North of Nelson E-Book

Hilton Everett Moore

• Herausgeber: Modern History Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 201

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

...five compelling short stories from North of Nelson, Volume II, will captivate even the most jaded reader with frankness and audacity. Moore holds nothing back, no subject is out of bounds, no apologies are given, as he exposes stories of incest and lust, love, and hate.
In the short story Cell Tower, Milly is beset with guilt over her incestuous relationship with her mentally deranged younger brother Edward. The story ends tragically, as a deputy sheriff pursues Edward to his remote cabin in the wilderness of the Upper Peninsula where all three characters lives are entangled in a disturbing conclusion.
In the following story, Ditch Dog, the ignoble uncle of a sensitive nephew, Brian, engage in a strained explosive bond, between the pair, that ends in a heart-rending death of Ellie, Brian's loyal dog.
In Ode to a Lone Wolf, Randy, a farmer struggles with a perennial problem of wolf predation of his cattle and his love for the local female DNR officer. Like life itself there is no easy answer as he finds himself at odds with his ex-wife and behind bars.
The rest of the stories, from North of Nelson, Volume II, carry on from the previous volume and leave the reader wishing Moore would publish another set of gripping tales from the rugged Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
"North of Nelson should be read slowly, savoring the quirky characters, the poetry of the words, the odd, fierce stories. Hilton Everett Moore is far more than a regional writer. His words and stories place him in high literary circles indeed. So many of his phrases or sentences elicited a bit of envy, as in 'I wish I would have written that!' Beautifully illustrated throughout! A treat for the eyes, the mind, the imagination."
-- Sue Harrison, author of The Midwife's Touch
"Hilton Moore writes in southern Baraga County and has done all the things right to capture narrative seriousness about the region. His themes and styles are reader-friendly and are finding acclaim. Mainly he works at storytelling about the UP and the first volume was listed as a U.P. Notable Book. Let us hope that this second volume of Nelson stories remains among the UP Notable Books. I think it has the polish and the seriousness to do just that."
-- Donald M. Hassler, Emeritus Professor of English and contributor to UP Book Review
"Hilton Everett Moore's writings provide an intimate glimpse into the lives of North of Nelson residents. They reveal the physical and emotional struggles of living in the rugged wilderness of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. In the final short story Moore's character states, 'Tonight I was witness to the undressing of a human soul...' The author beautifully and lovingly exposes an individual's conflicts in searching for meaning in their lives. As with Volume I, North of Nelson II is a great read."
-- Jean Treacy, MA in Reading, former instructor at Western Michigan University
From Silver Mountain Press

Leseprobe

North of Nelson

Volume II

The Cell Tower

The Ditch Dog

Ode to a Lone Wolf

A Beast Called Fate

Lust and Lightning

by Hilton Everett Moore

North of Nelson

Volume II

by Hilton Everett Moore

Copyright 2023

Hilton Everett Moore

all rights reserved

Published by Silver Mountain Press

Covington, MI 49919

Printed by

Silver Mountain Press

Covington, MI 49919

ISBN 978-1-7367449-1-8 paperback

ISBN 978-1-7367449-3-2 hardcover

www.writerinthewilderness.com

www.silvermountainpress.com

Cover & illustration by Andreea Chele

No portion of this publication may be reproduced, reprinted, or otherwise copied for distribution purposes without the express written permission of the author and publisher. For information address Silver Mountain Press, P.O. Box 63, Covington, MI 49919

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, events, locales and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events or locales is purely coincidental.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Timeline

The Cell Tower

The Ditch Dog

Ode to a Lone Wolf

A Beast Called Fate

Lust and Lightning

Valiant; to be courageous while still shaking in your boots.

Acknowledgements

Dedicated to all Visionaries wherever they may be.

Victor Volkman - My grateful appreciation for his trust and professionalism.

A special thanks to Tina Vance for meritorious efforts above and beyond the call of duty.

Timeline

“The log cabin lay hidden like a wary buck in a tangled cedar swamp.”

I

The Cell Tower

It was nearly pitch black, a sliver of a crescent moon, and if it wasn’t for his cheap flashlight, he wouldn’t have been able to accomplish a necessary act. Using duct tape, he fastened the flickering flashlight to the barrel of the deer rifle so he could look sharply down the iron sight. He racked a shell into the old 30/30 rifle and pointed it at the offending red light on the cell tower. His first shot echoed in the still of that momentous evening, missing its mark, but the crack of the weapon a second time exploded the light and sent shards of glass like winter’s jagged ice crystals raining down around him onto the frozen ground. The cell tower had two red lights, and he was prepared to take the second one out just like the first—and he did. The two white lights were never on after dusk, so he would have to get those tomorrow, or someday soon when they were illuminated.

