Trouble on Candlepin - Chapter 6
May. 29th, 2022 07:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kimurhoChapter 1: Borderscry
Chapter 2: Reports
Chapter 3: Christmas Dance
"Chapter 4: Folklore
CHAPTER 5 - History
CHAPTER 6: White Hart Leap
Yule, 21 December
on Candlepin access road
Buck County
Sanderson was silent for several moments. Then she gave a sardonic huff of laughter.
"So that's it? We're out in a snowstorm on a haunted mountain chasing after a guy because he might be related to the ghost whose haunting said mountain and you are some sort of super-hero because you are also descended from this ghost." She blew a raspberry. "Okay Murdock, fun's over. Turn this car around and let's go back. I get it. Really, I do. All newbies get hazed and this one just happens to involve a freak weather pattern, but this ... this isn't the time or place for pranks." She waved a hand at the windshield, indicating the heavy, wet snowflakes hitting the glass.
"I don't have time for this," Murdock decided, speaking more to himself than to his partner. He raised his voice slightly. "Think what you want, Sanderson. Believe what you need to. But just you keep in mind ... I didn't ask you to come with me; you insisted. Partner." He came down hard and bitter on the last word.
She didn't say anything for a while, then she asked, voice hard, "Just what are we doing up here, partner?"
It occurred to him that he hadn't told her. "Two men drove up this mountain half an hour ago, driving a Hummer, according to my informant."
"A cousin," Sanderson said.
"A cousin," Murdock agreed pleasantly. "From what he said, it sounded like they'd made an early start on drinking. If the snow was coming down this heavy back then, they might not have made it back to the Buckminster place."
"So ... what? We're looking for a wreck?"
"Maybe."
"And if we don't see anything?" she pressed.
"Then we go up to the compound and ask if they're there."
After that, they continued in silence. The road wasn't the best and the snow - heavy, wet and slick - didn't help matters. Sanderson studied the far side, looking for signs of a vehicle going out of control.
Finally, they reached a place where the road turned and a gate barred the way. Murdock pulled to a stop beside a call button and pressed.
"Finally!" a voice squawked from the intercom. " 'Bout time you guys got back! Where'd you go for the booze? Capitol City?" The gate began to open.
"This is Deputy Caleb Murdock of the Buck County Sheriff's Department. Am I to understand that Jack Walker and his companion, Mr. Buckminster, did not make it back?"
"Wha ... ? You're who? Wha ...?" The gate stopped, half-open. Before it could close again, Murdock drove through.
"Is that a good idea?" Sanderson murmured softly.
"Probably not."
They came to another gate, this one more substantial and set in a palisade wall that surrounded the compound. A man waited outside. He was a big man, dressed in heavy hunting camo. When Murdock opened the door, he came forward.
"Officer. Ma'am. My name's Mike Biggers, I own this place. Welcome to Eagle's Nest. What can I do you for today?"
"We're looking for a couple of young men who were at the ABC store on Riley a little while back. Buckminster and Walker. Are they here?"
Mike Biggers frowned thoughtfully. "Jace and Buck? You must be mistaken. Those boys haven't left the compound all day. They've been here playing video games with the guys."
"So they are here now?" Murdock asked.
" 'Course they are!" Biggers responded jovially. "That's what I said."
"We aren't looking for them for any trouble," Murdock said carefully. "We just want to make sure that they made it back safely. Because of the snow."
Biggers looked up at the snowflakes falling around them, looking almost surprised to see it. "Hell, man, this aint nothing. My HumVees are all-weather, all-terrain vehicles. A little snow won't stop them." Then he collected himself. "Not that it matters since the boys haven't been out in it, of course."
"Of course," Murdock answered politely. "Sorry to have bothered you."
"No bother a tall. Sorry we couldn't help you."
Biggers waited and watched as Murdock and Sanderson returned to the vehicle and Murdock put it in reverse, turned around and started back down the mountain.
"He's lying through his teeth," Sanderson remarked conversationally.
"Of course he is."
Just outside the gate, Murdock stopped the car. "Take over." Without turning off the engine, he opened the car door and stepped out. Slowly, Sanderson followed suit.
"You want me to drive?"
"Yep. You drive, I'll look for signs of the Hummer. Better division of labor."
"You think I missed something coming up." It wasn't quite a question.
"Be surprised if you didn't, twilight coming on, snow falling, wrong side of the car. Besides, I know this mountain. I know what belongs and what doesn't."
