A MOUNTAIN OF LOVE AND HATE

By George Rolph
July 2014.
There were no phone lines over Fallbeck Mountain in 1948. The only way to communicate to folks
on the other side was by radio, letter, or in person. Radio worked quicker if there were no
thunderstorms around to ruin the signal, but only then if Celeste Moxon was home and willing to
relay your conversations to folks on the other side of the big rock.
Her house at the top of the mountain was perfectly situated for the job of being a radio repeater. She
had a big, four band, radio installed that she listened too. Each band, (labelled P,F,D and C. on the
band switch) served a different department for the community. These were for the police, the fire
crews, doctors and for civilian use. Each band had their own separate frequency and the radio had a
general calling channel on channel 14. It was this channel that Celeste had to monitor. When a call
came through she and the caller would then switch to the band assigned and the conversation could
begin.
Mostly the callers were civilians calling to let their husbands or wives know they would be home
from the other side of the mountain soon, or that they could not get what was wanted from the store
and did he or she want them to get something else instead? You know the kind of thing.
The VHF radios were what is called, line-of-sight radios. That is, the signal would go out from
the antenna and as long as it didn't hit anything big enough to deflect it and send it off in a different
direction (Like one pool ball hitting another on the Pool table), the receiving station would get it
loud and clear. The mountain itself was one such big obstruction but it could also be a house, or
even, a big enough tree.
Now and then people used her as middleman in their arguments or at least, they tried too but she
had developed a way of shutting them down quickly in a perfectly neutral voice. If the fighters were
on the same side of the mountain they could hear each side of the conversation as long as there were
no big obstructions to the radio waves.
You tell that bitch that I am not here to run to her beck an' call.
Yeah, Celeste, an' you tell him that I ain't here to wash his shitty underwear but I still do it 'cause I
made a promise at the alter and I am keeping it.
This is Fallbeck Relay to both callers. I am afraid there is too much static interference to continue
your message. Please try again later when conditions have improved.
Click.

The county paid for the radio installation and she was paid a stipend for manning it. She agreed to
do it because they ran a power line up the mountain for the radios and that meant her electricity was
free too. She was considered to be so vital in the chain of communications that when the power
went down in a storm, the police, fire station, duty doctor and her own, were always the first to be
reconnected.
Celeste knew everyone with a radio because she had been doing this job a little over four years and

had learned which voice was one of the three doctors in the area, which was the fire station radio
operator, which was the sheriff or his deputy, and so on. She knew in an instant which band to tell
the caller to select and if the call was going to be urgent or not.

Billy Moxon was in love with Sarah Stanfield and having to talk through Celeste Moxon was
frustrating and darned embarrassing.
The kids had codes of course. All kids had codes they used when they did not want adults to figure
out what they were saying. Little phrases that only they knew the meaning of. The problem was that
Celeste was an English tutor at her home and in touch with kids and their codes. When Billy told
Sarah that he, caught and killed a snake last night he suspected that Sarah was not the only person
who knew that meant he had a masturbatory fantasy about making love to her.
The only time Sarah and Billy got to see each other in the flesh was at the annual county fair in
Blackstone every July 6th or, at the twice yearly carnival in Fennemore. Unless, as did sometimes
happen, some other social event cropped up during the year. Even then there were always lots of
family around so being able to snatch a kiss and a fumble was hard. At the county fair, the two kids
would spend an extraordinary amount of time riding the ghost train together and for one minute and
twenty seconds a trip, they could have a breathless good time in the dark tunnels, unseen by prying
family eyes.
Celeste glanced at the clock and smiled. In about thirty seconds, at 5:15 pm precisely, channel 14
would come to life. She was kneading dough on the kitchen table and stopped to wipe the flour
from her hands before she sat down in front of the radio on its low shelf. She drank a tall glass of
Moonshine as she watched the second hand on the clock. As it hit the twelve channel14 burst into
life. Billy was nothing if not punctual.
Tarzan calling Fallbeck relay with a message for Jane. Tarzan calling Fallbeck relay with a
message for Jane. Over
She switched on the microphone and leaned over it.
This is Fallbeck relay, this is Fallbeck Relay, please switch to band C. Frequency 145.625 Repeat.
Band C, frequency 145.625. Over.
Understood Fallbeck Relay. Band C, frequency 145.625. Over.
She waited three seconds to be sure the caller had switched bands and frequencies and then,
This is Fallbeck Relay. Go ahead, Tarzan. Over.
As she waited for Billy to read his message for her to repeat to Sarah, she felt the familiar knot of
bitter fury in her stomach. She hated this kid, Billy with the kind of hatred that sits in the belly like
kind of malignant puss oozing from a cancer of the spirit. She hated him and his Pa. Every time she

