I’m releasing Chapters 7 and 8 this week. You should have received Chapter 7 a few minutes ago in a separate e-mail.
This novel, 3 Lives in Jury, is delivered, a chapter or two, every Thursday. There will be mistakes because self-editing is a fool’s game. I apologize in advance but experimentation has a price.
I’d love to hear what you think. I can be reached at terryfries.edit@gmail.com or leave a comment.
It’s better in the Substack app, if you’re so inclined.
I’m on my way
I’m taking my time but I don’t know where…
Paul Simon
Chapter 8
Saturday dawned clear and cold and the wind sank their hearts as the trio reached the bottom of Lower Army Road.
“It’ll be better when we get into the trees and out of the wind.” Frank cupped his eyes for a better view. It was going to be a tough climb, a couple hundred feet at least. He swore under his breath and hoped he was ready.
“You OK?” Whit asked, guessing at Frank’s wavering determination. If he can’t make it, it’s better to know now than find out five kilometres down the trail.
Frank nodded. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Oh, fuck yeah.”
Lucy had revealed her plan to Whit the day he emerged from his bedroom. It would be easy to hike into Mud Valley, she told him. She knew of a tiny shack, barely more than a lean-to, built with thin tree trunks for a roof. She was sure it was beside a pond, almost exactly like the place Horseface mentioned in the recordings, where he claimed his friend laid sick.
“It’s got to be you,” she said. “The sick friend, the boy. It’s too much of a coincidence for it not to be you.”
Whit nodded. The shack and that roof could be the striped roof he remembered, the light-dark, light-dark; the sunlight-shadow, sunlight-shadow pattern. Remembering almost made him sick. Thoughts of what they might find terrified him.
But maybe they’ll trek all the way in and find nothing. That was possible, probably even likely, Whit thought. His memories, what he had of them, were a year old. Horseface won’t be around.
He even doubted if Lucy could find the right place. She was a child when she visited Mud Valley. The shack she was talking about probably didn’t exist anymore, the trail could be completely erased.
As they packed supplies yesterday, Lucy tried to reassure him and showed him the maps she’d found. “See, everything is the same as I remember.”
By morning, there was no backing out. They made their alibis, and 20 minutes later they stood facing a faintly pink sky, their backs to the sun as it resurfaced.
Whit wondered for the tenth time about Frank’s fitness for the journey. He wasn’t up-to-date on the latest cystic fibrosis information, but he knew enough to know it sapped Frank’s energy and plugged his lungs and chest with phlegm. And while Frank’s confidence and determination were points in his favour, his incessant nattering and his unhealthy fascination for conspiracy theories and true crime anecdotes, “the facts” as he called them, annoyed him and Lucy.
They volleyed the pros and cons back and forth until Whit slammed his hand down on the table and declared Frank should go with them, but not for the reasons Lucy suspected.
Whit was having second thoughts, and Frank might offer him an honourable exit. It’s not sabotage, he thought, but if Frank’s health forces us to retreat, that might be OK.
So far, however, Frank exuded confidence. “There is no way I am not going with you into the Mud Valley,” he said.
“It’s just Mud Valley, Frank. There’s no ‘the’ in Mud Valley,” Lucy said, annoyed at Frank before they even got started.
Looking up now, the base of Lower Army Road was nothing like Lucy remembered. Someone had excavated a pie-shaped piece of earth from the centre of the round hill, cutting off the steep, straight path up the middle.
But to each side, Lucy saw thin trails marking a way up both shoulders of the hill, skirting the edge of the dig. At the peak, a wide track disappeared into the small trees behind.
“Follow the yellow brick road,” Lucy pointed to their right and they started up.
At the top of the hill, the way was more convoluted than it had appeared from the bottom. The three discovered a web of smaller tracks splitting off in many directions, where amateur botanists explored, entomologists idled and wanderers hid from their day jobs. The three kept to the widest trail, the route most travelled.
It was steep and rocky, and the wind gave them no rest as they climbed. Scruffy trees, shrubs, flowers and weeds covered the ground on both sides, but the trail was clear, worn bare by rushing water of yearly spring runoffs. The three struggled to get decent traction on the loose gravel and the climb was slow.
“Don’t tell me you big men are tired already,” Lucy taunted and marched past, taking the lead.
Whit let her pass.
Frank, however, pushed harder, leaving Whit trailing the pack.
They slipped along, at times turning sideways to gain better footing, or they walked beside the trail, through low bushes and grass because polished rock outcroppings, glistening and treacherous from the morning dew, made the trail impassible.
“We have to stop for a God-damned drink,” Frank puffed.
“There’s a spot ahead. It’s not far.”
“You’ve been saying that for half an hour, Lucy.”
“Maybe if you quit talking, the walking would be easier,” Whit called from the back.
Frank reached over one shoulder and patted his backpack. “This shit is fucking heavy.”