"And you're going to see it even though it's getting dark. Because you're the Caleb." No mistaking the mocking note in her voice as she passed him going to the other side of the vehicle.
"Nope. 'Cause I know this here mountain like the back of my hand."
Sanderson got in and did up the seatbelt. She paused before putting the cruiser into gear to look at Murdock in challenge. "Thought you said you never came up this way."
"Never said that."
She quoted his own words back at him. "When it's storming on Candlepin, all Buckminsters stay in."
Murdock shrugged.
"Aint always stormin' on the mountain. You planning on starting us down this here road or not?"
Once the vehicle was moving, headlights catching the falling snow in glitters of light, he started talking, his voice quiet and contemplative in the growing darkness.
"First time I came up on the mountain, I musta been ten, eleven years old." He gave a small chuckle. "All the way up to the old Buckminster place. Where that compound is now. My cousin CJ dared me. Said I didn't have what it took to be the Caleb."
"You gotta be pulling my leg. Nobody tells an eleven year old he's going to be ... what? Some sort of saviour figure?"
"Protector. And yeah, you do." He was quiet for a bit, his eyes watching the side of the road.
After a while, he spoke again, sounding as if the words were being pulled out of him. "Ol' CJ; his folks thought he'd be the one, named him Caleb James." He shrugged as he added. "He coulda been. Heck, maybe he shoulda been. See, my daddy ... he was a townie my mom met when she went away to University. Makes me half-townie. Half not Bucklander."
He sighed heavily. "Coulda shoulda woulda ... didn't. CJ and me, we joined up together. Marines. I came back. He didn't."
What she was hearing still sounded like a tall tale to Sanderson but she wasn't about to stop him talking. It was more than she'd heard him say in the six months since she'd joined the Buck County Sheriff's Department. Even so, she chanced a question.
"I don't think I've met your father. Your mother, yeah. And your sister, but not your dad."
"Yeah, well, you won't, will you? He was ... is some big-shot professor at University. Didn't want to live in a pokey little town in the middle of no where and he didn't want his son to grow up surrounded by superstition. He was real big on science and explanations. Still is."
She was about to chance another personal question when he interrupted.
"Stop here." They were about a third of the way down. With a curt, "Stay in the car," Murdock got out, going to the back of the vehicle to get a flashlight from the trunk. Sanderson was right behind him.
"I told you to stay in the car," Murdock repeated shortly. "You'll be safe there."
"If I wanted to live safe," Sanderson scoffed. "I wouldn't be a cop."
Murdock didn't like it but he accepted it. "Awright then, in that case, stay close. Don't go off on your own. Don't get distracted and don't wander away."
"I'm not a rookie!" Sanderson snapped.
"Not sayin' you are, but this place aint what you're used to and I'd hate to be the one to tell your wife and kids you aint comin' home."
Sanderson stopped and glared at his back as he continued walking to the side of the road and looked down the drop-off. After a moment, she shrugged and joined him.
Just below the level of the road was a group of three small trees, somewhat larger than saplings but not by much. The beam from the flashlight showed them freshly broken, bent outward and downward, one torn out by the roots. A line of destruction lay beyond, descending into the darkness. Murdock and Sanderson played the light from their torches down the slope.
"There!" Sanderson said, holding her flash steady at a glitter of reflected light. "There's something there."
Murdock nodded, turned his flash back to the three broken trees, studying the ground around them. He shook his head.
"Too disturbed, caint tell if anyone got out or not."
"You think the Hummer did this?" Sanderson asked.
"You don't?" Without waiting for an answer, Murdock turned to walk back to the trunk of the cruiser. "I'm climbin' down there. Those boys might be trapped ... unconscious or dead. We gotta find out."
Sanderson was right behind him to help with the ropes and climbing gear.
"I can't believe you spotted that. From the road, at night, with snow falling. I would never have seen it."
Murdock shrugged the coil of rope on his shoulder.
"I figgered that if somethin' happened to them, it'd've happened here." Murdock pointed to the drop-off with his chin. "This here's White Hart Leap."
"White Heart Leap?" Sanderson repeated with a huff. "Is that Buck County code for Lover's Leap? Segregated by colour?"
"H-a-r-t, as in deer, not h-e-a-r-t." He dropped the rope, looked around for something to secure it. "Bring the car around."
When she got back, he continued.
