Black Mountain

THREE

‘And what’s wrong with you today, mister?’

The trainer scratched his head as he watched the West African lion circle in its cage. Its golden hide covered 500 pounds of rippling muscle, and the long fur on its head and at its neck framed a fearsome visage. Its ribs moved in and out as it panted heavily. It stopped its pacing to place its large snout against the bars and inhaled, snorting out a sneeze as though wanting to dislodge something unpleasant from its nostrils. It swung away, making a disagreeable growling sound deep in its chest.

The trainer noticed it kept staring at a spot just over his shoulder. He turned; there was nothing there but mountain, darkening in the fading sunlight.

‘Settle down, Odin, it’s just a big-ass old mountain. C’mon, we’ve done this a hundred times.’

The trainer stood at the cage door with broom, mop and bucket, and a shortened cattle prod under his arm. He knew the lion, and it knew him. Usually it ignored him, or, at worst, acted like a misbehaving teenager and swiped at the mop or knocked over his bucket. But today, something was upsetting the creature — and no one wanted to get close to a giant lion when it was acting weird.

‘Should I call the vet? You got an upset, boy?’

The lion lay down and fixed its golden eyes, sphinx-like, on the spot in the distance. It remained like that for many minutes, and the trainer finally shrugged. ‘That’s more like it.’

He put his cleaning tools down and reached for the slide lock on the door with one hand while keeping hold of the cattle prod in the other — a foot-long baton with two exposed electrodes at the business end. He’d never used it — he and Odin were old friends — but still… The lock slid back and he pulled the heavy, metal gate open with a slight squeal, as he had done weekly over many years. He waited at the door for another few seconds, but the lion could have been stuffed and mounted for all the attention it gave him.

‘Okay.’ He reached down for his bucket, just for a second.

A maelstrom of fur and teeth flashed in his vision, and a roar exploded from mighty jaws. He fell backwards and threw his hands up over his head. Odin leaped over him and was gone.

The lion shot through the circus like an express train, its golden mane rippling in the chilly afternoon’s fading light. The trainer lay shivering on the ground, his hands up and crossed over his face. A warm, wet patch spread across his groin.

‘Chief. It’s Jason Van Hortenson again.’

Asheville’s police chief, Bill Logan, groaned and rubbed his balding pate. He thought briefly about telling Shelley, his septuagenarian receptionist, to tell the man he wasn’t in. Then he shook his head and held both hands open in surrender. It wouldn’t do any good to ignore the call — the annoying man would call back on the hour, every freakin’ hour.

‘I’ll take it, Shell.’

A light on his phone started to blink, and he picked up the handset in one large hand, depressing the lit button with his little finger on the way to his ear.

‘Mr Van Hortenson, how are you tod—’ He pulled the phone away from his ear slightly as the man’s voice blared over him.

Van Hortenson was one of the new breed that had moved into the community in the last few years. Young moneyed sorts, they’d been buying up the smaller farms in the area, spending a fortune on them, then stocking them with some of the best-looking, best-groomed animals in the region. Hobby farmers, the locals called them; they worked Monday to Friday in high-paying jobs on the coast, then spent their vacations on the farm. Presumably, it gave them some sort of back-to-nature bragging rights.

Chief Logan grimaced and breathed in evenly through his nose as he looked up at the Asheville Police Department shield on his wall. Integrity, Fairness, Respect — the guiding principles of the APD. He tried hard to remember what they meant every time Van Hortenson rang to blast him for the most minor of perceived infringements. This time, he had some sympathy for the man — seemed someone was stealing his expensive Lakenvelder milking cows. Pretty stupid, as the brilliantly black-and-white beasts were pretty rare in these parts. Also, given the man only had two dozen cows, a single animal going missing would be immediately noticed.

‘I’m sorry to hear that, sir,’ Logan managed to cut in. ‘Just to be clear — just the one animal taken again? I’ll send a car around, but you might want to consider an aerial search, sir… No, I’m afraid you need to organise that; we just don’t have the resources available right now. But, sir, my gut feel is these animals are wandering off —’

He pulled the phone away from his ear again and grinned. Shelley turned to mouth the word ouch to him. After another few seconds he put the phone carefully back to his ear and hmm-hmmed a few times.

‘Might be a good idea to house the cattle closer to town for a few days, Mr Van Hortenson — be cheaper than losing more head.’