Whit lowered his head against the wind and frowned. Their enthusiasm was irritating. He understood why Lucy was keen on the trip. She had memories and probably a lot of questions. She has a history with the place. But why has Frank so fired up?
He grinned. He knew the answer to that question. It was because Frank was Frank, and he never turned his back on a test. It was instinct, like a ferret driven to chase rats.
Whit had been watching Frank struggle for some time and felt torn. Should he give him a hand, or hope he hits a wall so they have to turn back?
He watched Frank wobble beneath the weight of his pack. His back heaved and fell with every step and Whit felt sorry for him. Frank was forced to lug more weight than him and Lucy because he required extra drinks and nutrition due to his CF.
“Frank, Frank. Wait up,” Whit called.
“Here.” He caught up and fumbled with the zippers on Frank’s pack.
“What the hell,” Frank tried to twist away, but Whit grabbed the pack’s shoulder straps and spun Frank to face away from him. He pulled out two bottles of Gatorade and a two-litre bottle of water, dropped his own pack to the ground and buried the water bottle and one Gatorade inside. Then signaled for Lucy to turn around and dropped the other Gatorade into her pack.
“Now fucking keep up,” he said to Frank and swept past.
Frank protested, but Whit ignored him and Frank fell in beside Lucy. He dug out the hand-held GPS device from his jacket pocket and toyed with the buttons as he walked.
“Put that fucking thing away.” Lucy knocked his elbow. “We don’t need the fucking GPS because all we have to do is follow this trail. It goes up, it goes down. It wiggles to the left, it veers back to the right. It’s basic stuff.” She slapped the device to the ground.
Frank stooped, picked it up and started punching buttons for effect. “People get lost all the time in places where they think it’s basic stuff,” he said. “I know my shit. Anytime you go into the backcountry, you better go prepared.”
“Fuck’s sakes, Frank. We made a list,” Lucy said. “You were supposed to stick to the list. We divvied up the supplies, and the food and water evenly so nobody would have to carry too big a load. Now you have a GPS. That wasn’t on the list, Frank. What else you got back in your pack?”
“Let’s see, I got my little knife, my big knife, my multi-tool, collapsible saw, lighter, fire-starting magnesium block, fire-starting sticks, two jackets, a tarp.”
“Shut up, shut up. It’s overkill Frank, and you’re falling behind already. I won’t carry you and I won’t take anything else from your pack.”
“Nobody asked you to,” he puffed.
Frank trudged along quietly for half an hour and Whit felt grateful to Lucy for shutting him up. But the quiet won’t last, he thought.
Lucy unintentionally got Frank worked up again when they walked into the wide meadow of tall grass and white, red and blue flowers. She called out over the wind: “Watch for bears. They love flowers and raspberries so keep an eye out. If you see the grasses moving like a big, ol’ wave coming at you, dash out fast.”
It happened that Frank knew a lot about bears.
“It states in the SAS Survival Guide not to run from black bears, just calmly back away and nine times out of 10, they’ll pass right by us. But if it’s a grizzly, it’s every man for himself. Those fuckers are territorial and aggressive.” Frank produced the book from a side pocket of his backpack and held it up.
“You got to run for safety if you see a grizzly. Drop your pack to distract them and run like a Jew from Germany. But a black bear, well, if we stay calm, we’ll be fine. Unless, the bear is starving, then, well, we’re fucked.”
“An SAS Survival Guide?” asked Lucy, shaking her head.
“Yeah, there’s great stuff in here, like how to make a fish trap, how to lay tree branches to make a comfortable bed, how to use a compass. Hardcore stuff. The full-size manual I have at home even has self-defence lessons.”
“Hardcore stuff,” Lucy repeated. “You’re going to need those self-defence lessons if you don’t smarten up because I might have to put you down.”
Frank squinted at her and dismissed her with a grunt. “Let’s see you put this down.” He grabbed his crotch and raised his head in howling laughter.
Lucy shoved him, causing him to stumble a couple of steps off the trail. “Well come on. What are you waiting for? Whip it out. You like jokes so much, let us see that joke you have hiding under there,” she smirked.
Frank held her gaze but was out of moves. He coughed and headed back up the trail. “Jesus, joke much,” he said.
He continued his pretence of consulting GPS readings and then, without warning he dropped his pack and rustled out a bag of mixed nuts, M & Ms and raisins, popped an enzyme pill and munched. He was panting, but didn’t sound horrible.
Lucy sighed, resigned to waiting, and poked around in the low bushes on the side of the trail. Whit returned to where Frank and Lucy had stopped and sat in the stones and dirt.
“Blueberries,” Lucy shouted and held up a few before popping them into her mouth.
“Mmmm.” She took a deep breath and spread her arms to the sun.
A few minutes later, they resumed. The path’s incline softened and the climb became easier. Frank still stopped too often for Whit and Lucy’s liking but they were making decent progress.