heard his voice, or saw either Billy or his Pa in the flesh, that hatred would eat a little deeper into
her mind. Until now she had always been able to disguise it behind her neutral radio voice or, if she
saw either of them on the street, a quick but fake smile.
She made no attempt to get a grip of her hate and the fury that fed it. She liked it. She liked
encouraging it to grow; to let it build up in her until she had to get drunk to enjoy it at its full flood
as it surged up from her belly to her heart, shooting its little bolts of adrenalin filled rage into her
mind. Each bolt accompanied by a clear and detailed vision of some kind of pain being inflicted on
Billy or Benright Moxon. She would watch these movies in her mind with sick delight. Her twisted
imagination furnishing the visions with creative ways to inflict suffering, lasting harm and pain on
the two males she hated above all others.
The booze would heighten the experience. It allowed her to ditch the inhibitions of conscience and
just enjoy the unrestricted, guiltless flow of her growing hate. She knew she was obsessed by
revenge but she did not care. It mattered little to her that others would judge her sick and in need of
help if they could see what tumbled, oozed and crept through her being when her hate was in full
flow. Though she was careful never to let them see it. They would not understand.
To her, these things were delicious. Visceral treats for her mind. A Chocolate Sundae of rage, hate
and vengeance topped with sprinklings of paranoia, a wafer of persecution complex and served in a
delightfully cold dish of A psychopathic, narcissistic longing for action on her part. In many ways
she was a feminist, twenty years ahead of her time. She had just never decided to make her personal
neuroses political, link them to Marxism and bore everyone else to death with them, while doing as
much damage to family life as possible and luring stupid men into the political web with lying
slogans such as Equality. Women's Rights. Patriarchy. Oppression, and on and on.
'I am woman. Hear me roar!'
Celeste swallowed another mouthful of Moonshine. She knew she was playing a dangerous game
by mixing fury and hatred with booze, but she liked it. The alcohol loosened her control like a
fraying rope holding up a swinging mountain climber. She enjoyed letting the booze eat away at
that control until she was sure the rope would part and plunge the climber into the rocky depths
below. She wondered what it would feel like as she fell into total, rampaging madness. There was a
thrill attached to allowing herself to get closer and closer to that mental and spiritual abyss. To just
let her self control snap and then lose herself in the murderous whirlpool of evil within her. To spin
wildly into a place where there were no social niceties; where it was OK to just hate and not be
bothered by social conventions and restraints; to become, willingly, animal; without a conscience of
any kind and ready to embrace evil as a friend to be loved and not feared.
Until now she had always chickened out. Something from her everyday life some pleasant
memory or future task that needed doing would always jerk her back to a measure of sanity.
Today though, she had found the courage to let the booze sever the fraying rope of sanity. Today,
she was going to let herself go into the dark side. The place where her mother lived and who always
urged her to come and join her, without actually saying so.

