Matt Rowan never drove up into the mountains this far, but he was determined to deliver the cash, grocer­ies and winter coats to Woody McKitrick’s house here on Pinecrest Mountain. He had been a big help as a handyman and head groundskeeper in the Lake Azure area. Woody had liked to, as he put it, “talk turkey,” and Matt, raised in the “big city” of Cincinnati, had learned a lot about hill country from him. Matt could picture his friend, especially in the coonskin cap he wore in cold weather, looking like old Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett as he went about his work.

The usually sure-footed sixty-year-old had fallen to his death from a cliff above the Lake Azure grounds. With winter coming, Matt wanted to help Woody’s fam­ily get through the winter. His son had returned from the war in Iraq with problems and didn’t hold down a job.

In the Lake Azure community where Matt lived, winter meant some hunting in the hills but mostly ice-skating parties on the lake, alpine and cross-country skiing followed by hot brandy before a roaring fire or soaking in a heated spa in the lodge. Up in the hills, winter meant hardship. And these old coal roads were so hard they were rattling the company truck and his teeth.

He was still rattled anyway from the argument he’d had on the phone yesterday with his senior partner for the Lake Azure community, Royce Flemming. Matt’s dad and Royce had been lifelong friends, and Matt was honored to be his junior partner and manager of the upscale community perched on the scenic edge-of-Appalachia town of Cold Creek. When his dad died, he’d felt even closer to Royce, but recently they were at odds over the older man’s fast push to drill for oil and gas in the area.

Fracking, they called it, though the actual name was hydraulic fracturing since the process involved forcibly injecting water, sand and chemicals to fracture deep shale, to release the precious products trapped inside. Just in the past few months, drilling here had gone bon­kers. There was already a big break between the haves and the have-nots in this area. Now the issue of lucra­tive fracking contracts going to only a few select people was causing rifts among the locals. Fracking brought in business, but the truck drivers and rig men caused problems in the once-pristine area.

Money talked, but why couldn’t Royce see his lu­crative new business could hurt the human and natural environment of his big Lake Azure investment? So far, the disagreement hadn’t permanently damaged his close relationship with Royce, even when he’d declined the opportunity to invest in Royce’s new fracking com­pany earlier this year.

Matt swore under his breath as he made another hair­pin turn around the mountain, still heading up. Most of the heights around Cold Creek were foothills, but these inclines were serious stuff. The old 1970s pave­ment was bumpy and broken. The road was one-lane with pull-offs every couple of hundred yards so cars could pass, but he hoped he wouldn’t have to do that. He remembered his dad driving the family up Pike’s Peak out West when he was a kid. They got so scared of the drop-offs and the lofty view straight down that they’d turned around at the top and headed right back to civilization.

“Damn!” he muttered when he made another turn and saw a pickup coming at him. It was a rickety affair with the front bumper loose and bouncing—tied on with wire or twine. He could see two men in the cab and a mule sticking its head out of the bed of the pickup as if it were enjoying the view. The rule was that the ve­hicle heading up was the one to back down to the pull-off, so that was him.

He slowly inched his way backward, using the rear­view mirror, his side mirrors and craning around to look out the rear window. He wasn’t used to driving this truck. Why hadn’t he sent someone on staff up here with this stuff? His bailiwick was his office in the lodge, talking to new owners and investors, and doing community PR. He couldn’t fathom how difficult this drive would be in rain or snow.

At least the next pull-off spot was not right on the edge of a cliff. It had a sign that read Falls County School Bus Stop. Tall, scrawny pines and a few oaks had clawed their roots into the rock here and leaned out from the pull-off. He carefully backed into it, making sure his rear wheels were at least six feet from the edge. The other truck passed him with a honk and a wave and a hee-haw from the mule. For a moment, he just sat there, breathing hard, his heart pounding.

He reminded himself why he was determined to de­liver these gifts to Woody’s family personally. The guy had the guts to take a stand against the invasion of fracking in the area. The old man—sixty didn’t sound old, but mountain men looked old at that age—had led peaceful protestors with hand-printed signs. They’d in­sisted the fracturing of the bedrock to suck out oil and gas would break up not only the rock but the families and the town. Matt knew Woody was right. He should have taken a stand, too, but he also saw the good things about fracking, like the money rolling in and, hopefully, less dependency on foreign oil. He was above all a busi­nessman like his dad and Royce, wasn’t he?

Sitting on the edge of the pull-off, he was tempted to head back down and send someone else up with the things for Woody’s family. But he wanted them to know their family patriarch had not been forgotten, that he meant more than a few nice words at his funeral and acouple of hundred dollars in an envelope. He wanted Woody’s widow to know how much the man had meant to him.

“Okay, up we go,” he whispered just as another truck appeared, this time heading up. It was another old pickup, but the guy in it was driving too fast. The truck didn’t have a front license plate, but then up here, maybe there were no real rules. Matt took a closer look. Was he nuts or was the driver wearing a ski mask? The truck didn’t take the turn but headed toward him.

There was nothing he could do but yell and turn his wheels. The truck slowed but bumped into the front of his truck, pushing him back. Matt laid on the horn, held to the steering wheel, tried to get his truck in Drive, but the other truck edged it backward… .

The front of Matt’s truck tilted upward, throwing him back against the seat. He was going over! His stom­ach went into free fall though the truck hadn’t yet. His back bumper pressed into the trees. The truck stopped, shuddered and hung hundreds of feet over the rocks below.

Copyright © 2015 by Karen Harper