Foggy Mountain Breakdown and Other Stories Read Online Free

going.”
    He pulled down the back tailgate and hauled out his canvas valise, while Elissa stood at his elbow, making little clouds with her breath. “It’s getting late, so I’m only going to make one trip tonight. Which one of these do you need?” He pointed to the three pieces of matching pink luggage.
    “All of them, I guess,” said Elissa in a puzzled voice. “I don’t remember what I packed where.”
    Carl rubbed his chin and considered the problem as if he were at work, plotting out the weight distribution in a B-1B. Finally he said: “I’ll carry my bag and that big suitcase of yours. If you need anything else, you’ll have to carry it.”
    He hoisted her suitcase out of the truck. After a moment’s hesitation, she picked up the makeup case and nodded for him to close the hatch.
    “Don’t forget to lock it, Carl!”
    He smiled. “This isn’t Aspen, Elissa. The only people on this road are the Pattons and the Shulls—and they wouldn’t take sugar packets from a diner, much less rob a truck!”
    “Things might have changed in fifteen years, Carl!”
    He looked around him. Things might have changed—but that hadn’t. Cabe’s Mountain stood just as bare and wild on this December evening as it had years ago when he’d hunted squirrel with Garrett up this very path. Only he had changed: the engineer with a Ph.D. from Stanford and an aerie of chrome and glass overlooking the Bay. He had come a long way from Cabe’s Hollow. “Come on, Elissa! We’re burning daylight!”
    They were following an old logging trail which led to the foot of the mountain. She clumped along beside him in her slim leather boots, crackling leaves with everystep. Just as well they weren’t hunting squirrels; she was making enough noise to wake up the bears.
    “Are we almost there, Carl?” panted Elissa, after a few moments’ silence.
    Carl turned to look at her. He could still see the truck parked by the road. “We haven’t started yet.” He smiled reassuringly. Elissa was so beautiful in her embroidered white ski parka, her cheeks pink with cold. She looked expensive and—his mind fumbled for the word—classy. Like one of those evening gown models in the old Sears Wishbook. She did him proud.
    He came to the edge of a branch of swift-running spring water. It was clear, about ankle-deep, and four feet across.
    “Where’s the bridge?” asked Elissa at his elbow.
    “See that cinder block in the middle? You step on to that and then over to the other side.”
    “But the cinder block is under water, Carl!”
    “About an inch.”
    In the end he had to take the suitcase across, and then come back and carry her over the stream. She was afraid she would fall, and she kept saying that she couldn’t get her new boots wet. She held out one small foot, pointing to the shining leather boot with its dainty two-inch heel. Carl frowned. “I told you to wear walking shoes, Elissa. How are you going to climb in those things?”
    Her face fell. “Don’t you like them? They cost a hundred and eighty-five dollars.”
    He sighed. “Just watch where you’re walking. It’s rained here in the last day or two, and the ground is apt to be slippery.”
    “I’ll be fine, darling. I jog, don’t I?”
    The path up the mountain to the cabin was not so much a trail as an absence of underbrush in a wavy line weaving its way upward. Fallen trees obstructed the way, and outgrowths from nearby bramble bushes slowed them down. Carl went first, stopping to untangle Elissafrom the briars or to lift her over a tree trunk. She had not spoken since they began the climb; he could hear her breath coming in labored gasps. Every twenty feet or so they stopped to rest, until her breathing was normal again, before resuming their climb.
    “Jogging on flat land is a lot different from mountain climbing,” he said gently. “You just tell me when you want to rest again.”
    “No. No. I’m fine, but this boot heel is coming loose.” She took a deep