Track of the Beast: A Brock Stone Adventure

“One more drink before I hit the road.” Sam Price raised his empty mug, as if Wayne, the bartender, needed the illustration to go along with his request. He let out a loud belch and patted his gut. He felt the beginning of a paunch. Logging was hard work, but Sam was thirty-five, and Lord knew he consumed enough beer and slugburgers. There was nothing else to do in these parts, so why not?

“You sure can put them away.” Wayne, a burly man with pale skin and black hair. slid the mug across the rough wooden surface of the bar, foam spilling over the lip and onto Sam’s hand.

“Hey, careful now. I paid for the whole drink.” Sam grinned.

“You gonna turn me in?” Wayne replied. He was a reserved sort and it was always hard to tell when he was joking.

“Of course not.” Establishments like these were technically illegal. Most speakeasys pretended to be a different sort of business. Here in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, no one bothered to pretend. The revenue man assigned to this area dropped by a couple times a year to accept his bribe and enjoy a few drinks, all the while bemoaning the fact that prohibition would probably come to an end soon.

Sam turned on his stool and looked around the joint. The Woodsman’s Complaint was a dark, dreary place. Most of the light came from the roaring fireplace. It was late summer, but it got cold after sundown. Only a couple of patrons remained, nursing their beers and puffing on pipes or hand-rolled cigarettes. A blue haze surrounded them, and the whole place reeked of smoke and spilled beer. Even if there were any eligible women around, they wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this.

Discouraged, Sam drained his beer, left a few coins on the bar, and staggered toward the door.

“Time to make tracks,” he announced to anyone who might be listening.

“You going to make it all right?” Wayne asked with a touch of indifference.

“Abyssinia!” Sam had picked up the slang term for farewell on a brief visit to New York City. So far it had not caught on in these parts, but he was trying. Not looking back, Sam waved and headed out into the night. The crisp air did not exactly sharpen his senses, but he felt a touch more alert now that he was out of the cramped, smoky bar.

He spared a minute to take a leak against the side of the bar, barely managing to keep his boots clean, and then began the long walk back to camp.

The moon was out, painting the dirt road in a light brushing of silver. As he moved deeper into the forest, though, the way grew dark, with barely enough light to keep from losing his way.

He didn’t care. He could make this trek with his eyes closed. He was tempted to try it, but if he closed his eyes, he’d probably fall asleep. He shouldn’t have stayed out so late or drank so much. He would pay for it tomorrow.

He quickened his pace, lengthened his stride, and hurried on. As he moved along, the scant light melted away as dark clouds drifted over the moon.

“Guess I’ll get to test my theory after all.” He spoke louder than absolutely necessary, the sound of his own voice emboldening him. He was a woodsman, plenty rugged, but being unable to see more than a few feet in front of his face unnerved him.

He remembered sitting on the front porch of his childhood home in southwest Virginia, listening to his grandfather tell stories of witches and haints, the ghosts that haunted the Blue Ridge Mountains. He didn’t believe those stories, at least, not most of the time, but when he was alone in the dark, they suddenly seemed just a touch more plausible.

Sam Price, how did you ever end up over here on the wrong side of the country? he thought. It was an unexpected turn of events. With his hometown caught in the grip of the Great Depression, he had traveled all the way to New York City looking for work, and ended up in Washington of all places. But, the job kept him fed, clothed, and sheltered, with a little left over to send home. Minus drinking money, of course. Still, these mountains had a different feel to those back East. Sometimes he felt like he had traveled to an alien world.

It wasn’t long before he heard it. A single crunch, as if someone who had been moving silently had made a single misstep. Sam froze, listened. Nothing.

He started moving again, ears straining to hear something over the sound of his labored breathing and racing heart.

There it was again. Something was definitely moving.

“Could be anything. Deer, squirrel, wolf. Nothing that’ll give you any trouble.” Despite his feigned confidence, he unsheathed his Bowie knife and clutched it tightly.

He continued on, wondering just how much farther it was to camp. The darkness and his alcohol-polluted mind had deprived him of his senses of time and distance. If he was close to camp, maybe it was one of the fellows out wandering in the forest for some reason of his own. Yes! That made sense.

“Anybody out there?” he called.