I’m releasing Chapters 9 and 10 this week. Chapter 9 is included below in this post. Chapter 10 will follow in a few minutes 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.
Show me a quiet soul and I’ll show you a sneak. — Frank Kappens
Chapter 9
The trail led them onward, rising and falling, porpoising westward. They zipped their jackets and shoved their necks deeper into their collars until they arrived at the place where the trail dropped into Moe’s Canyon and the wind fell silent for the first time that morning.
Whit concentrated on his steps — left, right, until his pace slowed and his shoulders slumped. He felt relaxed for the first time today. It could be he was just tired.
The sun was high so it wasn’t all shadow at the canyon bottom, but it reached the ground only in dappled splotches, where it wasn’t blocked by trees.
Frank was beginning to take the prolonged silence from Lucy and Whit personally. He couldn’t imagine why they might be angry with him, but he felt a definite vibe. They didn’t want him along. They marched on ahead of him, talking with one other without a word in his direction.
“I bet neither of you can guess the best way to bring down a man with a single punch,” he raised his voice so Lucy and Whit could hear. Enough with the disrespect. He’d make them talk to him. “Huh? Either of you care to take a guess?”
Receiving no reply, he pushed on. “A straight-on punch to the chin. Snaps the head, makes the brain jump around like a monkey in a cage. That’s why boxers tuck in their chins and clench their jaws. You catch a guy relaxed, with his mouth slightly open, and wham, he’s going down. Out.”
Whit sighed.
“Jesus, Frank,” said Lucy.
Neither of them looked back or slowed.
“It’s true. A lot of people think it’s the temple, and that’s a good spot too, but the number one knock-out shot is a dead-eye punch flush on the chin.”
When Whit or Lucy didn’t respond, Frank started to hum. Don’t show weakness, he thought, even though his body was lagging. He needed to stop soon. Get some food, salt and water, maybe try to force out a few coughs to clear his phlegm, although his chest and lungs felt good, so far. He wondered if he needed to, and only if he needed to, whether he could ask Whit or Lucy to thump on his back to help him out. Fuck no, he thought. He’d die first.
He didn’t know what their problem was, but he wasn’t going to let it spoil his day. He turned up the volume on his humming to make sure the others could hear, and purred out the tune to a song about labour unions and childhood longings in New Jersey.
Whit and Lucy endured that and two more songs until Sleeping Lord Mountain shone out from above the ridge at the far end of the canyon, its top gleaming with new snow.
“See that.” Lucy outlined the mountain’s silhouette with her finger, tracing the vague outline of a person with a gigantic nose reclining on their back. The mountain was locally famous. It rose above the surrounding peaks and everybody in the region either lived in its shadow or squinted at it from a distance every day.
“But once we climb the waterfall, you’ll see it like you’ve never seen it before,” she promised.
They reached the western limits of Moe’s Canyon, where a waterfall trickled over the edge of a 20-metre-high rock slope into a small pool at their feet. A narrow channel veered left from the pool and the water disappeared underground.
The trail disappeared too. Most casual hikers turned around at this apparent dead-end and headed back to Jury using the same trail, but Lucy, Whit and Frank sought greater things.
The falls amounted to a thin dribble this time of year, making it possible to scramble up the stones in the middle of the channel, although Lucy insisted there was a better way, she just had to find it.
She set down her pack and rummaged through the bushes, on one side of the falls, then the other.
“It’s right here, I know it’s here,” she mumbled, scratched her head. She sat down next to the falls and talked herself through the problem.
“Maybe I’m remembering wrong and it’s bit farther to the right? No, nope,” she shook her head. “It’s right in here.” She drew a circle with her hands over a large area to the right of the falls and suddenly dove into a thick shrub previously deemed too thick to push through.
“Found it,” she cried.
Foliage had grown over the path at the bottom, but the route became clear a few steps higher up, where dirt and plant life were scarce.
Whit and Frank scrambled after her.
It took almost an hour to reach the top. Frank especially struggled and he stopped every few steps. The track was wet and slick and the three scrambled over slick shale and waist-high boulders, but finally, they burst onto the summit heaving and gasping, but smiling.
They splashed in a tiny pool where the water gathered before dribbling over the rock face and then collapsed at the water’s edge.
Frank fumbled with his pack, seeking snacks and water. He ate and coughed and pounded his chest; ate some more, coughed, pounded.
Whit lay on his back breathing in heavy draws, watching the trees sway against the sky. They were out of Moe’s Canyon, out of shelter, but the wind was still calm, he thought. The day was changing.
Lucy drank deep and long, almost an entire bottle of water and flopped down next to him.
“How much farther?” he asked.
“Tough to say.”
“But you did this when you were a kid, right?”
“Well, five years ago,” Lucy said. “Old man had a few favourite spots he liked to go.”
“Ok, but you and your old man walked the whole thing in a day? Like, no overnight camps or anything?”
“Oh, no, no, definitely no stops. It was a one-day round trip.”
