Chapter Ten

They arrived in Pasternak a little after 5:00 p.m. with the sun inching below the western mountains and the town preternaturally dark. It was a place that seemed to grow up out of nothing, like a patch of moss on a giant rock. It was a dying place, not long for this world. Pasternak was forever losing – people, business, life. It seemed to shrink in the cold shadow of the mountains but somehow remained populated with stragglers who found ways to get by with virtually no major industry in the area. The town was originally settled in 1850 as an iron mining and timber town, but social and governmental changes ended it before it could ever really begin. The Adirondack logging industry was pursued by the government, while large and brutal corporations sought to capitalize on veins of iron that coursed through the mountains and played havoc with explorers’ compasses. The iron industry, however, never truly materialized. Only five years into opening operations and building over one hundred factory houses in Pasternak, the Witherbee-Sherman Mining Company closed up the mines and shuttered its blast furnaces. The deposits around Pasternak were too deep, the iron veins too thin to follow to their source. A small collapse, which claimed the lives of five men, finally ended operations, and Witherbee-Sherman decided to focus on their other factory towns like Mineville and Moriah. The logging industry held on for two decades before famed topographical engineer and environmental activist Verplanck Colvin issued his poetic and apocalyptic report to the state legislature, saying the Adirondack wilderness warranted preservation. The state reacted quickly and decisively, creating a state forest preserve that exists to this day. Pasternak was ruined virtually overnight, and the townspeople burnt an effigy of Colvin during a disturbing night of unrest. Old-timers, steeped in the history of the town, still sneer at the mention of his name, and the collective loathing ran as deep as the iron deposits beneath coniferous mountains, which remain untouched.

Few new houses had been built since the 1800s, and the ‘town’ consisted of Main Street and two bisecting roads that created a small square of commerce. The ‘commerce’ consisted of one gas station (there was a second by the freeway), a diner, a bar, VFW, a small supply store, and some specialty shops that sold guns and ammo, bait and tackle, musical instruments and home decor. The white steeple of a one-room church was the highest point, reaching just above the trees at the western end. The small, brick elementary school was around the corner. There were two more blocks of houses in either direction, but there wasn’t much keeping Pasternak running besides spite and a continual need to hang on to the last remnants of a forgotten life. At least an hour’s drive from any populated area that could actually give someone a career, it seemed to exist outside time and culture, a place that would probably never die but was never truly alive to begin with. If anything supplied Pasternak with lifeblood it was, in one way or the other, the wilderness itself. A river crisscrossed with small bridges ran alongside the town square. The water was low from lack of rain, shallow swirls of darkness around gray-white stones. The trees crept in from every direction. One could turn a corner and find themselves face-to-face with a vast wilderness, constantly lurking at the threshold.

Conner pulled into the parking lot of a small Piggly Wiggly, which did its best to supply everything the townspeople might need before they had to get on the highway and drive several miles south to an actual store. Pickup trucks lined the sidewalks. There were a few small cars in a Cumberland Farms parking lot. Michael was slightly drunk, Conner’s eyes bloodshot from driving, Jonathan’s face drained, withered and white. He felt like he was seeing the world – the real world – for the first time, shocked into existence by the ghost of Thomas Terrywile.

In that way he resembled the residents of Pasternak – at least the few who were wandering the aisles of the small grocery. Obviously single, unshaved older men limped slowly with handheld baskets; abandoned women leaned heavily on wire shopping carts with chattering wheels to support their aged bulk. They all seemed in a similar state of shock, as if the bottom had dropped out from beneath them and they were lost in a new weightless, worthless world. The only sign of life was the girl working the checkout register, waiting for a customer, her thumb swiping at a smartphone.

Jonathan and the brothers bought food they could carry – jerky, candy bars, trail mix – and then food for the cabin – eggs, bacon, bread, peanut butter. Conner planned on a massive breakfast before setting out in the morning. The girl at the register was probably sixteen, blond hair in a ponytail and disinterested eyes. She could have been found anywhere in America, but she was here and resented that most of all.

Michael stopped briefly at the neighboring liquor store and bought three bottles of whiskey, mumbling, “We’ll need these.” Stress fractures were beginning to show on his stony face. Conner remained business as usual, keeping up his slick demeanor, but Jonathan suspected that by the end they all would be revealed, stripped of their phony facades, like a gutted deer, opened to show its inner workings to the world.

