Unknown (6 page)

Once out on the highway, heading up and eastward, she huddled close to the door, determined to absorb as much of the mountain scenery as possible. They were in a world of variegated greens. A few clumps of tall white pine and oak stood out from the smaller poplar, spruce, wild apple, and oak. And all around them, in patches that seemed to stretch for acres, were the closely interwoven laurel bushes. ‘In most places they’re so close that you can’t get through without an axe,’ he yelled. ‘This was once the real forest primeval, but a massive forest fire destroyed most everything. What you see is secondary growth, mostly. Like it?’

She answered with a smile, savouring the fragrance of the pine. Occasionally they passed open meadows, and dirt trails, but no sign of houses. But the pull of the mountain glades could not fight back her major interest. Out of the corner of her eyes she watched him. He had pushed his sleeves up to the elbow, and held the wheel lightly, his corded muscles flicking corrective actions as the road curled and weaved upward. His hair sparkled in the sunlight, showing gold flecks among the red. He whistled as he drove, carefree, looking younger than— whatever his years were. It was altogether a pleasant thing, watching him, she thought. Gradually her head turned, until she was staring, devouring him with her eyes. Her Ups parted, with her tongue slightly protruding as she concentrated. She was so engrossed that she hardly noticed they had swung off the paved highway, and were following a dirt track through an open meadow, pointing straight ahead towards a clump of rock and woodland that rose higher than the flat area in which they were driving. He braked the Jeep, set the handbrake, and turned to her.

‘From here on,’ he laughed, ‘it’s shank’s mare, lady.’ He pointed to where the trail they were following split in three directions. ‘We take the left-hand bend.’

‘Okay,’ she sighed, thinking of the weight of the big camera. ‘Where do the other two go?’

‘The middle one leads on to Business Ridge, towards Devil’s Creek Gap,’ he said. ‘The other one is the Appalachian Trail. You know about that, I guess?’

‘No, I guess J don’t. Should I?’

‘I would think so,’ he commented drily. ‘It’s a hiking trail that follows the higher ridges of the Appalachian Mountains, all the way from the centre of Maine to North Georgia. About two thousand miles, I would guess. It has rest areas and hostels along the route, and only one major gap, up in New York, where the Hudson River carved a mighty hole in the mountain chain. We must try it some time.’

‘Two thousand miles? I—I don’t think I can spare the time. Especially if I have to carry these cameras.’

‘So I’ll help,’ he chuckled. He climbed out, reached back for her heaviest camera case, and started up the trail. She slid out of her seat as fast as she could, fumbled at the straps of her lighter cameras and her supply case, and hurried after him.

‘Hey wait,’ she was finally forced to call. He stopped in mid-stride and glanced back at her. She thought he was about to say something sarcastic. Instead his eyes lit up, that wide grin swept across his face, and he slowed his pace.

‘It’s called Rat Top Mountain,’ he announced grandly when they reached their destination. ‘Because it’s flat, of course. And behind us, that’s Big Bald. Straight ahead and down is Business Ridge. The town on the other side is Erwin, the biggest city in Unicoi Country. We’ll go there one day.’

‘Yes. Nice,’ she muttered as she struggled to assemble her folding tripod, and set the camera up. It was about an hour before the sun would be overhead, so she had a clear view ahead, into the valley of the Tennessee. ‘It looks like an ocean of waves, all fixed in place,’ she called to him. ‘What am I looking at?’

‘You’re on top of the Smokey Mountains here,’ he returned. ‘Ahead of you are a whole series of smaller ranges, running generally from north-east to south-west. In between each of those ranges is a little river which generally runs south until it joins a larger river, and then eventually into the Tennessee. They tell that in the old days every spring brought floods and destruction. In the 1930s the Federal government organised a public corporation, the TVA, and gave it the job of stopping the floods and producing cheap electricity. They built more dams than I can count, and it all worked. There hasn’t been a flood in my lifetime. How about that?’

She was busy at her tripod, tightening the clamps on the legs, and paying only partial attention. ‘Nice,’ she said.

‘That your favourite word?’

She stopped, flustered, only half aware of what she had said. ‘Hmm?’

‘Oh don’t mind me,’ he chuckled. ‘I’m just going to sit back and watch woman at work. I believe in the equality of the sexes.’