Benright Moxon was Celeste's ex husband and Billy was her son. She had left them both for a good
looking travelling salesman she had seduced when he came to her door to try and sell her the latest
freezer.
All men and women harbour perverted sexual needs, her mother had told her once after her father

had killed himself. They hide them under their fake social graces, but they all have them. If you
can discover them and feed their fantasies, they will let you do anything you want to them, to to
keep the pleasure coming.
Her mother has taught her what to look for. The subtle signs, as well as the blatant ones. Men
tended to be less subtle about them than women, her mother had said.
Get them to talk about sex. Make them feel comfortable with you. Push them a little deeper every
few minutes but let them know you ain't gonna judge them for what they say. The more outrageous
they get, the more outrageous you have to be. You don't have to like what they want to do or say to
you, but let them do it or say it anyway. It's worth it. Once they have said or done it, they become
terrified you might tell others about them. That's the power you need over them. Use their personal
guilt against them and it will get you anything you want.
Celeste had used that diabolical advice on her salesman. She had lured him inside by pretending to
be interested in his wares. She sat him in the living room with a cold drink and then spilled her own
by accident on her pants and had tripped off to the bedroom to change. When she emerged she
was wearing a flared Ra Ra skirt that was so short it was indecent. Her underwear discarded on her
bed.
She gave him little glimpses of her sex as she crossed and uncrossed her long smooth legs while
sitting opposite him on the sofa. She saw his eyes follow the contours of her white thighs, up her
skirt and then widen as they saw what was hidden there. She saw him swallowing, hard. She
observed the conspicuous, swelling lump tenting his trousers. She watched him slowly lick his lips,
not even aware he was doing it. It was as if she could see the thoughts crossing his mind; rampant,
desire filled thoughts that he dare not utter because of social moors.
He was hooked. He was hungry and full of hope that she might satisfy that hunger. She smiled at
him and fed his hope. Lowering her tone of voice a notch or two. Opening her legs, causally, for
longer and longer each time. It was an expert seduction that she sealed as she let her legs fall wide
apart as she leant forwards to place her empty glass on the coffee table between them. He looked.
She caught his eye. She smiled. He smiled back. He gave the slightest of nods; understanding, at
last, that the show was no accident.
He had offered her a catalogue to look at. His voice was shaky and his hands too. His eyes roaming
her body as she stood up. His mind drinking in her shape the way a drunk will gulp down the first
beer of the morning. She crossed the small gap between them and, as she took the vibrating
catalogue from his hands, he had grabbed her. His hands pushing up her skirt and over her bare
backside. His mouth buried between her legs. His tongue licking at her like a dog at a stream. She
dropped the catalogue to the floor and it landed with a thump. His eyes, filled with gratitude, looked
up at her. She smiled down at him. How easy this had been. Then she opened her legs wide and
pulled his head and face against her body in a surge of her own frantic lust.
The sex was urgent. Lustful. She stripped him of all his clothes and then removed her blouse and
bra. Then, still wearing the short skirt with its two rows of pink frills that had so excited Benright
when she had first worn it for him, she led him to the marriage bed and coaxed from him every
perverted fantasy he had ever had. The dirty talk working like a charm.
His weakness was pain. He loved to be hurt during sex and she was willing and ready to oblige. She
bit him. She slapped him. She kicked and punched him. She stabbed him with a hat pin she had
grabbed from her dressing table next to the bed. She inflicted savage pinches, squeezes and yanks
on his most sensitive areas and he loved it. He was writhing in perverted agony beneath her blows
in a masochistic frenzy of passion and delight.
He was like wet clay in her hands. Ready to do anything for her, including, taking her away from
this place and the husband and son she hated so much.