"Story goes, two hunters out on the mountain spotted a stag, pure white with hooves and antlers of gold. They tracked it to this point, saw it running ahead of them. It took a leap, hereabouts more or less, into empty air and disappeared. One of 'em got obsessed with baggin' the creature, took to comin' up here at odd moments. Then one day, he jumped off the Leap after it."
"So why wasn't it named after him?"
Murdock shrugged. "He was a Buckminster. One of the good 'uns, but even so, we warn't gonna name something after one of them. Besides, they never did find his body, so they figgered he probably ended up same place my twelve-times grand-daddy did."
He tested the ropes and started looping them around his body. Sanderson stopped him.
"Shouldn't I be the one going down there? I mean, give your connection to the place and all. I mean, given all your family history and your ... twelve-times grand-daddy and all."
"You caint even see the dangers down there. Jist keep the light on that gleam so I know where I'm headin'. And ... keep an eye out, all right? For an'thing strange?"
It wasn't as difficult a climb down as it could have been. Murdock took it slow, fed out the rope carefully, and made it down. He followed the light until he came to where the Hummer lay on its side, resting against a pair of forest giants.
Murdock peered in the front window, studying what he could see and taking pictures with his phone. Pulling out the walkie-talkie, he reported what he'd found, adding, "The vehicle is empty. Looks like those boys got themselves out before it went over."
Stepping carefully in his own footsteps, he walked back away and started taking more pictures, showing the lack of any other tracks around the SUV. Finally, he started back up. The ascent took a lot longer than the climb down.
Flashing lights told him that emergency service had been called long before he made it to the top. The EMTs were ready to wrap him in a thermal blanket and hand him coffee."
"Marie's ready to put the call out for volunteers for search and rescue," one of them told him. "She just wants to know if you want them on the mountain tonight?"
Murdock frowned, glaring up at the falling snow. Then he heaved a deep sigh, shook his head. "Tell her to stand down. That idiot up the mountain, Biggers, said those two made it back. We aint that far from the compound."
"But you know he was lying," Sanderson reminded him.
"Don't mean he wasn't tellin' part of the truth," Murdock replied. "No, we wait and see. Talk to him tomorrow."
He finished the cup of coffee, stood and handed the blanket back to the EMT. Then he nodded at Sanderson. "Let's get back to the station. We're done here for now."
Chapter 2: Reports
Chapter 3: Christmas Dance
"Chapter 4: Folklore
CHAPTER 5 - History
CHAPTER 6: White Hart Leap
Yule, 21 December
on Candlepin access road
Buck County
Sanderson was silent for several moments. Then she gave a sardonic huff of laughter.
"So that's it? We're out in a snowstorm on a haunted mountain chasing after a guy because he might be related to the ghost whose haunting said mountain and you are some sort of super-hero because you are also descended from this ghost." She blew a raspberry. "Okay Murdock, fun's over. Turn this car around and let's go back. I get it. Really, I do. All newbies get hazed and this one just happens to involve a freak weather pattern, but this ... this isn't the time or place for pranks." She waved a hand at the windshield, indicating the heavy, wet snowflakes hitting the glass.
"I don't have time for this," Murdock decided, speaking more to himself than to his partner. He raised his voice slightly. "Think what you want, Sanderson. Believe what you need to. But just you keep in mind ... I didn't ask you to come with me; you insisted. Partner." He came down hard and bitter on the last word.
She didn't say anything for a while, then she asked, voice hard, "Just what are we doing up here, partner?"
It occurred to him that he hadn't told her. "Two men drove up this mountain half an hour ago, driving a Hummer, according to my informant."
"A cousin," Sanderson said.
"A cousin," Murdock agreed pleasantly. "From what he said, it sounded like they'd made an early start on drinking. If the snow was coming down this heavy back then, they might not have made it back to the Buckminster place."
"So ... what? We're looking for a wreck?"
"Maybe."
"And if we don't see anything?" she pressed.
"Then we go up to the compound and ask if they're there."
After that, they continued in silence. The road wasn't the best and the snow - heavy, wet and slick - didn't help matters. Sanderson studied the far side, looking for signs of a vehicle going out of control.
Finally, they reached a place where the road turned and a gate barred the way. Murdock pulled to a stop beside a call button and pressed.
"Finally!" a voice squawked from the intercom. " 'Bout time you guys got back! Where'd you go for the booze? Capitol City?" The gate began to open.