‘I’ll just bet you do,’ she muttered, as she stripped the cover from the old camera and positioned it on the tripod. It locked into its holder with a satisfying click. She wiped off the universal joint with a fresh tissue, and experimentally swung the long nose of the Hasselblatt round, one eye on the viewfinder.

‘My great-great-grandfathers settled all this,’ he said contentedly. ‘Came into the empty land, and made a nation out of it. Right over there where Elizabethtown is now. They’re called the over-mountain men. That’s where it all started.’

Her eye was busy picking out the sequence of pictures she wanted to take for the panorama, looking for the landmarks that would be the margins of each shot, the place where the next shot would overlap. The magazine was already loaded, and she began at the northern edge of the area.

‘Up there, was it?’ she muttered, concentrating on her work. The shutter snapped. Her hands went about their business automatically. ‘Funny, I thought a whole nation of Indians lived in this land.’ She snapped a second exposure of the same area, just to be sure, and moved the camera on its gimbals to the next scene.

‘Never believe it,’ he laughed. ‘They all lived south of here.’

She looked away from the viewfinder to look at him. That lazy infectious grin was wide on his face. ‘And they never came up here?’ she asked.

‘Oh sure they did,’ he said. ‘Hunting. That’s different than living. Our people came into the land, leased five million acres from the Cherokees, made a treaty of eternal peace, and settled down.’

She was back at the camera again, hunting scenic effects. ‘Nice,’ she commented. ‘So What’s the first thing they did after that?’

‘Like I said, they settled in. They built a fort, and began farming. Brought the whole land under cultivation finally. It took a long time, of course. Had to get rid of the buffalo first. You can’t raise crops in buffalo country. They trampled everything.’

By this time her camera had traversed the full width of the panorama that she wanted. She marked up her record-pad, covered the lens, and turned around to him. He was squatting on his heels at the end of the clearing, a long thin blade of grass between his teeth.

‘Let me get this straight,’ she chuckled. ‘You came into the valleys, swore a treaty of eternal peace and promptly built a fort? Against whom?’

‘Now, wait a minute,’ he protested. ‘We built a fort against the—well—the Indians did raid the settlements, you know.’

‘Of course they did,’ she retorted. ‘Was that before or after you killed all their buffalo? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Did they raid you because you built the fort, or did you build the fort because they raided you?’

‘Boy, are you some kind of a country lawyer,’ he snorted. He got up and walked over to her, dropping those huge hands on her shoulders again, drawing her up against him. ‘I can see there’s only one way to keep you subdued, girl.’ And once again her sight was blotted out as his head shadowed her, his lips caressed her with a gentle touch, and Katie’s world came unglued. Minutes later, still clinging to him desperately, she managed to get her wind back.

‘That’s a terrible way to avoid a logical argument,’ she sighed.

They finished up their efforts by eleven-thirty, packed up the equipment, and hiked back to the Jeep. The strain of the hike, after a year or more in city ways, left Katie tired. Harry loaded the equipment into the back of the vehicle. She sat quietly in the passenger seat, watching. When he finally came around to the driver’s seat, she stared at him.

‘You’re not a bit winded, are you?’ she asked.

‘No. Not really. But you did surprise me, girl.’

‘Surprise you? How?’

‘I would have sworn you didn’t know a camera from a sow’s belly. And instead you looked very professional about it all!’

‘Damn you, Harry King!’ Her ire was up, but she was too tired to hit him, as logic dictated. ‘Is that what it was? A test of my cover story?’

‘Got it in one, lady,’ he laughed, as he started the motor. ‘Only the results are confusing. I may have to run some other tests.’

‘Smart alec,’ she grumbled, turning her attention to the side of the road. ‘Hey! Stop!’ The brakes squealed as he jammed them on forcefully. The vehicle skidded, raised a cloud of dust, and slid to a stop. By this time Katie was entangled with the metal post of the windscreen, struggling to hang on, coughing out dust from her beclouded lungs.

‘Are you all right?’ He swept her into his arms and began a detailed check.

‘I’m all right,’ she gasped, ‘Or I would be if you would stop pawing me! I just saw something.’

‘Well, it better be important,’ he told her sternly. ‘I almost put us both through the glass, girly. What was it?’

‘There!’ She gestured toward a low area where run-off from Flat Top had made what was almost a swamp. ‘There. That flower with the shiny green leaves. See it?’