Edward picked up two of the three spent cartridges and stowed them away in his plaid hunting coat. He couldn’t find the third. He searched the ground with the flat beam of the dim flashlight but finally decided it probably didn’t matter anyway. He trudged back in heavy snow, staying on his previous track through the woods to his isolated cabin several miles away.

The log cabin lay hidden like a wary buck in a tangled cedar swamp. Ed shed the Iverson snowshoes beside the woodstove to dry out. From the cabin, on a remote site in the Huron Mountains, he could see the tower on the nearby prominence of Mt. Arvon. The tower had been erected the previous summer; immediately, Edward loathed it, a heinous, metal interloper in his life.

His camp was north of Nelson, in the western part of the Hurons. Edward Martin guessed correctly that anyone sent to repair the tower’s lights would assume that they had been shot out by a young vandal and wouldn’t suspect that a man of Edward’s age, going on thirty-two, would be so inclined. The fucking metal intrusion, kept him up at night; at least that’s what he would eventually tell Milcah. But for now, he would just savor the results in silence. “One for me and one less for the fucking National Security Agency,” he muttered to himself. The secret organization was often called upon by presidents and Congress alike to spy on the gullible populace. He should know. At one time he had worked as a government contractor, collecting and analyzing data for the NSA, till he was abruptly fired. Edward laughed out loud, almost a cackle, enjoying the notion that he had gotten one over on the bastards. That night, he’d gone straight to bed, sleeping soundly for the first time in weeks.

Milcah, nicknamed Millie, pulled out of the convenience store in her pickup and headed for Edward’s cabin. A month-old copy of the local newspaper lay on the passenger seat beside her. She glanced nervously at it, having reread the front-page article for at least the third time this past month. She had her suspicions but had held her tongue until she could talk to her brother. According to the paper, the FAA was working with Sheriff Morley, trying to pin down the actor or actors involved in shooting out the cell tower’s lights. The locals had just recently received cell service, though it remained spotty at best. But according to this article, disabling cell tower lights was a serious federal offense, as this crime endangered aviation traffic. The headline seemed to target her like a silent accusation: NEW CELL TOWER DISABLED BY GUNMAN. The paper was dated October 21, a solid month ago. She had purposely delayed a visit to Edward, partially out of concern and partially out of dread for the serious feelings she had for him.

She’d put on lipstick and tied her hair back, as Edward always wanted her to be “made up.” She’d also slipped on a pair of pastel pink thong panties. Why she went to this bother was still a question she asked herself, but never found the appropriate answer. Consulting the rearview mirror, she noticed that her long hair, though naturally blonde, was mixed prematurely with substantial grey. She didn’t think she looked too bad for an old broad of thirty-six, four years older than her brother.

Her ten-year-old rusty hulk, a much used and abused three-quarter-ton Ford pickup, jolted down the overgrown logging trail until she again found the narrow, twisting path that led back to Edward’s camp. She had pushed through some four inches or so of wet, sloppy snow, but the elevated frame and good four-wheel drivetrain were adequate for the task. She checked the rearview mirror as Edward always insisted, looking for the telltale signs of unwanted hunters or the damn Department of Natural Resources officers creeping through this lonely stretch of woods. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, Milcah parked on the two-track; there was no shoulder on this desolate road.

Edward had dug a pit nearby, where she could drop off supplies, the opening carefully camouflaged with pine branches and boughs scattered haphazardly over the pit’s trapdoor. Milcah first had to shovel snow and ice off the door before she loaded his supplies, mainly canned goods, into the hole as he had often directed her to do. Of course, his twenty-pound bag of flour couldn’t be left in the dirt-floor pit, as it would be ruined by the moisture, so she stashed it in her backpack, shouldered the load, and headed for Ed’s camp, thankful Edward carried the bulk of his supplies by himself.

She hiked the rough, root-twisted winding path, roughly a mile and a half from the long-abandoned road. The sun had turned the recent snow into slush, and made the tree roots that she occasionally tripped over treacherous. By the time she reached the cabin, Milcah was bushed and sat heavily in Ed’s only chair, a piece of junk salvaged from the dump. Edward was gone—hunting, she supposed. Venison was his staple, even out of season. She put another chunk of firewood in his cheap sheet-metal stove, as it was down to smoldering ashes, and cold air was seeping into the drafty cabin. The frigid chill slithered around her body like a garter snake engulfs a dying mouse. She shivered but was prepared to wait.