"This is Deputy Caleb Murdock of the Buck County Sheriff's Department. Am I to understand that Jack Walker and his companion, Mr. Buckminster, did not make it back?"
"Wha ... ? You're who? Wha ...?" The gate stopped, half-open. Before it could close again, Murdock drove through.
"Is that a good idea?" Sanderson murmured softly.
"Probably not."
They came to another gate, this one more substantial and set in a palisade wall that surrounded the compound. A man waited outside. He was a big man, dressed in heavy hunting camo. When Murdock opened the door, he came forward.
"Officer. Ma'am. My name's Mike Biggers, I own this place. Welcome to Eagle's Nest. What can I do you for today?"
"We're looking for a couple of young men who were at the ABC store on Riley a little while back. Buckminster and Walker. Are they here?"
Mike Biggers frowned thoughtfully. "Jace and Buck? You must be mistaken. Those boys haven't left the compound all day. They've been here playing video games with the guys."
"So they are here now?" Murdock asked.
" 'Course they are!" Biggers responded jovially. "That's what I said."
"We aren't looking for them for any trouble," Murdock said carefully. "We just want to make sure that they made it back safely. Because of the snow."
Biggers looked up at the snowflakes falling around them, looking almost surprised to see it. "Hell, man, this aint nothing. My HumVees are all-weather, all-terrain vehicles. A little snow won't stop them." Then he collected himself. "Not that it matters since the boys haven't been out in it, of course."
"Of course," Murdock answered politely. "Sorry to have bothered you."
"No bother a tall. Sorry we couldn't help you."
Biggers waited and watched as Murdock and Sanderson returned to the vehicle and Murdock put it in reverse, turned around and started back down the mountain.
"He's lying through his teeth," Sanderson remarked conversationally.
"Of course he is."
Just outside the gate, Murdock stopped the car. "Take over." Without turning off the engine, he opened the car door and stepped out. Slowly, Sanderson followed suit.
"You want me to drive?"
"Yep. You drive, I'll look for signs of the Hummer. Better division of labor."
"You think I missed something coming up." It wasn't quite a question.
"Be surprised if you didn't, twilight coming on, snow falling, wrong side of the car. Besides, I know this mountain. I know what belongs and what doesn't."
"And you're going to see it even though it's getting dark. Because you're the Caleb." No mistaking the mocking note in her voice as she passed him going to the other side of the vehicle.
"Nope. 'Cause I know this here mountain like the back of my hand."
Sanderson got in and did up the seatbelt. She paused before putting the cruiser into gear to look at Murdock in challenge. "Thought you said you never came up this way."
"Never said that."
She quoted his own words back at him. "When it's storming on Candlepin, all Buckminsters stay in."
Murdock shrugged.
"Aint always stormin' on the mountain. You planning on starting us down this here road or not?"
Once the vehicle was moving, headlights catching the falling snow in glitters of light, he started talking, his voice quiet and contemplative in the growing darkness.
"First time I came up on the mountain, I musta been ten, eleven years old." He gave a small chuckle. "All the way up to the old Buckminster place. Where that compound is now. My cousin CJ dared me. Said I didn't have what it took to be the Caleb."
"You gotta be pulling my leg. Nobody tells an eleven year old he's going to be ... what? Some sort of saviour figure?"
"Protector. And yeah, you do." He was quiet for a bit, his eyes watching the side of the road.
After a while, he spoke again, sounding as if the words were being pulled out of him. "Ol' CJ; his folks thought he'd be the one, named him Caleb James." He shrugged as he added. "He coulda been. Heck, maybe he shoulda been. See, my daddy ... he was a townie my mom met when she went away to University. Makes me half-townie. Half not Bucklander."
He sighed heavily. "Coulda shoulda woulda ... didn't. CJ and me, we joined up together. Marines. I came back. He didn't."
What she was hearing still sounded like a tall tale to Sanderson but she wasn't about to stop him talking. It was more than she'd heard him say in the six months since she'd joined the Buck County Sheriff's Department. Even so, she chanced a question.
"I don't think I've met your father. Your mother, yeah. And your sister, but not your dad."
"Yeah, well, you won't, will you? He was ... is some big-shot professor at University. Didn't want to live in a pokey little town in the middle of no where and he didn't want his son to grow up surrounded by superstition. He was real big on science and explanations. Still is."
She was about to chance another personal question when he interrupted.