‘I don’t see any flower.’

‘Well, of course not. It’s too late in the season for the flower. But you can see the plant. I’ve got to get some. I haven’t seen cinquefoil in years.’ She scrambled from the Jeep and began harvesting the plants, roots and all. He watched her, stunned. When she had filled her pockets, her extra camera case, and a paper bag that had been lying in the back of the vehicle, she came back, her face ashine with discovery.

He was sitting at the wheel, watching, as she climbed back in. ‘You’re a funny one,’ he said softly. She looked quickly at him, holding her breath.

‘I’m not sure that I will ever get you figured out,’ he continued. ‘I just get adjusted to the idea that you really are a photographer, and you start playing flower-girl on me. What gives?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said softly, trying to keep laughter out of her voice. ‘Your first opinion still might have been right. How do you know that the pictures weren’t overexposed, or something?’

He shook his head, but there was a sparkle in those deep blue eyes, as if his always-churning mind had found a new path to explore. He stared at her for a matter of minutes, then started the motor and they moved off.

The trip down the mountain was made in silence, he concentrating on his driving, she relaxed in her seat, eyes half-closed, admiring the mountain scenery as it unfolded; absorbing the caw of the blackbirds; admiring the hawk wheeling high overhead in the late August sun.

‘They came for your car,’ he noted, as he swung off the highway into the parking area. She opened both eyes and looked around. Her battered little VW was gone. ‘How long will it take to fix it?’ she asked eagerly. ‘Can’t say,’ he returned as he piloted the Jeep across the bridge and up beside the house. ‘I’ll call the garage and see what they have to say.’

‘Please ask them to hurry,’ she pleaded timidly. ‘I really do have to get to Ohio. My sister will kill me if I’m late for her wedding.’

‘I thought you wanted to take some more pictures?’

‘I—well—they aren’t important. Unless we could do them tomorrow?’

‘No, I’m afraid not. I have to run over to Knoxville tomorrow. I’m working on a problem for the State, and I have to report in.’

‘The day after?’

‘Maybe. Don’t worry about it. I’m just as anxious as you are to get you out of my house. I laughed when I first saw you. You make a lousy conspirator. But the longer I know you—well, maybe you do better at it than I imagined. Don’t worry, little girl, the sooner you’re out of here, the better I’ll feel.’

‘And that goes double for me,’ she shouted after his disappearing back. She leaned back in the seat, waiting for her inner storms to dissipate. What in the world have you come to, Katie Russel, she lectured herself. All he has to do is press a button and you shoot off like a sky-rocket. What happened to easy-going dependable Miss Russel, the one who could shoulder all kinds of problems and remain cool? Where is she? Or was she ever? Is this the real me, a sarcastic, raving harridan?

There was only one thing for sure: although she really didn’t want to leave, the only way to preserve sanity was to shake the dust of this place off her feet, and move out as fast as she could. She shook her head in disgust, the heavy curls bouncing down over her eyes. ‘Just get me my car,’ she muttered after Harry, ‘and I’ll show you the fastest retreat the world has ever seen!’

Wearily she edged herself out of the vehicle, slung her collection of cameras and bags over her shoulder, and struggled around to the back of the house. I’ve got to get myself rested and organised, she told herself. But it just wasn’t her day. As she came around the house she ran into Eloise.

‘Excuse me,’ she muttered as she almost knocked the smaller woman off her feet.

‘Hey, wait!’ Eloise called after her. ‘Wait!’

With all her might Katie wanted to continue, to run into the kitchen, up the stairs, and slam the door of her room behind her. But courtesy demanded she wait. She did.

‘I need to have a talk with you,’ Eloise began. Her high, lilting voice set Katie’s teeth on edge.

‘I don’t have the time right this minute,’ she compromised. ‘I’ve got film in these cameras that I must get out. Later?’

‘Of course,’ the other woman returned. ‘Later will be fine. But do let me thank you for keeping my fiancé entertained this morning. In some ways he’s like a little boy, and I was just too busy to do anything with him. He’s a dear boy, of course, but wearying.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Katie muttered, ducking through the kitchen door. And then, when she was sure she could not be heard, ‘But you’d better buy a ball and chain for your
fiancé
before he gets loose among the chickens!’