She opened a bottle of brandy she had brought along, then rolled a joint of Edward’s homegrown that he’d stashed behind a rock on the fieldstone hearth he’d made. Shortly Milcah was drunk and disoriented, caring less for her personal dilemmas and enjoying her high. Asleep, she barely stirred when Edward finally trudged into the cabin carrying a fresh venison hindquarter over his shoulder and found her dozing in the chair. He aroused her just sufficiently to undress her willing form and move her gently to the makeshift bed. They made love as the venison backstrap sizzled with onions in a cast iron skillet.

In the morning she could hear Edward’s gentle breath as he lay beside her on the rough-cut bed he’d made from lumber scraps. He’d fitted the ill-made affair with a lumpy mattress he had bought at a garage sale. Milcah sat up in the dim morning light and studied him. She felt a rush run through her body for her brother, a rush that she had harbored for decades, though she knew that she was poisoning herself.

She flinched from guilt, replaying the bout of sex they’d had the night before, which always filled her with equal parts of erotic sensations and shame. She tried in her head to reconcile her illicit relationship but admitted to herself that she was stuck.

In the early morning light Milcah told him about the cell tower lights being shot out. He merely shrugged, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

Millie lay beneath the goose down quilt, one of Ed’s only bows to real comfort, and, despite her reservations, lapsed into memories of her childhood.

She was just fourteen and babysitting her ten-year-old brother in the decrepit trailer their mother Cassandra had owned before she had inherited Pastor James’ place on Lake Baraga. Her mother was, as usual, at the local tavern, a place she frequented often after her many failed attempts at finishing grad school and later, a host of shitty jobs. Milcah recalled Ed had been lodged in the only bathroom for over an hour, taking a bath, and she desperately needed to use the toilet.

“Ed, get out of there, I gotta’ pee.”

“It’s warm outside, Millie, go pee in the yard,” he’d called, giggling.

“If you don’t come out in two minutes, I’m coming in.”

“Go ahead. I dare you.”

“Darn it then, I’m coming in.” She’d walked in on Edward, who was stretched out languidly in the soap-stained tub with a washcloth covering his erect penis.

“Jesus,” she’d said in disgust—but strangely found her teenage body aroused. A feeling came over her she couldn’t explain. Slowly, she’d pivoted so her front was close to him and pulled down her faded jeans, and next her panties. His eyes widened. She let him touch her. That was how it all began.

Deputy Larry Salo was ordered by the Baraga County Sheriff to escort the FAA inspector to the tower site at the top of Mt. Arvon. He was to cooperate, an order he decided he could reasonably ignore. Larry drove the department’s old, jacked-up Ford Bronco, with 180,000 miles on her, up the Gorge Road to the two-track, the road snaking through towering white pines, mixed hardwoods, and six inches of yesterday’s fresh snow to the cell tower. Deputy Salo, over-weight he knew, from too much greasy food, was known to most locals as just Larry. He did not invite the young greenhorn inspector to ride along with him; instead, the deputy told Inspector Jennings to follow him.

The previous day, Inspector Jennings had flown into the nearest regional airport in Marquette, some eighty miles away. Larry noticed that the inspector had rented a sedan to get to this remote county in the western Upper Peninsula, not realizing that the vehicle was only front-wheel drive, totally ill-equipped for the snow-choked roads of the U.P.

In his rearview mirror, Larry watched the young Fed trying to keep up. Larry laughed to himself and goosed his Bronco purposely forcing the Inspector to accelerate on the narrow unplowed road. Larry suspected that the heater blasting away in the following sedan would barely fend off the frigid air, which despite the rising barometer, was still a bone-chilling six degrees. He chuckled that the guy had to be shivering in his fashionably expensive tasseled loafers and altogether useless trench coat. The Fed had to be starving as well, as Larry had interrupted the guy’s pre-dawn sleep and ignored his request for a decent breakfast at the local diner across the street from the cheap motel—actually the only motel for miles—where he was lodged.

The inspector clambered out of the sedan. The snow was boot deep and his socks were quickly soggy. He slogged along behind the deputy, grimacing at the snowbanks.

“We’ve got to hike up the trail from here,” said Larry. “The service crew already replaced the lights, both the red and white, so there’s nothing much left to investigate.”

The inspector looked up, and something in his mind seemed to revolt at the steep incline.

“I take it, Deputy, that you have already climbed up there looking for evidence of any sort. And from what you already told me you didn’t find squat.”

“Right, so far. Yes.”

“Well, in that case, I see little need to proceed further. I consider the case closed.”

With that, the inspector climbed back into the rented car and headed back to the airport.