Bill Flood’s apartment was just above the Olde American Diner on the corner of Main and Black Bridge Road, which crossed the cold and frothy Wilbur Creek. Darkness came early as the sun dropped below the mountains, and light from the diner showed a few couples seated in Fifties-style booths and men in trucker caps drinking coffee. A hastily constructed wooden staircase climbed the side of the diner to a small landing outside Bill’s apartment. Conner knocked while Jonathan and Michael waited a couple of steps below. They waited and knocked again and waited.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Conner said.

“He knew we were coming?” Jonathan asked.

“I talked to him last week,” Conner said. He took out his phone and called. They could hear the phone ringing just beyond the door. He then tried Bill’s cell phone, but it went straight to voicemail.

“Goddammit,” Conner said. “I just want to be there already.”

“Does anyone remember how to get to the cabin? Maybe we could go out there without him,” Jonathan said.

“Hell if I remember. The road isn’t even on the map, and even if we found it, what are we going to do, break in?” Conner said.

They stood for a moment longer, looking around the dark, lonely town accented with streetlights. It was cold, approaching freezing. Trucks and cars rolled down Main Street; figures with thick jackets and jeans trundled along the sidewalk in and out of the glow of shop windows and the Olde American Diner. From only the second floor, they could see over the tops of the century-old buildings to the surrounding mountains.

“We’re going to be out there with all that,” Jonathan said.

“With all what?”

He nodded toward the heavy darkness. The brothers looked and understood, on some level. At least at home there was the knowledge that civilization was right around the corner, but here there was no such refuge. In the mountains, night was still as ancient as when man first sparked fire and prayed to strange gods. And now they were here, dressed as hunters like Conner’s young son at the Halloween parade, pretending they could go out and live that dark life, complete their sacrifice. New fools in an old world, staring into the immense black of a moonless night.

There was no sign of Bill in the diner, and the waitress said she hadn’t seen him all day, but that he was a regular in the mornings. She suggested trying a tavern just down the street where he was known to frequent. Conner kept shaking his head and cursing Bill beneath his breath.

Jonathan called Mary to check in and tell her they had arrived safely but were still waiting on the cabin owner. He talked with Jacob and told his only son that he missed him. It was true; he missed them both terribly, the purpose of the trip adding to his burden, his fear of losing the only good things in his life if the plan went awry. Already the signs were not good. They were all tense. Everything needed to function perfectly in order for them to complete their task and return home before the weather set in. Jonathan told Mary cell coverage was limited at the cabin, so this was probably the last he’d speak to her or Jacob for three days. He told her he loved her and then told himself it was all for her and Jacob. It was both the truth and a lie.

Finally, Michael said, “Fuck it, let’s get some food and beers. Maybe we can find that old bastard at that bar.” Conner drove the SUV across the small town and parked outside The Forge, a tavern with small windows shining Pabst and Budweiser neon into the night. The Forge was a small place. It looked ramshackle even in a place as poor as Pasternak, the kind of place that probably spurred numerous public safety complaints but would never be touched because all the men drank there.

The inside was all dim light and smoke, New York’s anti-smoking laws ignored in this quiet cave. There were several tables in the front, and the bar ran the length of a narrow, wood-paneled interior. Men wrapped in shade and flannel, with thick hands and forearms, sat in booths and on barstools. The bartender was bone thin, scraggly hair dripping down his skull; he wore only jeans and an undershirt. The air inside was hot and stale and smelled of old grease and beer. A group of five men were talking at the corner of the bar, laughing loudly, beers in hand, looking up occasionally at a television running football highlights. They went silent when Conner, Michael and Jonathan walked through the door. It was right out of an old Western. Some things never change; in a neighborhood bar, when strangers walk in they get looked up and down. Ten or twelve years earlier it would have been the three of them back at home standing in the corner of the East Side Tavern, swilling cheap beer and staring down the newcomer. Yet this seemed different. The place literally went silent, and it wasn’t until after they sat down at a table that the talking began again, this time in slow and low murmurs.

“You sure you want to eat here?” Conner asked, but Michael was already thumbing through a plastic menu on the table. Conner gave up and looked at Jonathan. “You want to go get some beers?” Jonathan nodded and they walked to the bar. The bartender took his time coming down. He looked worse up close, lips cracked, the skin of his arms marked with puncture wounds.

“Kitchen open?” Conner asked.

“Sure thing, you just let me know what you want.” They ordered two pitchers of beer and paid cash. Conner left a good tip, which seemed to soften the bartender up a bit.

“You boys just get in from out of town?” he said.

Conner settled into his social easiness, like water around any obstruction. “Yeah, we were supposed to meet up with Bill Flood, but we can’t find him anywhere.”

