Scott Nicholson - Forever never ends

No matter. This was his door and doors were made for going through.

The parent was hungry.

And he was home.

“ Shu-shaaa.”

Emerland negotiated the narrow, twisting road, cursing the stupid hick loggers who hadn't bothered to remove all the stumps. The branches that hung low on both sides of the road swatted at the candy-apple red paint on the flanks of his Mercedes. He winced at the grating of wooden fingernails.

Calm down. This time next year, or two years from now, this will be a two-lane blacktop. Hell, maybe even by autumn. These winding dirt roads can be yanked straight and these mountains can be shaped the way they were intended.

He drove out from under the trees into the late afternoon sunshine. Blinded by the sudden light, he didn't see the capsized SUV in front of him until he was almost upon it. He jerked the steering wheel to the right, hoping his tires didn't fall into the same deep rut that the Pathfinder had hit. He bounced onto a flat patch of land and steered around the wreck.

"What in the hell is going on here?" he shouted to the empty passenger compartment of the Mercedes. His only answer was the purring German diesel engine.

Once safely past the Tracker, he slowed and looked in the rearview mirror. A thin layer of dust covered the overturned vehicle and the front grill and bumper were spattered with green goo. A small rivulet of brackish gold oil ran down the rut. He couldn't tell if the wreck had occurred hours or minutes ago.

The scene didn't make sense to Emerland, and that made him uneasy. Someone who could afford to drive a new SUV could pay for a tow truck. And what was somebody with a new car doing in this neck of the woods? Or was it Mull's, bought with DeWalt's money? And where was the driver?

He saw the Mull farmhouse a hundred yards down the slope. An old pickup truck was parked by the porch, its grill and round headlights making a grinning mask. The farmhouse itself was supported by locust poles and bordered with field stones, constructed back before the days of building codes. Emerland noticed that Mull had electricity and a telephone line, but no cable television or satellite dish. No doubt the old bastard had been dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century, but probably had developed a taste for technological and material comfort by now. From such seeds, Emerland grew gardens.

He drove up to the farmhouse and got out, smelling the damp woodsy humus and barnyard rot, and the rich odor of manure and stale hay. The air was heavy with the pollen of poplar and wild cherry blossoms. It seemed that the leaves had come out in the last few hours. The fields were actually rolling hills, just like the cliche, and Emerland tried the words on his tongue as a possible name for the new resort.

"Hello. Mister Mull!” He was peeved that Mull hadn't come outside to greet him. At least the old bastard could have stood on the porch barefoot with a flintlock across his arm, the way Emerland had imagined.

But whoever had spilled that Pathfinder might have gotten such a cold and menacing reception, which may be why the driver lost control.

He had acquaintances who were developers, and they always talked about how obstinate these old mountain families were. Rumors went around that some of these backwoods rednecks shot at every three-piece suit that turned a cuff on their land. That they believed anybody who showed up without a hound at their heels was either a Revenuer or an evangelist, both of which meant you’d better be on your toes. That anybody who had all their teeth couldn't be trusted. But that was ridiculous. The movie Deliverance was not a documentary. At any rate, Emerland wasn't scared off that easily.

Emerland enjoyed the hunt. The faint-hearted could go elsewhere, to backfill the Everglades or build shopping malls over abandoned toxic dumps in Jersey, making easy money. But their dreams were flat. Even if they built an eighty-story office building in Atlanta, they'd never reach as high into the sky as Emerland did with his mountain monuments. No one would be able to look down on him.

He shouted Mull's name again, growing impatient. He'd at least expected barking dogs. In the city, he would have clamped down on the car horn until he got results. But right now, he wanted to be the slick seducer, not the head-butting goat.

He looked around at the land that would be his. The decrepit outbuildings looked like they'd be no challenge to a stiff wind, let alone Emerland Enterprises's bulldozers. But maybe he'd let the barn stand, renovate it into an old-timey saloon, with rusty cross saws and staged photographs of moonshiners on the walls. The bar could charge eight bucks a shot for drinks named "Mountain Squeeze" and "Blue Ridge Brandy" and "Olde Firewater." And maybe he'd leave the outhouse standing so the tourists could have their pictures taken in front of it.

He yelled once more, then stepped onto the porch. Yellow-green chicken shit and old black stains covered the planks. The windows were boarded over and shuttered with pine slats. An old rocking chair, held together by twine and spit, showed an imprint of two bony buttocks in its frayed seat cushion.

Yes, this old bastard would hop at the chance to move into a high-class condominium.

The screen door was broken, splinters and wire mesh sagging from brown hinges. The front door was open. Emerland peered into the dark interior. The place was a mess, with furniture tilted over and shattered Mason jars covering the floor like spilled silver. Mull must have pitched a hell of a drunk.

"Mister Mull, are you home?" he shouted through the doorway. His words were swallowed by the cold warped walls.

Damned old coot. True, I didn't make an appointment, but that must be his truck there. I doubt if that SUV came to take him away. And from the seedy look of this place, I'm positive Mull's not out somewhere tending his farm.

Emerland put his hands on his hips. He might as well walk around and get a feel for the place. Maybe he'd step into the woods and peek over the ridge at the view. Look at Sugarfoot and admire his own handiwork. But first, he wanted to check out the Pathfinder.

Emerland pressed a hand to the SUV's hood. The engine had cooled, which meant the vehicle had been there for a while. He knelt and stuck his head inside the shattered sunroof. Papers and cards had spilled from the glove box to the driver's-side door. He shuffled through them until he found the white registration sheet. He pulled it out into the sunlight, looked at it, and let out a grunt.

"I'll be damned. Herbert DeWalt. Now what the hell is he doing over here?"

He put this piece into the puzzle. Could DeWalt have been tipped off about Emerland's plans? Emerland didn't trust any of his assistants. He'd bought or stolen most of them from rivals, and he knew that the practice worked both ways. A well-placed bribe, forty pieces of silver here and there, had been known to tempt even the most faithful of inner circle members.

But DeWalt had had three years to make a move on this property and apparently hadn't reached Mull's price yet. If DeWalt was after the land, he must have lost his old edge, the skill and instinct that had chopped millions from the bank accounts of others. True, the rich bastard had wheedled a few acres off of Mull, but that was a drop in the bucket. Emerland believed in buying entire mountains.

He stood up and looked at the bristled pine ridge tops. Mull might be showing DeWalt around right now, pointing out boundaries and right-of-ways. And it would be just like DeWalt, from what Emerland had heard, to pretend not to give a damn that he'd just wrecked his expensive toy. Probably wrecked on purpose just to show off, like a cartoon character lighting cigars with a hundred dollar bill. Emerland clenched his fists in rage. If DeWalt wanted to go to war, Emerland was ready to bring out the big guns.