Logan finished by promising to send a man up for another look-see, then hung up. He sat staring at the phone for a few minutes as his mind worked over the details. Three full-grown cattle gone over three nights. They weighed about 1000 pounds each; you couldn’t exactly strap one to the hood of your car and speed through the town square.

‘That’s a helluva lot of free steak,’ he said out loud.

He turned to stare out the window. The weather was getting colder. He couldn’t see the cattle wandering up into the Black Mountain, not when the snow was starting in earnest. Besides, the tree cover up there was too dense for grazing. So where are those big brutes going? he wondered.

‘Higher, Daddy!’

The grin on five-year-old Emma Wilson’s face threatened to split her cheeks as she kicked her skinny legs forward on the upswing and then tucked them back under the seat on the backswing.

‘Last few times, Emma honey,’ Clark Wilson said. ‘It’s getting cold and dark, and I need to rustle up some dinner for the both of us.’

‘Eggs?’ she called on the upswing.

‘Nope,’ Clark replied as she came towards him on the backswing.

‘Dogs and ketchup?’

‘Nooo. Last guess.’ He smiled.

‘Um, eggs?’

Clark laughed. ‘Mommy left us a nice big pie — but I’ll do the extras.’

‘Yay. But no peas, Daddy — they’re little balls of yuck.’

‘Okay, no peas. Last big swing…’

‘Just a bit longer, pleeease. I can almost see the top of the mountain when I swing up really high, and I’m not cold at all.’

Clark turned to where his daughter was looking and half-smiled. Sunsets on the mountain were magnificent this time of year. The summer heat was long gone, autumn was just beginning to bite with a few light snows on the higher slopes, and the air at the foot of the mountain was as clean and clear as you could get anywhere on the continent. And she was right — it wasn’t that cold. The evening was calm and quiet. It would have been perfect except for a damned funny smell — must be another squirrel gone and died under the house. Why they kept doing that, he never knew.

He looked back at his daughter. She looked so happy on the swing, in her favourite red sweater, pink rubber boots and some big clip-on earrings she’d pestered Helen to buy her from the market — blue glass beads finishing in tiny silver bells that tinkled like music. Emma said they reminded her of Christmas time. Clark shrugged — a few more minutes in this wonderful air wouldn’t hurt, he reckoned.

‘Okay, Emma-boo. But when I call, you come in… and no daredevil swings, all right?’

‘Never!’ But she kicked out hard, her little body almost going horizontal on the swing, the earrings jingling.

‘Count up to ten five times — by then you’ll be hungry,’ Clark told her.

He jumped up onto the small porch and pulled open the swing door. He appeared at the kitchen window, and opened the glass pane so Emma could hear him when he called. Then he started pulling utensils and pans from cupboards, and lifted the pre-baked pie from the refrigerator. Mmm, he thought, and broke off some of the crust and popped it in his mouth, raising his eyebrows in delight.

He checked the window — Emma swung back and forth in the repetition the very young enjoyed. He went back to his tasks, humming. The metronomic whine of the swing and the sound of Emma counting drifted in through the window. Life was good; moving to Asheville was the best decision he and Helen had ever made. No traffic, no smog, no street aggro — and access to the internet gave them the same size shop window as the big city boys at a hundredth of the cost. A no-brainer, really.

He grabbed a handful of carrots and potatoes from the pantry, and looked briefly at the bag of fresh peas — little balls of yuck. He chuckled; he’d take ’em over brussels sprouts any day.

There was a small squeak and metallic pop from outside the window and the sound of the swing stopped dead. Clark picked up the kitchen cloth to wipe his hands and stepped backwards to peer through the open window, expecting to see Emma skipping up towards the porch.

A cold shock jolted through his body as he saw that the swing was gone — the seat, the chains, everything. And Emma was nowhere to be seen.

He called her, still half-expecting to hear her respond, or the slam of the screen door as she came into the house. But there was nothing.

Clark threw the cloth down and leaned right out of the window. There was no sign of his child, just that smell, stronger than ever. He pulled his head in and raced to the back door calling Emma’s name. Louder each time.

‘Oh no, no, no, please, no.’

He raced into the yard — no trace.

He sprinted around the outside of the house, then the inside, tears filling his eyes. He called her name again — nothing.

Outside, he yelled her name up at the Black Mountain. It remained mute.