“Good riddance,” Larry muttered, taking his metal detector out of the back of the Bronco. Unfazed by the terrain, he began to climb. Puffing from the exertion, he finally reached the summit. He examined the lay of the granite crags that the tower was erected on, Larry deduced where a likely shooter would have positioned himself to get a respectable shot at the tower lights. Patiently, he began sweeping the metal detector in a methodical grid. It took him well over an hour in the mind-numbing cold, but he found a spent 30/30 casing, which he stuffed in his goose down parka, quietly noting to himself that he had no intention of informing the inspector of his find. “Fuck him.”

Though Larry had private intentions to run in the next county election for sheriff, he had not publicly voiced them. Finding and convicting the vandal who shot out the cell tower lights would be a political asset in this backward county, where the most serious offenses were generally drunken bar fights. He didn’t want to share credit with that young prick inspector from the city.

Two days later Edward shot out the offending lights again. Now, from the cabin’s only window, a cast-off found in a junk pile, the utter darkness was uninterrupted. He found the black of the night comforting, as he sometimes found even the dim starlight of the Milky Way disquieting. He stood nude in front of the damaged mirror, his lanky frame and shoulder-length, dark brown hair wet from his sponge bath. Steam from the old, galvanized wash tub condensed in the cold air of the cabin like the clouds of suspicion weaving in and out in his mind. In the mirror, he was confident he saw shadows, though he guessed that Millie would just laugh at his anxiety. He knew, though, that not only could the NSA hear him from the threatening cell tower, but their insidious new technology allowed the agency to visually spy on the populace as well. He loved Millie, and her pleasant biblical name Milcah, pleased him as well, but Millie, as she preferred to be called, was naive and didn’t comprehend his immediate danger from his potent former employer and now-hated adversary.

“Millie, shoot me over another Light, will ya’?” Larry asked with a note of impatience.

Millie was at the other end of the horseshoe bar, wiping down the worn Formica with disinfectant where a local barfly had just puked. Millie had thrown Muriel out and told the drunken slut she was banned from the bar for a month. If she owned the damn bar, instead of just being a fill-in bartender, she would have banned the bitch for life. Muriel, although some seven years older than Edward, had once briefly bedded him until she’d gotten on her high-horse and gone off to college, jilting him. Edward’s ill-fated relationship with Muriel had aroused a raging jealousy in Millie which she had found almost unbearable. “Good riddance Muriel,” she’d fumed under her breath.

“Just a goddamn minute, Larry. Can’t you see I’m busy?” Millie always got a little irked by Larry’s air of self-importance. He was just a damn deputy, not a superhero, despite his pretensions. Captain Marvel my ass, she thought, smiling to herself. She popped the top on the can and set it down in front of him. “Two-fifty, Larry, same as usual.”

Millie studied Larry like a dissected frog in a high school biology class. Yeah: barely over forty, yet looked fifty, medium build with a pronounced beer paunch, starting to bald, and bad teeth from chewing snuff. All of the features she disliked in men. If Larry had a good side, she hadn’t seen it.

“You know, Millie, this place should give me a beer or two on the house sometimes for all I do for the citizens of the county.”

“You mean sittin’ at the corner traffic light near this wretched bar, running in poor slobs for being over the legal limit for drinking?” She fixed him in the eye. “You know, over-the-legal limit—kinda’ like you now, eh, Larry?”

“I’m off duty and can drink as much as I damn well please.” He stared straight back at her. “That’s what I’ve always liked about you, Millie, you gotta’ tongue bigger than your tits, and that’s saying something.”

Millie smirked. “You’re pretty good at repartee too, Larry. You should go on one of those game shows on the TV. You’d make a million.”

“You know, Millie, if I wasn’t married, I’d do you.”

“From what I have seen in this country bar, being married has never stopped you before. But to be truthful, Larry, you’re just not my type.”

“What is your kinda’ guy, Millie? I’ve never seen or heard of you doing anybody. Are you a lezzie, or maybe just working on becoming a nun?” He winked. “No harm meant, just curious.”

“I think it’s time for you to get in your rusty heap and head on down the road, Larry.” She paused. “And watch out for the State boys. I hear they’ll run in their own mothers for drunk driving.”

A week after Edward had shot out the cell tower lights for the second time, the local paper reported on this most recent incident. There was no question in Millie’s mind that Edward was behind it.

The paper had also related that, despite recently installed surveillance equipment there were no suspects. The newspaper printed a grainy nighttime photo of a form holding a rifle pointed toward the cell tower. Millie recognized the form as Edward. She tried not to panic but was beside herself with fear for him. “Damn him anyway,” she muttered under her breath. On a knife-edge of distress, she hastily decided to make a trip out to his remote cabin.

