’ceptin’ everyone ’roun’ here jus’ calls it th’ blacktop road. Turn left an’ go two miles ’til y’ come to a blowed down barn. Uster be ol’ John Mayberry’s. Storm tore it up six, mebbe seven years ago an’ he ain’t never rebuilt it. Anyways, you’ll see a dirt road on th’ right ’bout fifty feet past. Turn there an’ foller it up th’ mountain ’til y’gets t’ th’ end. Th’ last house is your uncle’s.”

Fred nodded. The directions were simple enough. He just hoped he could see the “blowed down barn” in the dark. He looked at the smudge again. The old man’s subject change seemed a little too adroit. “Did that place have a name?”

“If’n it did, ain’t no one ’roun’ here knows it no more. Only name left is Black Stump Ridge, but I don’t think that was the camp’s or the mine’s name. That’s just the name o’ th’ ridge where the mine and all uster be.”

Fred glanced at the old man. Perdis was lying. He didn’t know how he knew that, but it seemed clear to him. But, why? What was really up there?

“I might do a little exploring while we’re up here.” He tapped the map with his forefinger as he watched Purdie’s face for a reaction. “That looks like it might be interesting. Might find some old arrowheads or something.”

“You don’t wanna be messin’ ’roun’ thet ol’ place. It’s dangerous.”

“What’s so dangerous about an abandoned mining camp?”

Perdis hesitated. “They’s not much more’n deadfalls up there. Breathe on’em wrong an’ they could come down aroun’ yer ears. They’s holes in th’ ground where th’ mine was too shalla an’ not shored up proper. A body could step in one an’ break a leg or fall down inside. All kinds o’ ways a man could get hurt an’ no one even know. No one goes up there no more. Lawyer’s place is just about the closest.”