“Bill Flood? What do you want with that old bastard?” The bartender was practically laughing.

“We rented his cabin up in Coombs’ Gulch. He was supposed to take us out there tonight to open it up, but he isn’t home and isn’t answering the phone.”

“You guys ain’t trying to hunt up there, are you?”

“Why?”

“Place is dead as a grave. I don’t think anybody’s shot anything up there in a decade. Bill done took you for a ride if you’re paying good money to go hunt the Gulch.”

“Really?” Conner said. “We did pretty good last time we were here.”

“When was that?”

“’Bout ten years ago.”

“Well, things have changed up there,” he said. “Listen, friend. Don’t give Bill Flood your money. I got a couple buddies here that will take you out to some real hunting spots, show you around a bit. They’re kinda like guides.” He gestured down to the end of the bar. Four thick-faced men with small shiny eyes raised their beer glasses to them, and Conner nodded back. One had a big, red beard, hands thick as a bear’s paws and sweat pouring down the sides of his head. He smiled and stared at them. Jonathan felt a deep discomfort in his stomach. The bartender gestured over his shoulder. “Larry here knows these woods better than anybody. Takes folks out hunting all the time.”

“I appreciate the offer,” Conner said. “But I think we’ll take our chances as it is. Have you seen Bill at all?”

The bartender suddenly cooled, seemingly offended at the rejection of his offer. “Nah, I ain’t seen him since last night when he was tying one on. He’s probably up at that cabin right now, drunk out of his mind.” The bartender leaned over the bar, in close, and Jonathan could suddenly smell him, flesh and sweat. “Listen, you guys don’t want to go up there. Last group that went up there, they lost a couple guys. Got all turned around; two of them died of exposure, stuck outside all night. You boys don’t want to go there, ’specially if you don’t know what you’re doing. They’re gonna pave over that whole section of forest next year. In my opinion, it can’t come soon enough.”

Michael came to the bar and interrupted the awkward moment, changing the subject to food. They ordered burgers and wings, loading up for the night, and then took their seats, pouring out draught beer into pint glasses.

“So that was interesting,” Conner said.

“What happened?” Michael said.

“They pretty much warned us off of Coombs’ Gulch.”

“Fuck them,” Michael said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jonathan said. “We just need to get this done. We need to find Bill.”

“There must be somebody who knows where he is.”

“Like the guy said, he’s probably at the cabin right now, drunk off his ass.” The bartender talked with the good ol’ boys down at the end of the bar, occasionally glancing at their table, probably trying to figure out how they could make some money off of the newcomers aside from their failed ‘hunting guide’ offer.

They ate simple food, nothing the kitchen could screw up too badly. Conner kept trying to call Bill Flood.

Michael went up to use the bathroom at the shadowed end of the bar, and Jonathan sat dazed, staring into his beer. Conner was sending Bill an email telling him they were looking for him. Then there was a commotion, activity that bled into Jonathan’s vision from the corner of his eye. Michael, one arm extended, shoved a big, red-bearded lurcher back into his barstool. It seemed to happen in a separate moment in time, the rest of the world waiting to catch up. Then everything went fast and loud. The others pushed Michael back against the wall, and someone reached over and grabbed him by the shirt collar. A quick punch was thrown. Beer glasses spilled and broke. Michael threw a fist over someone’s shoulder, breaking a nose. Jonathan and Conner were up, pushing chairs out of their way, rushing toward the melee at the end of the bar. The bartender got out a piece of pipe. Everything was hazy and smoky and blurred. They rushed into a mess of arms and shoulders that felt like rock, pushing them off Michael. A fist the size of a ham caught Jonathan above the eye. He swung out with a left, and then a battery of hands and arms flew at him; he ducked his head from the barrage. An arm wrapped around his neck from behind and squeezed, and Jonathan suddenly couldn’t inhale. He panicked, trying to pull the thick arm away from his neck. Jonathan pushed the big man back against the bar and rammed his lower back into the wood, punched him in the groin and nearly tore his own ear off pulling out of the chokehold. Jonathan stared the man in the eye for a moment – black, glossy marbles, dimmed with alcohol, a black-and-white goatee that reached his Adam’s apple, a look of violent intensity in his face – and then punched him square in the mouth. His fist scraped against whiskers and ripped across teeth, and the sheer violence of it suddenly made Jonathan want to quit and just take the beating. Conner and Michael struggled against Larry and two bigger, meaner-looking men, and then Jonathan saw the bartender, with his piece of pipe, wrap one of them around the throat and pull them off Michael. He grabbed them by their collars and pulled them away as if it were an old game he was accustomed to playing, like a woman with a lot of dogs who occasionally has to keep them from killing each other. His voice rang across the bar, and suddenly it all seemed to stop. Jonathan was tossed to the ground and landed hard on the old wood floor. He could see legs and jeans and boots and heard the bartender telling them to get the fuck out. “I’ve had enough of this shit every night, Larry! Get your shit and get out. Got enough trouble here!”