"Stop here." They were about a third of the way down. With a curt, "Stay in the car," Murdock got out, going to the back of the vehicle to get a flashlight from the trunk. Sanderson was right behind him.
"I told you to stay in the car," Murdock repeated shortly. "You'll be safe there."
"If I wanted to live safe," Sanderson scoffed. "I wouldn't be a cop."
Murdock didn't like it but he accepted it. "Awright then, in that case, stay close. Don't go off on your own. Don't get distracted and don't wander away."
"I'm not a rookie!" Sanderson snapped.
"Not sayin' you are, but this place aint what you're used to and I'd hate to be the one to tell your wife and kids you aint comin' home."
Sanderson stopped and glared at his back as he continued walking to the side of the road and looked down the drop-off. After a moment, she shrugged and joined him.
Just below the level of the road was a group of three small trees, somewhat larger than saplings but not by much. The beam from the flashlight showed them freshly broken, bent outward and downward, one torn out by the roots. A line of destruction lay beyond, descending into the darkness. Murdock and Sanderson played the light from their torches down the slope.
"There!" Sanderson said, holding her flash steady at a glitter of reflected light. "There's something there."
Murdock nodded, turned his flash back to the three broken trees, studying the ground around them. He shook his head.
"Too disturbed, caint tell if anyone got out or not."
"You think the Hummer did this?" Sanderson asked.
"You don't?" Without waiting for an answer, Murdock turned to walk back to the trunk of the cruiser. "I'm climbin' down there. Those boys might be trapped ... unconscious or dead. We gotta find out."
Sanderson was right behind him to help with the ropes and climbing gear.
"I can't believe you spotted that. From the road, at night, with snow falling. I would never have seen it."
Murdock shrugged the coil of rope on his shoulder.
"I figgered that if somethin' happened to them, it'd've happened here." Murdock pointed to the drop-off with his chin. "This here's White Hart Leap."
"White Heart Leap?" Sanderson repeated with a huff. "Is that Buck County code for Lover's Leap? Segregated by colour?"
"H-a-r-t, as in deer, not h-e-a-r-t." He dropped the rope, looked around for something to secure it. "Bring the car around."
When she got back, he continued.
"Story goes, two hunters out on the mountain spotted a stag, pure white with hooves and antlers of gold. They tracked it to this point, saw it running ahead of them. It took a leap, hereabouts more or less, into empty air and disappeared. One of 'em got obsessed with baggin' the creature, took to comin' up here at odd moments. Then one day, he jumped off the Leap after it."
"So why wasn't it named after him?"
Murdock shrugged. "He was a Buckminster. One of the good 'uns, but even so, we warn't gonna name something after one of them. Besides, they never did find his body, so they figgered he probably ended up same place my twelve-times grand-daddy did."
He tested the ropes and started looping them around his body. Sanderson stopped him.
"Shouldn't I be the one going down there? I mean, give your connection to the place and all. I mean, given all your family history and your ... twelve-times grand-daddy and all."
"You caint even see the dangers down there. Jist keep the light on that gleam so I know where I'm headin'. And ... keep an eye out, all right? For an'thing strange?"
It wasn't as difficult a climb down as it could have been. Murdock took it slow, fed out the rope carefully, and made it down. He followed the light until he came to where the Hummer lay on its side, resting against a pair of forest giants.
Murdock peered in the front window, studying what he could see and taking pictures with his phone. Pulling out the walkie-talkie, he reported what he'd found, adding, "The vehicle is empty. Looks like those boys got themselves out before it went over."
Stepping carefully in his own footsteps, he walked back away and started taking more pictures, showing the lack of any other tracks around the SUV. Finally, he started back up. The ascent took a lot longer than the climb down.
Flashing lights told him that emergency service had been called long before he made it to the top. The EMTs were ready to wrap him in a thermal blanket and hand him coffee."
"Marie's ready to put the call out for volunteers for search and rescue," one of them told him. "She just wants to know if you want them on the mountain tonight?"
Murdock frowned, glaring up at the falling snow. Then he heaved a deep sigh, shook his head. "Tell her to stand down. That idiot up the mountain, Biggers, said those two made it back. We aint that far from the compound."
"But you know he was lying," Sanderson reminded him.
"Don't mean he wasn't tellin' part of the truth," Murdock replied. "No, we wait and see. Talk to him tomorrow."
He finished the cup of coffee, stood and handed the blanket back to the EMT. Then he nodded at Sanderson. "Let's get back to the station. We're done here for now."
