don’t want you to die either. Why don’t we just keep on driving? Like maybe to California?”
That was a question I had a hard time trying to answer. I couldn’t tell her that three ghosts and the blue fire in my belly made such a tempting act impossible. The best I could do was, “You’ll be safe at the cabin. We both will.”
I stopped at Wal Mart stores on the outskirts of Hickory, Statesville, and Asheville, sending Liz into each one with cash to buy a few warm clothes, hiking boots, and personal toiletries. Using a credit card was out of the question, and I didn’t want to drop a large amount in any one place, but thankfully, money was not a problem. I still had better than two grand in my wallet, left over from the five I’d taken out of the bank when I’d deposited Helene Fordham’s down payment.
And so, we arrived at the cabin’s oak gate just before dusk. The first thing I noticed was the difference in temperature. Much colder than usual. The first thing Liz noticed was the noise. “What is it, Jeb? Sounds like the ocean.”
“It’s the river. Come on, I’ll show you.”
I took my time driving down the zigzag macadam driveway to the house, explaining to Liz that Cal had bought the cabin and the sixteen acres of sloping wilderness right after my mother had died. “There were no neighbors within ten miles then, and even fewer now. We always came up here for a few weeks each summer, and every other year Cal would bring his Boy Scout Troop up here for camping, fishing, and rafting. After we unpack, I’ll show you the cave we found, too. Real Robinson Crusoe stuff.”
“You must have had some boyhood.”
“That I did. Cal tells me I never quite got out of it.”
“You don’t call him Dad?”
“No. Ever since my Mom died, I’ve always called him Cal, and he calls me Pal.”
I set the handbrake and we got out of the Chevy. Liz was impressed with the five-room cabin; solidly constructed of real logs and indigenous rock, actually built in two levels, right into the slope of the mountain, thirty feet above the river. We walked, carefully, down the narrow footpath as far as we could go.
“My God, it looks like the Colorado!” Liz shouted. She was right. The flooding rains had turned the Quail River from a pebble-bottomed trout stream you could sometimes wade across into a raging, mud-yellow express train, fifteen feet above its normal bank. So close to the cabin in fact, that it almost reached the small shed and the four-man Zodiac hanging under it.
“Cal is an expert with that boat, Liz. We liked to take her downstream through the mild rapids to the reservoir, about eight miles from here. We called it ‘shooting the moon.’ He always keeps her in tip-top shape, too. Come on; let me show you our cave. We can unpack later.”
In certain areas, from New York to Georgia, the great eastern mountain range is pocked with caves; some tiny, some enormous; a spelunker’s delight. We had discovered ours the second summer up here, its entrance nearly hidden by a cluster of pine, now grown even bigger. It wasn’t a large cave, maybe thirty square feet of slanted floor, and anyone over five-three would have to stoop to walk in it. Liz poked her nose inside once and said, “I’m not going in there, Jeb Willard. Besides, it stinks.”
I laughed. “You’re right. We didn’t bring a light, anyway. Let’s go back. I think it’s going to rain again. Careful, now, I don’t want you slipping. It would be hard to fish you out of that river right now.”
It didn’t take Liz long to adjust to the rustic life. Well, hardly rustic. Cal had long ago installed a power generator—with a backup—in plus a freezer and fridge, always kept well stocked, and a pantry full of canned goods with a hanging wine rack. While I got the fire going in the living room fireplace, she busied herself with throwing together a meal worthy of any chef, and we ate every bite of it. The bottle of decent Cabernet finished me
That was a question I had a hard time trying to answer. I couldn’t tell her that three ghosts and the blue fire in my belly made such a tempting act impossible. The best I could do was, “You’ll be safe at the cabin. We both will.”
I stopped at Wal Mart stores on the outskirts of Hickory, Statesville, and Asheville, sending Liz into each one with cash to buy a few warm clothes, hiking boots, and personal toiletries. Using a credit card was out of the question, and I didn’t want to drop a large amount in any one place, but thankfully, money was not a problem. I still had better than two grand in my wallet, left over from the five I’d taken out of the bank when I’d deposited Helene Fordham’s down payment.
And so, we arrived at the cabin’s oak gate just before dusk. The first thing I noticed was the difference in temperature. Much colder than usual. The first thing Liz noticed was the noise. “What is it, Jeb? Sounds like the ocean.”
“It’s the river. Come on, I’ll show you.”
I took my time driving down the zigzag macadam driveway to the house, explaining to Liz that Cal had bought the cabin and the sixteen acres of sloping wilderness right after my mother had died. “There were no neighbors within ten miles then, and even fewer now. We always came up here for a few weeks each summer, and every other year Cal would bring his Boy Scout Troop up here for camping, fishing, and rafting. After we unpack, I’ll show you the cave we found, too. Real Robinson Crusoe stuff.”
“You must have had some boyhood.”
“That I did. Cal tells me I never quite got out of it.”
“You don’t call him Dad?”
“No. Ever since my Mom died, I’ve always called him Cal, and he calls me Pal.”
I set the handbrake and we got out of the Chevy. Liz was impressed with the five-room cabin; solidly constructed of real logs and indigenous rock, actually built in two levels, right into the slope of the mountain, thirty feet above the river. We walked, carefully, down the narrow footpath as far as we could go.
“My God, it looks like the Colorado!” Liz shouted. She was right. The flooding rains had turned the Quail River from a pebble-bottomed trout stream you could sometimes wade across into a raging, mud-yellow express train, fifteen feet above its normal bank. So close to the cabin in fact, that it almost reached the small shed and the four-man Zodiac hanging under it.
“Cal is an expert with that boat, Liz. We liked to take her downstream through the mild rapids to the reservoir, about eight miles from here. We called it ‘shooting the moon.’ He always keeps her in tip-top shape, too. Come on; let me show you our cave. We can unpack later.”
In certain areas, from New York to Georgia, the great eastern mountain range is pocked with caves; some tiny, some enormous; a spelunker’s delight. We had discovered ours the second summer up here, its entrance nearly hidden by a cluster of pine, now grown even bigger. It wasn’t a large cave, maybe thirty square feet of slanted floor, and anyone over five-three would have to stoop to walk in it. Liz poked her nose inside once and said, “I’m not going in there, Jeb Willard. Besides, it stinks.”
I laughed. “You’re right. We didn’t bring a light, anyway. Let’s go back. I think it’s going to rain again. Careful, now, I don’t want you slipping. It would be hard to fish you out of that river right now.”
It didn’t take Liz long to adjust to the rustic life. Well, hardly rustic. Cal had long ago installed a power generator—with a backup—in plus a freezer and fridge, always kept well stocked, and a pantry full of canned goods with a hanging wine rack. While I got the fire going in the living room fireplace, she busied herself with throwing together a meal worthy of any chef, and we ate every bite of it. The bottle of decent Cabernet finished me
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