Despite her callous manipulation, she had enjoyed what he did to her in return. Things she would
never have let any other man do. Without meaning too she had revealed her own perverted desires
in the midst of the breathless exchange of fantasies, with him Then, in the heat of her own passion
she had discarded her fears and let him go wild on her body. It was filthy. Pornographic. Disgusting
and immensely exciting.
She decided to keep him a while, like an obedient and delightful pet. He had money enough to
support them both, was single and he made her feel good. He would do, for now.
When he left the house he gave her his number at a Motel and told her to call him the following day.
She had stood there on the porch, her naked, him fully clothed. Her hand lingering between his legs.
Her mouth wild and wet on his. He smelt strongly of her. The juice from her body was all over his.
Her farewell, lasting ten minutes, was intended to keep his lust for her high enough to remember her
when he got back to his room. She knew it would work, as she waved him goodbye as he drove
away. He was well and truly on her hook.
She hummed to herself as she stripped the sheets from the bed to wash and hide from Benright the
evidence of her afternoon of infidelity.
'Thank you, Mother' she thought to herself as dropped the soiled sheets into the wash tub and filled
it with hot water.

Benright and Billy had tracked them down to the Fallborough Grand Motel, fifty miles away up
route 601, and beaten the salesman to within and inch of his life for breaking up the family. Billy
was just ten years old back then but he could use a baseball bat like a pro. He had helped beat her
new man into unconsciousness. She had fled the motel and hitched to her mothers place. In time,
her mother died and left her the money and she bought this house on the opposite side of the
mountain to where she once lived with Billy and his Pa. and got a job tutoring kids falling behind in
English classes at school.
This radio was the only contact she ever had with Billy or his dad. Even that was too much for her.
They never called each other Ma, son, wife or husband, There was no need, even though she was
still officially married to Benright; the hate was mutual.
Billy began reading his love message and she began jotting it down on the pad in front of her. His
voice was faltering. Embarrassed. Nervous.
I love you like, um, a seagull loves the, um, ocean.
I love you.... He coughed and tried again.
I love you like a storm cloud loves, um, the rain.
I love you with, um yeah, that's right. Dammit! I can't read my own writing here. Don't write that
down, Fallbeck relay um..., let me see, Oh yeah..., a heart full of devotion.

My heart sighs 'till I see your face again.

Over.
Celeste bent forwards again and clicked the button on the Mic.
Message received, understood and forwarding. Standby.
Celeste changed frequency on the radio and leaned back in her chair as she swallowed a deep
draught of the corn mash Moonshine. She closed her eyes and pictured her kid Billy, sitting on his
bed in the room she helped decorate. Her mental vision of the kids twisted and wrong and flooding
from her bitter delusions. She pictured the microphone clutched in those big hands of his. He was
probably trying hard to picture his girlfriend naked. Hormones running riot in his head and sending
pornographic messages to his teenage loins. He would be staring at the radio speaker waiting for it
to tell him the message had been received and he should stand by for the reply. She grinned to
herself. It was time to teach Billy boy a lesson. It was Karma day. Time to pay for past sins.
Celeste raised the microphone to her lips without opening her eyes. Now she was picturing Sarah.
Little, bright eyed, thoroughly stupid, Sarah. Pretty enough, but as dumb as a rock. Faithful to Billy
the way a dog is faithful to a man and deeply in love. She would be sitting at that small table in the
hall where her mother kept the radio, because that was as far as the antenna cable could reach into
the house. When she heard Billy's message, her face would brighten. Her eyes would grow moist
and a smile would spread across her face like dawn's light painting the mountain at sunrise. Her
little heart would be all a flutter and pounding in her ears. Each lovingly crafted word penning
delight, longing and sexual need onto her young mind.
'Love's young dream.'
Celeste smiled again and she snapped her eyes open. Things were about to change.
Her thumb pressed the switch.
Message for Jane from Tarzan. Jane, do you copy Fallbeck relay? Over
The radio crackled at her as she let the switch go.
There was a pause. A burst of sudden static and then the faint voice of the young girl.
This is Jane calling Fallbeck relay. Receiving you loud and clear. Please proceed with your
message. Are you receiving me? Over
Celeste clicked again. Fallbeck relay calling Jane. Fallbeck relay calling Jane. I am receiving you.