“Fuck yourself, Andy. You’re no fucking good anyway.” Larry was practically lunging at the bartender, who held up his pipe, ready to strike.

It was quiet, but there was electricity in the air; they were all panting, eyes bugging out of their heads, hearts pounding, blood pulsing, pulling at their clothes to put them back in their proper place, waiting for the next move. Jonathan stood up so he was ready, and the three of them stood facing the five locals with a pipe-wielding bartender holding the tentative peace.

Finally, Larry looked away from Michael and back to the bartender. Larry was bleeding from the nose, his red mustache and beard looked wet and tinged with darkness. “Fine, Andy. We’ll leave. But I didn’t lay a finger on that fucker. He hit first. You saw that.”

“You know what you said, Larry. I can’t be having this shit on a nightly basis with you.”

Larry pointed a finger at Michael. “This shit ain’t over. You fellas better watch your back.”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” Michael said.

“You all are strangers here. Don’t forget that shit. Enjoy Coombs’, you peckerwood pussies.”

Larry and his friends shouldered through and went out the rickety door into the night. Jonathan finally let down his guard and breathed and started taking account of any damage. He’d been hit a few times; he just wasn’t sure how bad yet. He rubbed a hand across the side of his face. His knuckles were bleeding where they’d cut across teeth. Blood leaked from the corner of his mouth, and his left ear felt like the skin had rubbed off. A knot formed on his forehead above his right eye. Michael and Conner were in similar shape. No missing teeth, no apparent broken bones, everyone tuned up and coming down and restless. Michael fumed.

Conner thanked the bartender, but he only stared, pipe in hand. “You don’t get too welcomed up here by getting into a fight with those boys. Some of them are all right. Some of them ain’t. Just sayin’. You boys best be finding Bill Flood and get the hell out of town.”

Defeat began to set in, and they sat back down at the table, still wanting to be anywhere but here.

“What the fuck happened?” Conner asked.

“He said something,” Michael said. “He was saying… I don’t know. Strange things. He threatened us.”

“So what?” Conner said. “It’s not worth pissing off guys like that up here.”

Jonathan could now see that Michael was drunker than he let on. He’d always had the ability to hide it well, his glazed-over eyes the only telltale sign.

“We’ll be lucky if we go up there and they don’t kill us in our sleep.”

“We have guns,” Michael said.

“They probably got a thousand guns!” Conner said. Then he lowered his voice to a whisper. “We can’t afford to be making mistakes. We can’t afford to be remembered. We can’t afford to have the police talking to us. Don’t lose focus on why we’re here. It’s certainly not to fuck around with the local wildlife.”

Jonathan watched the bartender for a time. They had pretty much chased out all his business for the night. He stood up and went to the bar to pay the tab. The bartender looked him up and down and seemed repulsed.

Jonathan paid the tab and tipped him a twenty. “Sorry about all that,” he said. “But thank you for not letting us get killed.”

The bartender’s eyes burned bright and huge beneath his long hair, as if he were riding some insane beast that only he could see. “I can’t stop you from getting killed, friend. I can only stop you from getting killed in here.”

Jonathan nodded. “Do you know how to get to Bill Flood’s cabin? It’s just we have nowhere to stay tonight and if someone could show us how to get there…”

“Never been there myself. Never had reason to. Place isn’t any good these days anyway. But there might be someone I can call. Bill’s good friends with this guy Daryl Teague. I know he knows how to get out there.”

Jonathan tipped him another ten. “It would be a big help,” he said. “It would get us out of here anyway.”

He took the ten and said, “Probably for the best then,” and walked to the phone.

Conner groaned the second they walked outside to wait for Daryl Teague. All four tires of his Suburban were slashed, and the SUV sat on its rims like a beached whale. The night grew longer and longer. In ancient times it would all have been a warning of disaster, the various problems, big and small. The rhythm of the trip was all wrong. The ancients would have turned back by now, knowing that the time for this undertaking was not right with the gods, but then, they had no other time, no other way.

“What the hell do we do now?” Michael said.

“We have to keep going,” Conner said. “There’s no choice.”