stop by in the morning. But because McCabe has unwavering faith in his dog’s ability to sense something amiss out there, he doesn’t fancy the idea of waiting that long. The wondering will keep him awake all night if he doesn’t go see what it is.
“How likely am I to run into a demon or a ghost out there, girl?” he asks the dog.
Pepper says nothing, just looks through him to the door as if, merely by mentioning it, he has become a ghost himself.
And though the old man feels silly at the note of fear pealing through him, he can’t deny that the dog has him more worried than he’s accustomed to being. The last time he saw Pepper this alarmed, McCabe had stood up from the supper table and followed her outside into the fine spring evening, where he found his wife lying prostrate in the yard, her heart as dead and cold as the rocks upon which she lay, her laundry basket turned on its side, the freshly laundered clothes strewn about her head and shoulders.
He doesn’t like to think about that now, no more than he likes the waves of terror that radiate from the dog and creep into the marrow of his old bones.
Something is wrong out there, and he tells himself that if he has any sense at all, he’ll stay locked up inside with the old girl and wait until sunup to go investigate. But then he reminds himself that people sometimes get themselves in trouble on the mountain; youngsters mostly, sometimes the occasional hiker who tries to scale the peak without doing their homework first. The mountainside is full of bottomless holes and crevasses partially concealed by shrubbery, mires disguised as weed-choked clearings, and loose shale that can go from under you in a heartbeat and send you tumbling. He’s watched many a man being airlifted off the slope, fielded questions about youths gone missing, some of whom showed up looking worse for wear, some of whom were never seen again. And every time he’d felt a twinge of guilt for not intervening, for not shooing them off the slope or at least giving them some advice on how best to proceed if they were determined to carry on. He knows it is ridiculous, of course. He can hardly be held responsible for what others choose to do of their own free will, but the fact of the matter is that nobody out here knows the mountain better than he does—he has after all, lived here for the greater part of his long life—and so he feels a sort of guardianship toward both the mountain and the people who traverse its hostile terrain. He is one of the few people who still call the mountain home, the lure of the big city too great to resist and the increasing lack of agricultural viability too great to survive. He knows the mountain is a dangerous place, but he has never really feared it, despite acknowledging that there are things about it that he can’t explain and that don’t always make sense.
But thanks to Pepper, he fears it now.
“C’mon then,” he tells the dog, and tries not to let her anxiety freeze him in place. With one last longing look back at the fire, he sighs, snatches a flashlight from its hook by the door, and opens the door to the night.
It is quiet out there. No birdsong, no bark of mating animals, no shriek of cornered prey. The slop e rises greenly up to his left until swathed by a dark bandolier of beech and oak. Boulders speckle the plain around his small cabin, looking like knuckled bones in the cloudy moonlight.
Behind him, Pepper whines on the threshold, the small silver bell on her collar jingling as she reluctantly does her duty and follows her master out the door.
Troubled, he closes the door behind her, offers her a soothing word she does not, despite the acuity of her senses, seem to hear, and heads off toward the only thing on the mountain that has immediately registered as out of place: the small amber glow of a campsite somewhere up there in the trees. He assumes that if there’s something amiss, he’ll find it there. What he does not yet know is
“How likely am I to run into a demon or a ghost out there, girl?” he asks the dog.
Pepper says nothing, just looks through him to the door as if, merely by mentioning it, he has become a ghost himself.
And though the old man feels silly at the note of fear pealing through him, he can’t deny that the dog has him more worried than he’s accustomed to being. The last time he saw Pepper this alarmed, McCabe had stood up from the supper table and followed her outside into the fine spring evening, where he found his wife lying prostrate in the yard, her heart as dead and cold as the rocks upon which she lay, her laundry basket turned on its side, the freshly laundered clothes strewn about her head and shoulders.
He doesn’t like to think about that now, no more than he likes the waves of terror that radiate from the dog and creep into the marrow of his old bones.
Something is wrong out there, and he tells himself that if he has any sense at all, he’ll stay locked up inside with the old girl and wait until sunup to go investigate. But then he reminds himself that people sometimes get themselves in trouble on the mountain; youngsters mostly, sometimes the occasional hiker who tries to scale the peak without doing their homework first. The mountainside is full of bottomless holes and crevasses partially concealed by shrubbery, mires disguised as weed-choked clearings, and loose shale that can go from under you in a heartbeat and send you tumbling. He’s watched many a man being airlifted off the slope, fielded questions about youths gone missing, some of whom showed up looking worse for wear, some of whom were never seen again. And every time he’d felt a twinge of guilt for not intervening, for not shooing them off the slope or at least giving them some advice on how best to proceed if they were determined to carry on. He knows it is ridiculous, of course. He can hardly be held responsible for what others choose to do of their own free will, but the fact of the matter is that nobody out here knows the mountain better than he does—he has after all, lived here for the greater part of his long life—and so he feels a sort of guardianship toward both the mountain and the people who traverse its hostile terrain. He is one of the few people who still call the mountain home, the lure of the big city too great to resist and the increasing lack of agricultural viability too great to survive. He knows the mountain is a dangerous place, but he has never really feared it, despite acknowledging that there are things about it that he can’t explain and that don’t always make sense.
But thanks to Pepper, he fears it now.
“C’mon then,” he tells the dog, and tries not to let her anxiety freeze him in place. With one last longing look back at the fire, he sighs, snatches a flashlight from its hook by the door, and opens the door to the night.
It is quiet out there. No birdsong, no bark of mating animals, no shriek of cornered prey. The slop e rises greenly up to his left until swathed by a dark bandolier of beech and oak. Boulders speckle the plain around his small cabin, looking like knuckled bones in the cloudy moonlight.
Behind him, Pepper whines on the threshold, the small silver bell on her collar jingling as she reluctantly does her duty and follows her master out the door.
Troubled, he closes the door behind her, offers her a soothing word she does not, despite the acuity of her senses, seem to hear, and heads off toward the only thing on the mountain that has immediately registered as out of place: the small amber glow of a campsite somewhere up there in the trees. He assumes that if there’s something amiss, he’ll find it there. What he does not yet know is
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