Please standby to take down your message. Over.

The faint voice called again. Hello Fallbeck relay. Hello Fallbeck relay. Ready to take down
message and standing by. Over.
Celeste refilled her glass with the clear, fiery liquor then drained it again in four huge gulps before
filling the tall glass once more.
'It is a woman's privilege to bare a grudge,' she thought to herself. 'I remember every stab of pain I
felt as you and your Pa beat up my man in the hotel room. I remember every night I cried alone in
this house afterwards. Damn it! I remember every tear. All I wanted was someone to take me away
from this shitty mountain and these shitty, small, backwoods towns. I wanted to travel. To see
America. Who knows, maybe even see the world. I wanted to be someone. I wanted to be more than
just another damned housewife and mother. I wanted to be free. I wanted to be wild. I wanted.....'
She drank another large swallow.
'...to be me. To be free of feeding chickens. Scrubbing clothes. Cutting wood for the stove.
Cooking meals. Having sex with a man I hated. Bringing up a damn kid I hated, in a house I hated.
All the time I was supposed to be grateful that my husband worked hard to feed and clothe us.'
She drank some more and stared at the radios before her.
'Well, I was not grateful. I hated every damn minute of it. I felt strangled by it. If Benright had just
gone to war and got killed like so many other husbands it would have been fine, but he had a
gammy leg and they wouldn't take him. Bastards! I lived for everyone but me. So I changed it and
you scum bags spoilt it. You ruined my new life. You destroyed my escape. Well, Billy-boy and
Benright, today is my day. Today you pay, like I paid.'
Celeste forced herself to breath evenly until her racing mind calmed down and the surging fury in
her belly subsided. She painted a smile onto her voice the way those women in the Movie Ad's do
and she spoke softly as she relayed Billy's poem to his love, twenty four miles away, down the other
side of the mountain and far along the fertile valley floor. She was completely unaware of the
slurring in her voice as she did so. She was always unaware of her own faults. Everything bad was
always someone else's fault. Mostly, the fault of men.

Billy sat on his bed with his eyes fixed on the loud speaker connected to the radio. It's gleaming,
brown Bakelite case lovingly polished every day reflected the yellow glow of the radio valves.
The black speaker grill, holding both promise and dread when it next came to life, stared back at
him in silence.
He loved Sarah. He knew he did. She consumed his waking and sleeping thoughts like nothing else

had ever done before. He had been in love with her since he was twelve and they had met at the
county fair when they shared a seat on the Ferris Wheel. She had been frightened by the height and
he had clutched her head to his chest tightly and whispered reassuring words in her ears until the
ride was over and they could step back onto solid ground again.
She had trembled all through that ride like a juvenile bird fallen from a nest, and she felt fragile in
his young, strong arms. As they walked away from the ride together, they were holding hands. They
spent the whole of the rest of that long Summer day in each others company. Laughing, playing,
teasing, chasing. As the day had turned into darkness they had sneaked their first kiss and she had
locked herself into his heart with those soft and yielding young lips.
Billy had tried to tell Sarah that he loved her many times. He just could never find the right words,
or his courage deserted him in a fit of nerves at the wrong moment. It was not that he was afraid to
say the words. He was afraid of what impact the words might have on Sarah. What if she rejected
him? Love is a serious business. Sarah was not good at serious. She had a weak mind that could not
hold onto complex things. Billy knew that. He had always had to do the thinking for both of them
when they were together. What if the very idea of his love scared her away?
Billy chewed his bottom lip and screwed up his eyes as he stared at the speaker grill. He was
scratching at an imaginary itch on his right arm as his left leg bounced up and down on the ball of
his left foot with no conscious effort of his own and completely unnoticed. Billy wanted the speaker
to speak. Willing it to say that she loved him too. He hated that she would say it though his ex
mother, but that was better than not hearing it at all. Of course, if she said no, she did not want his
love, he suspected his ex mother up there in her vultures nest, as he and his dad called her home
would be very happy to know he was so miserable. He could not bare the thought of her saying no.
Sarah was his life. His future. He wanted to see her smile and hear that soft voice every day,
forever.
His nervousness was increased by the knowledge that anyone with a radio within fifty miles would
also be able to hear his faltering message of love. He imagined them laughing him to scorn in their
houses, trucks and cars. They might also hear her rejection of him if that happened. and that would
be hard to bare too. Especially when he was back at school after the Summer recess. Mario Falconi
would be the worst of the bunch, he always was, but that was OK, Billy decided. The last time they
had fought at school Billy had almost won the fight. Mario was bigger and heavier but he was also
slow and Billy could dance around him and pick him off. Mario only won the fight last time
because Billy got careless and went too close. Once Mario's arms were around his chest it was all
over for Billy.
Next time, Billy decided, he would just keep moving.
'Oh God. Please, please, don't let Sarah say no.'
Finally, he could not stand looking at the speaker any longer. He turned the volume knob on the
radio up full so he could hear it from the porch, then he grabbed a Coke from the fridge in the
kitchen and went and sat outside on the swing seat. The early evening was pleasantly cool after the
hot day. Billy had finished his chores and he was free now, until around six pm when he would have