The snow was deep, but her old pickup wallowed through to the path, now hidden in powder, that led to Ed’s cabin. It wouldn’t be long before her visits by truck would end, and sometime soon she would only be able to visit Edward on her old Ski-Doo. Winter had a chokehold on this rugged country and wouldn’t release her tight-fisted grip until well past mid-April. Millie strapped on her snowshoes and trudged along the path, lost in memories. She wondered how her life had become so convoluted, twisting in the wind and leaving her breathless with shame and longing. Her sexual experience with Edward was illegal, and besides the threat of incarceration, her Christian upbringing nagged at the corners of her mind. Although her late mother had been nothing but a cheap drunk and nutcase, she had faithfully dragged Millie and Ed to church almost every Sunday that she wasn’t suffering a hangover. Millie reluctantly admitted to herself that some of the confirmation stuff that Pastor James had drilled into her troubled teenage mind had stuck. She could never reconcile her Methodist background with the illicit relationship she had hidden so well for decades. The only people who ever suspected were her mother, now dead, and her gynecologist, who had initially denied her request for a tubal ligation after Millie had miscarried in her late twenties. After many tears and quiet admissions, her gynecologist relented, and the medical procedure was done.

Late in life, her mother Cassie tearfully confessed that shortly before Milcah’s birth she’d had a nightmare in which her daughter had birthed a child fathered by her uncle. Her mother took the dream as a prophecy, which Millie now dismissed. Millie believed her mother’s pretentions of prophecy were just part of her mother’s mental illness that had haunted Cassie her whole life. Her mother, consumed by illogical dread, felt a sense of obligation to name her child Milcah, after her namesake in the book of Genesis. Cassie’s delusions and neglect caused Milcah to reject the name and take on her nickname Millie. At times, in the middle of the night, when Edward lay beside her, she felt the dread seeping into deep crevices in her troubled mind, the anger and self-doubt like a cancer she couldn’t excise. At those times, she would wonder whether her love for Edward was truly a sign that the sick prophecy of her deranged mother had manifested itself—or rather, a subconscious disavowal of her childhood religiosity. Most often she felt damned.

Millie shook her thoughts out and pushed open the cabin door, then dropped her heavy rucksack on the floor. Edward was feeding a chunk of seasoned birch into the woodstove and turned to greet her. She embraced him, searching his face for explanations that she feared would disrupt their tangled life.

“Why are you shooting out the damn cell tower lights, Ed?” She winced, not really wanting to know.

“Quiet, Millie.” He held his index finger to his lips. “They’ve got instruments up there that can hear our every word.”

“Who are they, Ed?” she asked, afraid of his answer.

“The government, the NSA, the FBI. They’re all involved.”

“No, they’re not, and nobody gives a damn what either one of us says. You’re acting—just acting c-crazy,” she stammered.

“You’re wrong, Millie. I know what they’re up to.” Ed’s eyes gleamed, and he lowered his voice. “When I worked for the NSA, I found out all about their dirty secrets. They’re afraid I’ll expose them to the public.”

“Ed,” she pleaded, “you’re ill again, just like mother used to get. You worked in the regional postal depot, sorting mail, remember? At least till they fired you for opening government mail. Social Security mail, not NSA stuff. That’s how you ended up on disability. Please, Edward, come back to town with me, and I’ll get you another appointment with the psychiatrist in Marquette. He told me this might happen. Have you been taking your meds? This stuff, your illness is probably hereditary, don’t you see?” she pleaded.

“I don’t need that shit, Millie.”

“Yes, you do,” she stated emphatically. “Listen, Edward, you’re not the damn Unabomber.” Her sentences piled up, one on top of the other like cordwood. “You’re a sick fuck who I happen to care a great deal about. You live alone in the woods because life is a tragedy that you can’t accept. You are harmless—damn crazy, but harmless. But your behavior could get you arrested. Let me take you to the doctor.”

Edward blew his nose on a dirty white sock.

“Christ, Ed. Don’t you even have a damn hanky?” She sniffed in disgust.

“I can’t go to town.”

“You mean you won’t go to town?”

“See it your way, Millie.”

She remained quiet, knowing Edward would have his way. She left at daylight.

The following night Millie, tired, leaned against the bar, eating a bag of those icky cheese things; the orange color stuck to her fingers like some type of edible glue that doctors in the future would probably declare carcinogenic. Larry, the only customer, was going on about some cop shit. She wasn’t paying attention to his drivel.