Discovery on Spirit Mountain

“So you aren’t worried—just a little—by all that talk?” Gwyn couldn’t hide the excitement she felt at the thought of solving such a mystery.

Chad’s gaze shifted from Brooke to his sister’s freckled countenance. “Worried? Not at all, it sounds like it’ll be a hoot!”

“What do you think, Alec?” Gwyn asked the driver.

Alec’s blue eyes flashed in the rearview mirror then returned to the twisting highway, flanked on one side by a ragged cliff and sheer emptiness on the other, where the mountain fell away toward Pine Valley. It was clear to his companions his focus was on his job and not on the conversation.

“I think that dude behind us should either pass or give us a little air,” he snapped.

All eyes, but those of the driver, turned to look back at the vehicle creeping ever closer to the shiny new Jeep.

They could see its occupants, and fear made Gwyn’s stomach twist when she recognized the driver and his copilot: the young couple from the restaurant where they had eaten lunch, and listened to the gossip about Spirit Mountain. Gwyn glanced over at Brooke, but there was no sign of recognition in the face of her friend.

Maybe I am the only one who thought that girl’s behavior was strange. Gwyn recalled the girl’s anger at having her statement about the Haudenosaunee, to her handsome blond companion, corrected by a skinny, freckle-faced girl who was obviously younger than she was. She had been rude when she told Gwyn to stay away from Spirit Mountain. Although affronted, Gwyn hadn’t given the incident any more thought, until now.

“That guy must be crazy!” Chad exploded when the pickup began edging alongside them, between the Jeep and the safety of the rock cliff to which the ribbon of highway clung tenaciously.

“I’ll say!” Alec was gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles showed white, his eyes locked on the steep road.

Brooke gave a frightened gasp as the Jeep moved closer to the sheer drop-off, her wide eyes seeing the spires of granite, jutting out of the pines which blanketed the mountainside like the flowing folds of a woman’s voluminous skirt.

Gwyn, seated on the side of the vehicle away from the steep precipice, saw the sheen of sweat on her friend’s brow. Watching emotions flickering across Brooke’s face like scenes on a screen, Gwyn knew she had never experienced such fear. No wonder she had been accused of being unemotional. When others were feeling things, she was analyzing them.

Brooke’s eyes darted around the interior of the Jeep like a caged animal seeking an avenue of escape. It didn’t appear Alec could outrun the blue pickup that had—so unexpectedly—turned into the enemy. Not with the highway twisting like it did; getting up much speed before such hairpin curves would be suicidal.

Gwyn wondered if Alec could stop the Jeep without warning, and let the other vehicle pass them. She watched in amazement as this very idea occurred to the driver of the pickup. He slowed down and nosed his larger machine over until it was only inches from the rear end of the Jeep where Gwyn sat huddled.

“What an idiot!” Chad yelled at the top of his lungs, shaking his fist at the blond driver. “What’s the matter with you? Are you crazy?”

Gwyn shot another fleeting glance at Alec. His face, even under incredible strain, looked unbelievably handsome to her. True to his nature he was silent, grim; his eyes sapphire ice, but his admirer knew in that one glance that his mind was alert for any opportunity to escape the peril that had come upon them without warning. If there was any way for them to come out of this alive, Alec would find it, or he would die trying, and then they would all die.

The scream they had been awaiting came when the rear tires on Brooke’s side of the Jeep got too close to the edge and sent a shower of rock and debris cascading hundreds of feet down the mountainside. The Jeep lurched violently as Alec gunned the engine and twisted the wheel away from the sheer drop.

Gwyn thought of the movies she had watched, the books she had read, where someone facing imminent death saw their life flash before their eyes. She speculated as to whether her brother and the Walshes were experiencing such a sensation, and then wondered why she wasn’t.

I guess I haven’t done enough living in sixteen years—almost seventeen—to have much of a slide show, she thought with irony. Gwyn remembered a conversation she’d had with Alec only last week about heaven and hell. Alec told her everyone would spend eternity in one place or the other, and asked if she knew where she would be spending it.

With death lying in wait for them just below the edge of the cliff, Gwyn recalled the flippant answer she had given Alec about having plenty of time to make up her mind about the eternity issue. She put off the decision Alec had been trying to lead her to make, and it hit her now, with a sharp stab of fear, that she might not have plenty of time after all.