“Good.” Whit said. If Lucy had made this trip in a day at 10 years old, he was certain they could do it, even with Frank in tow. He felt better about the journey now that he was in the middle of it and wanted to finish. Frank better not cack out on them.
They laid sprawled on a high plateau, the trail slid downward before them into lush meadows. In the distance, the trail gradually rose again, and was swallowed by the distant cedar trees.
Sleeping Lord loomed brighter and larger than Whit and Frank had ever seen it. It seemed all trails must lead to the mountain from here.
“Now, all we have to do is make for the Lord’s nose,” Lucy said, pointing. “The way down into Mud Valley lies directly in front of it.”
Frank moaned and pulled himself upright.
“We’ve been hiking for three hours,” he said. “I thought you said the walk all the way there would only take about three hours.”
“We’ve been moving slower than I thought.” Lucy threw an apple core that bounced off Frank’s head. “I wonder why, lard-ass.”
A few seconds passed, the tension thrummed between them.
“Sorry,” Lucy muttered, finally.
“Fuck you.” Frank’s face was red. He oozed sweat and his eyes bulged. He threw a plastic bottle, which bounced off the ground next to Lucy.
“Go on ahead if you want,” he shouted. “Don’t wait for me, I’ll figure it out on my own. It’s not your problem if I fall behind. I’ll get there by myself.”
Whit stood up and moved between them, pushing his palms downward, signalling for calm.
“Cut it out.” He shifted his attention from Lucy to Frank and back several times. “If you losers are going to gouge each other’s faces off, maybe we should think about turning around and going home.”
The others grumbled.
“No way I’m stopping,” Frank said.
“Yeah, we’ve come too far to turn back now.” Lucy paced a few steps ahead, attempting to get them moving again.
“OK, so we’re going ahead, then? It’s decided and we’re in this together, right?” Whit looked them both over again.
They nodded.
“Right.” Whit motioned for Lucy to come near. He turned her around and removed the map from the front pocket of her backpack and opened it.
“We must be close to Mud Valley. How much longer, Lucy? An hour?”
“Tops.” Lucy snatched the map, folded it up and handed it to Whit and pointed with her thumbs that he should return it to her pack.
They set out once more. Frank sullen and slower than ever, determined to demonstrate the depth of his hurt feelings. An awkward silence hung over them until Frank broke the tension, despite himself.
“What do we think we’re going to find when we get to the spot?” he asked.
Lucy slapped her feet hard on the wet trail. It must have rained in the night.
No reply. Frank coughed, stopped and started thumping his chest again. “If we find the spot John King described in the recording, what if he’s still there? What if he lives there or some crazy shit like that?”
“Shit Frank,” Lucy said. “Do you have to spoil everything? We will find the right place, I know it. And when we get there, we’ll find a crappy shack in a small clearing. Next to it, there’ll be a pond full of smelly mud and insects and a lot of scruffy brush and skinny lodgepole pine trees. That’s what I remember.”
“Nobody lives there,” Whit said, “except mosquitoes and mice and the odd angler or hunter.”
“Right,” Lucy said. “It’s just a quick stopover spot. That’s what my dad used it for. He used it as a home base to fish or hunt for a day or two.”
Frank dug a few pills, swallowed them with water.
“How do you know if it’s even the right pond? There must be 100 of them out there,” he asked.
“The one I’m thinking of is right off the main trail. Just there.” She pointed to her right as if they were standing on the spot. “We should see the pond from the trail.”
Whit sighed. “Please tell me the plan isn’t us wandering around, just hoping to strike it lucky.”
“Lucky is my middle name. Lucy Lucky Kloot, that’s me.”
She noted Whit’s skeptical expression. “I’m kidding. I got this.”
“Do you guys want to know what I was wondering?” Frank asked.
“No,” Lucy and Whit shouted at him.
Frank was undeterred. “How would King drag Whit all the way back into Mud Valley if he had to carry him, if Whit was unconscious or drugged? Whit is a pretty big guy and this is a long way.”
“The trail looks wide enough for an ATV, and according to the map, there is a way to swing north and get around the waterfall, it’s just a lot farther that way,” Lucy said. “There are other ways in, too. He might have come in from the other side of the valley. I don’t know those trails, I’ve never been to that side.”
“Shit.” Whit rubbed his forehead. “This is sounding more and more like one giant clusterfuck.”
“Come on. Come on, Whit, we’ve come this far,” Lucy moved behind him and poked.
“Ok, fuck it. Let’s go,” he said. “But first, let’s fix this little problem.”
He motioned for Frank to turn his back and unzipped his pack. He removed a couple of zip-lock bags of snacks and a two-litre water bottle and shoved the items into the tall grass beside the trail.
“We can pick this stuff up on the way back. Frank, what else you got in there you don’t need right away so we can lighten the load?”
Frank seized the pack from Whit and produced a collapsible saw, a break-apart fishing rod and a hatchet.
He tossed the items off the trail with the other items and hoisted the pack onto his shoulders. “Lead the way.”