Black Stump Ridge Read Online Free PDF

made a difference. Most times, though, I’m just as sure it wouldn’t.”
    He let out a shuddering sigh. “It started out well enough. I took over the driving when we got to Blankton. It was a beautiful afternoon. The sun was shining and the radio said it was going to be clear and bright all weekend. It wasn’t even cold, although November was almost gone…”
     

 CHAPTER FOUR
    Fred Kyle’s teeth jammed together hard as the Jeep Cherokee’s right front tire dropped into another half moon shaped cutaway at the edge of the two-lane asphalt road. His knuckles whitened as he squeezed the steering wheel. The Jeep crowded the non-existent shoulder as another semi roared by them. The wash of its passage pushed the truck further to the right. Fred wrenched the wheel hard, jerking the vehicle back onto the asphalt. He glanced at the afternoon sky. Evening came quickly this time of year. He wanted to get to the house while there was enough light to see the driveway. He accelerated, pushing the truck as fast as he dared on the unfamiliar road.
    He was surprised at how much and how quickly the hills had changed from one season to the next. When he and his mom drove up to see the house a few months earlier it was July – high summer. The trees formed a shadowy canopy over the road. Lush plants and thick underbrush crowded the blacktop and hid most of the mountain’s rocky outcroppings. Tiny freshets cascaded down the mountainside. Narrow rivulets flowed across the road.
    Now, it was late fall. Winter’s icy breath was barely four weeks away. The once full trees stretched skeletal arms towards the gray sky. Like green ghosts of summer past, tall evergreens stood silent sentinel against winter’s inexorable approach. The cheery springs spilling down the bare rocks now foretold treacherous icy ambushes for the unwary traveler. The vibrant underbrush was sere. Browns and grays and an occasional splash of green marked thorny thickets of blackberry vines. The once-verdant leaves of summer now formed a crisp ochre carpet beneath the bare trees.
    Dave Willets leaned slightly to his left. He’d steadfastly refused to look out of the passenger window after the first couple of miles. On their left the mountain rose steadily above them, sheer where the striated gray limestone had been cut to lay the road. A single, white-painted cable looped from one short post to the next marking the roadway’s right edge. Beyond that boundary the trees rose straight up from an unseen canyon floor. During the summer, when the foliage was full, the view was not so bad. At the near edge of winter, however, Dave could clearly see a lot of down and down and still more down. Despite nearly ten years of travel through the Ozarks in northern Arkansas, Dave found the narrow roads in eastern Tennessee scarier, more nerve-racking. Perhaps it was the close passage of oncoming traffic, especially the big rigs that raced down the highway as if it was a NASCAR straightaway. He shuddered as he recalled that moonshine runners who carried their illicit cargos over these very roads at night – without headlights – created NASCAR.
    “God, how much further is it?” Dave pushed the words through his clenched teeth.
    “Don’t you mean, are we there, yet?” Peete Davis chided from the back seat.
    “No, I don’t.” Dave turned. “What I mean is, when are we getting off this highway from Hell?”
    “Just another couple of miles,” Fred replied. He glanced at Dave and smiled. “We turn left at Flowersville. That’s when we leave the asphalt and the road gets really fun.”
    Dave groaned.
    “Is there any place we can stop before we get to the cabin?” Johnny Carlyle fidgeted, stuck in the middle between Peete and Charlie Dobbs. The latter feigned sleep. At least, his eyes were closed as he sat curled up with his back to the door. “My ass is screaming from the bumps and I gotta pee like you wouldn’t believe.”
    “You should have gone when we stopped for