John Hart - Iron House

“Pump number four.” He lifted black-rimmed glasses, squinted at something behind the counter. “Thirty-seven dollars.”

Michael put two twenties on the glass, saw postcards slipped beneath it. Grand Canyon. San Diego. The Flatiron building in New York City. That one made him smile.

“Here you go, son. Three dollars.”

Michael took the change and came to a decision. “Do you sell maps?”

“Of?”

“Charlotte. The state in general.”

“Right there behind you.” He pointed past a shelf of oilcans and antifreeze to a wire rack feathered with neatly folded maps. “North Carolina’s near the top, Tennessee and Georgia and a few others down by the bottom.”

“Thanks.” Michael walked over, noticing as he did a topographical map pinned to the wall above the rack. It was large and pale green, with wavy lines that showed folds in the earth.

Michael stopped two feet away, an odd tug in his chest when he saw how small Iron Mountain looked in the middle of all that green. The map covered the very western part of North Carolina, bits of Tennessee and Georgia. Mountain country with small towns and narrow valleys, lakes and rivers and large tracts of national forest. Iron Mountain showed an elevation of 5,165 feet, the town at its base a small splotch of yellow. He found the river, which in his mind was broad and black. It fed the valley from the north, and Michael saw how it stretched and branched, how smaller streams fed it as it bent west, toward Tennessee. He put his finger on it, traced it to the state line, where it ran along the base of another mountain. There was small writing there, and Michael stared, a kinetic charge building. He did not believe in coincidence.

Not big ones like this.

The mountain had a name, Slaughter Mountain, and it was thirty miles from Iron House.

Iron Mountain.

Slaughter Mountain.

Heat gathered in Michael’s skin.

Slaughter Mountain.

Salina Slaughter.

It had to mean something, but what? He heard the door scrape and glanced in time to see the petite woman leave with a bag of candy. There were no other customers. The old man came around the counter, feet shuffling. “What are you looking at so fixedly?”

“Fixedly?”

He smelled of cut grass and tobacco. “You’re staring holes in my wall.”

“Do you know anything about Slaughter Mountain?”

He shrugged. “Hill people.”

“Meaning?”

He pulled out a pipe and started packing it. “Meaning they sleep with their mommas and eat their dead.” He lit the pipe, sucked hard and blew a sweet cloud. “’Course, the Slaughters were a thing back in the day. Timber. Coal. Gold, maybe. There was a grand old lady back when I was a young man. I think she’s dead, now. That seems right.”

“Does the name Salina Slaughter mean anything to you?”

“Can’t say it does.”

Michael deflated, but the man continued, unaware.

“I think her name was Serena.”

That got his attention. “Serena Slaughter?”

“Money. Politicians. Parties. Word is they raped that mountain bare.”

“You have a map of that area?” Michael asked. “It looks pretty isolated.”

“You going up there?”

“Maybe.”

“I’d carry a gun,” he said, and slapped a map on Michael’s palm.

Elena made no sound when the chisel sank into Jimmy. It struck him as he turned, missed his chest and sliced into the soft place beneath his left arm. She felt metal scrape bone, and stumbled back as Jimmy howled and snatched at her clothing. His fingers missed by inches. Elena pivoted and brought up her arm so that the loose cuff snapped out and cracked against the bridge of Jimmy’s nose. He screamed louder, bent convulsively as blood jetted and his fingers settled on the sky blue handle that jutted out of his side.

Elena didn’t wait around. She bolted through the door, into damp grass and the cool air of a brand-new day. She felt that air on her cheeks, very cold, and knew that she was crying, that strange sounds filled her ears and that they were coming from her. She looked at the cars, and doubted they would lead to an easy escape. Keys were on surfaces in the house, in the pockets of dead men, and she had no time for that. Jimmy was hurt, but not dead. She looked at the woods, which were deep and dark, then remembered the guns she’d seen scattered in the house, some on tables, other spilled from loose hands. Instinct screamed for the woods, for shadows and cover, a million places to hide.

For an instant she was torn, then ran for the house, the guns, and got one foot on the steps when she heard Jimmy scream as a shot crashed out. She looked back. He’d fallen to one knee, but was coming up.

The gun, too, was coming up.

“Ahhh…”

He yelled, and lurched as a second shot snapped out and struck the house. Blood was in his eyes, the skin split between them. He smeared a sleeve across his face, and Elena doubted he would miss a third time. She leapt off the stairs and sprinted for the forest. It was all she had, woods and dark and hope.

Ninety seconds in, she knew she was in trouble. Leaves layered the forest floor, but the ground beneath was stony hard. At a dead run, she kicked an unseen rock, and felt toes break.

She went down, hurt.

And Jimmy was coming.

She saw him at the wood’s edge, smooth and fast and whisper-quiet. He moved as if all his rage was channeled to that single purpose. He ducked limbs and slipped between trunks as if he’d been born in the woods. He flowed, face streaked red, and called out when he saw her.

“Right side first, I think.”

Elena dragged herself up, ran on broken toes. The pain was exquisite, but fear made a fist around her heart, its fingernails long and black and chisel-sharp.

Please, God…

She found a gulley and tumbled in; splashed through puddles as roots touched her face, and damp air clogged her throat. She staggered as muddy walls rose up. For long, sweet seconds she thought she’d lost him, but the walls dropped off after fifty yards. Jimmy ran parallel, and his face was a hunter’s face.

“Little girl…”

He was mocking her. She turned away, ran faster as the world blackened at its edges. There was only the run and the breath in her lungs. Trees pressed in, branches like hooks. She stumbled and rolled, popped back up. Ran. A ditch appeared; she leapt it.

And that was all it took.

She landed in a hole obscured by rotting leaves, and her ankle broke with the sound of cracking plastic. Pitching forward, she went down for keeps, crippled, hurt and frozen to her core. The leaves smelled of decay, and she curled in the desperate hope that she might sink into them and disappear. It didn’t happen. Metal scraped, and a whiff of bitter smoke filled her nose.

“That’s a shame.”

The voice was behind her and god-awful, terribly close. She saw a stream of thin, blue smoke that gathered as it slowed. She turned her head. Jimmy stood just a few feet away, one hand on his bloody side, the other holding a cigarette between two fingers locked straight. Red smears made a mask around his eyes, but he carried it like war paint, and the effect was terrifying, the blood and calm, the velvet jacket and cigarette smoke.

Elena looked down, and saw the twisted mess of her ankle. The skin was white where bone pushed against it; everywhere else it was dark and starting to swell. She rolled onto her back, and it twisted as she moved.

Screams and tears.

A handful of hard, black seconds.

When her vision cleared, Jimmy was squatting by her side. “Let me help you.”

“Don’t touch it…”

He pinned her leg with his knee.