A rumble in the clouds

And so it began

Chapter 1  A rumble in the clouds

 

 

The cold mountain air gripped Charles as the car maneuvered on the wet narrow roads on the slopes. The crisp air revealed a featureless landscape of brown shrubs and dried trees. Above, the sky seemed to rumble incessantly above the thick, billowy clouds as they crested the mountain peaks in the surroundings.

He pulled on a cigarette and brought down the window a little.

Outside, there was an unearthly silence in the stillness of the high autumn season. Winter was just around the corner and he spied the frost line beyond the lone cabin that came into his view. A short distance away, a house or barn had apparently burnt down sometime back, its black, darkened wood still standing like a reminder of something unfortunate.

As he turned to the road again, he realized the car was heating up. The meter was inching into the red zone. No water in the radiator.

He figured he'll go up to the cabin and get some. He turned the car into the gravel road that led to the cabin, moving up a slight incline to a ridge above. He stopped just in front, reached into the glove compartment and took out the .38. He tucked it into his belt, under his sheepskin coat.

He checked in the boot and found two empty water bottles. Holding the tips of the bottles on one hand, with his right hand free, he walked up to the wooden cabin.

He knocked on the door and almost instantly it opened. Charles's hand instinctively went for his belt when he saw an old man holding a shotgun with his left hand.

“My radiator is dry,” he began. “I will be needing some water?”

He seemed to be peering at Charles from behind a face that hid behind a long white beard and hair. His body however was stout with a small belly bulge. His brow broke into ripples at the corners, as his soft blue eyes gave way to a pleasant smile.

“Come on in,” he welcomed Charles. His voice was gentle with a hint of eagerness as if he liked the idea of someone visiting. Charles walked into a one room cubicle with the kitchen on one side, a bed at the corner and a dining table in the middle. The room had the mixed scent of tobacco, cooked meat, coffee and perspiration.

“You're visiting someone in these parts?” he asked in a tone that almost answered the question he was asking.

“We're doing a dig in Crow's Pass,” Charles answered. He was warming up to Tom's easy manner. “It's a burial site of the folks who first lived in these parts.” Charles's academic manner, in his way of expression, was a matter of reputation in the university.

“Before the Algonquin?” Tom queried, handing Charles the water bottles. They walked down to the car.

“10,000 bc,” Charles announced, not without some pride in the voice. He quickly regretted it. “ Early Scythias is what we reckon. Its the first time we are responding to notion of the Scythias coming this far west.“

Tom continued, a little pleased with himself. “ What do you hope to find in the graves?”

 

“ Our history,” Charles replied, as he emptied the bottles into the radiator. “The world relies on a history of 5,000 years for its realization of its identity. As a nation, we are new in the world. This gives us something to base our own sense of our genealogy.” He stopped to wipe the perspiration on his spectacles.

Tom looked away at the ridge of the hill before he spoke again. “ Moving up in the world then?”

Charles brought down the hood with a slam. “ Just trying to get it right,” he replied.

He shook hands with Tom. “ Much obliged,” he stated, then, absent-mindedly, he pointed at the burnt out barn. “ You had an accident here?”

Tom pondered deep as he groped for a way to respond in the right way.

“ It was an old Appalachian family,” he began in a distant off the cuff way. “ Ran into debts in a big way....nothing seemed to be going right. Then one night the father chased the son out of the house, shot the mother and then set the house aflame, before he shot himself.”

Charles found himself staring at Tom in a strangely curious way.

He opened the car door.

“What happened to the son?”

Tom looked at the ground for a while and then up at Charles again. His eyes were firm as steel.

“Well, for now he helps out with car owners who have run out of radiator water,” he smiled weakly. “I have a garage in the little hamlet you passed coming up here.”

Charles suddenly couldn't move. He seemed to be drawn to stay a while and chat.

Perhaps Tom sensed Charles's own need. He moved again with that quaint, fatherly enthusiasm for visitors.

“I guess you'll be around here for a while....on the dig?” Again that same questioning and answering manner.

Charles's felt the welcome flow over him like a wave.

“I might be,” he replied. “ If I come by this way again.....maybe....,” he trailed off.

“Come,” Tom gestured, as he turned back to the cabin. “I don't get much friends coming to visit.”

Charles turned the car on the noisy gravel and returned to the road. The road continued to climb to the ridge in the distance. He felt a stir of enthusiasm rising.

Reviews

[Shep]

Great way to start any story is with digging up a grave yard. Can't wait yo see what is still buried there or perhaps the walking dead. Moving on.

[Wendy Seames Garner]

I was really drawn in to your story. You surprised me when Charles took the gun out of the glove box, but it turned out different than I thought it would. I can't wait to read about the dig. Thank you!

[patricia]

You wouldn't expect two men who were both holding guns, to be having a conversation about 10,000 bc, but already this story is fascinating. Your detail is superb.
I loved the conversation about what happened to the son, and the dawning realisation that it was Tom!

Great Chapter. I'm hooked. Thankyou.