Killer Mountain

to see what the invitation included. Maybe they just wanted me to show them where the family jewels are.”

It was a measure of their confidence in local police that neither gave any thought to calling them. Chief Solomon was an acquaintance, but hadn’t impressed them on their one experience with him.

“Are we invaded? Did I wake up in the wrong decade?”

“To echo our guest, you’re sure you’re not hurt?”

“Scrub the frown, lover. I’m OK, and they’d have to be out of their minds to come back again after tonight.”

“It’d help if we knew why they were here in the first place.” He looked out the window across the sleeping valley where Great Haystack loomed in the darkness. There was no moon, but he could see the summit beacon that burned all night.

At breakfast, Andre asked Cilla if the Wallace Carver next door was the Wallace Carver, attorney, who had been one of the most prominent figures in Suffolk and Essex County courtrooms.

“Probably,” said his hostess, “this Wallace Carver wouldn’t have allowed himself to be anything less, and I could perhaps have found a stronger word than `prominent’.”

“I know what you mean. I’ve been in court with him a few times, usually on the other side as it happens, but I’ve developed a great deal of respect for his legal abilities. We’ve never formally met and I’d really like to talk with him under circumstances where we aren’t adversaries. Could you do a big favor and provide an introduction?”

Cilla would as soon have introduced a hungry lion, but Andre was owed, so she walked him down to the Carver house, quickly excusing herself so as not to be spattered by environmentalist blood.

To her surprise, when she returned from the ski area that evening, she found Andre had not only survived, but was still in a cheery mood, with enough energy to ask to borrow her cross country skis for his daily exercise. Maybe they’d enjoyed growling at each other. She had her own schedule, attending a town planning board meeting. As a surveyor’s daughter she knew it was important to keep regulatory boards informed, and it didn’t hurt to have the general manager herself do the informing, so it was well after eleven when she drove home. Six inches of snow had fallen, and she was glad she had four-wheel drive as she turned into Swallow Hill Road. From a ski business point of view, it was good consistency: wet snow that packs well, and the evergreens were heavy with it. Soon the wind will come up, she thought, and spoil the beauty of the living Christmas card captured in the glow of her headlights. Theirs and Carver’s were the only houses on the gravel road. With no streetlights to illuminate it, she could have been driving through middle Alaska.

Hudson was out again with the snowmaking machines, equipment that was becoming less urgent the more snow that fell. She closed the garage door and went into the house through the kitchen door, a few steps from the garage. The telephone was ringing.

“Wallace Carver, Cilla.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Is Hudson there?”

“No. You never call this late.”

“It’s about a client of mine. It can wait.”

“Are you still taking people? I thought you’d retired.”

“I am retired. This one is a damned old fool who just won’t accept it. Have Hudson call me,” he ordered. “No. On second thought don’t. I can’t talk about it.” He hung up.

She held the dead phone for a moment. Then replaced it gently. She knew Hudson was fond of Carver; the two enjoyed the mental jousting that took place whenever they got together. Carver was the one person she knew who could give her husband a battle at chess. Her own feelings were somewhat different. If Wallace Carver had been born German, Hitler would have had to fight him for dictator. He seldom said `please’ or `thank you’ and never `good bye’ when finishing a phone conversation. The phone rang again.

“Yes?” Her voice was cold, preparing for new instructions from General Carver.

“Where is he?” Not Wally. A soft voice, almost a whisper.

“What?”

“Your father. Where is your father?”

“You have the wrong number,” she hung up the phone. It rang again before she could turn from it. “Yes?”

“Tell me where your father is and I won’t bother you any more.”

“He’s dead. You’re nine months too late.” The phone went into its cradle with a little more force. She stood looking at it. Waiting. A moment later it rang again.

“Don’t do that again. I only want to talk with him.”

“Then see a channeler. Get off my line.” She hung up and unplugged the phone from the wall.

She paused. Something about the voice. What was it? It was low, quiet and yet with an underlying strength. She’d heard it before. Where? Sometime before Christmas…? She shook her head. Bartlett, New Hampshire, was not a place where one expected crank calls. It also wasn’t a place where one’s home got invaded; Cilla couldn’t remember hearing of any other attack like hers. She hadn’t been quite honest with Hudson about it. Certainly no rational beings would make a second try at a house from which they’d been driven off - nearly captured - and which could no longer be taken by surprise. But there was something about the look in the eyes of the intruders. They revealed no rational thought.

Chapter 9

Surprisingly there had been no wind following the snowstorm, and the spruce the next morning carried armloads of white against a bright blue sky. But the plow had been through. Cilla had mixed feelings about the road being sanded; what a delight it would be to travel it by sleigh.

Kurt Britton was jovial; he’d beaten three of the ski school instructors over the NASTAR course Thursday afternoon. Britton had only skied seriously the two years he’d been in the business, but approached the sport with the same intensity he brought to the rest of his life.

“Coffee for Big Mama?”

“Tea. What time did we start grooming?”

“It was three A.M. before the temperature dropped enough.”

“They must be still out.”

“Just finishing on Wild West. Did Hudson tell you all the snowmakers are in working order?”

“Great! That makes the new snow just a bonus.”

“The real bonus will come next summer when we can hook the system up to the pond we’re building. The environmentalist weenies aren’t going to let us draw from the river much longer. We’ll be one of the few ski areas with self-contained snowmaking. And we’ll have the capacity to handle Big Haystack when we get to it.”

“If we get to it.” Great Haystack Ski Area was actually built on Little Haystack Mountain, but the corporation owned another two thousand acres next door, some five hundred of them running up the side of Big Haystack Mountain to meet White Mountain National Forest near the top. The ski area could more than double its size if the land on the larger mountain was utilized. Plans had been drawn up for a new complex with four lifts, twenty-five trails, and a hotel and restaurant immediately abutting Forest Service land. All it needed was money, and with no mortgages on the existing business, funds were available whenever Cilla decided to take on debt.

It was a Friday, so Cilla skied an assortment of the area’s thirty trails to assure herself the mountain was ready for heavy weekend traffic. Having grown up in Bartlett, she’d been on skis since she was three, and - as with all Mt. Washington Valley kids - skiing was one of her grammar school “courses”. Combined with a natural athletic ability, she was as home on skis as walking, and as knowledgeable about the on-snow side of skiing as grizzled veterans. She sent snowcats back up on three trails to flatten infant moguls in the new snow. These bumps, created by skiers all turning in the same places, were allowed to grow on several expert trails, but ninety percent of