to prepare the table for the stew he and his Pa would be having for their evening meal and fill the
washing bowl on its stand in the corner of the kitchen with fresh, clean water, pumped from the well
out back.
Billy smiled as he remembered a conversation from the last time he and Sarah spent the day
together.
Billy? She had asked, as they sat by the Conning Brook Farm stream on the edge of town and
watched the minnows darting in the current. Billy, my daddy said last night that he loves Lamb
stew. Do they make lamb stew out of real lambs or artificial lambs? See, my mummy makes lamb
stew from a can and the can is too small to fit a lamb in it. I can't see how it could be real lambs.
Her remark had taken him off guard. Normally he was careful not to laugh at her. Even though
when other people did that, she thought it was because she had made a joke and she laughed right
along with them. On this occasion though her question struck his funny bone so hard he fell back on
the grass and roared with laughter. Soon, she was laughing right along with him but with no idea
why.
He popped the Coke bottle open with his teeth and took a long swallow from the chilled bottle but
the memory made him snort and the Coke burst from his nostrils in a tingly jet, accompanied by a
monumental coughing fit. It was a fully a minute before his coughing fit stopped and then he started
laughing again as he remembered the answer he gave to her question.
Well, Sarah, he told her still laughing as he did so see, I learned from my Grandma, on Pa's
side, that they breed especially little lambs to fit in cans.
Sarah had suddenly stopped laughing sat up quickly and looking down at Billy, said something that
set him off all over again.
Really? Wow. That's kind of neat. Could I get one as a pet?

Billy looked towards the mountain. Pa would not come down from the mountain until seven thirty.
He would be tired and hungry and carrying his big axe over his big shoulders as he limped back to
the house. He would be in pain from his leg, but would say nothing about it, he never did. He just
climbed up the mountain every day, cut lumber and then walked back down. It was what he had
always done since he was sixteen and would always do until he died, God willing.
In the Winter, when he could not get up into the mountain for the heavy snows that would sweep in
from the north, Billy's Pa would sit in the evenings and make radios, repair broken sets or build
antenna systems. Sometimes, he would read whole books of the Bible aloud and he and Billy would
sit together discussing God by the light from the fire in the main room.

There has never been a human writer that could touch God, his Pa would say. I have read many
of the so-called great writers. None of them even come close to what God has put in this here book
for us all.
Billy drained the last of the cold Coke from the bottle and let his eyes sweep their gaze over the
meadow to the black bridge across the river and on, up to the magnificent slopes of the Fallbeck
mountain. The tree line mostly harvested and maintained Pine ran from the flat ground of their
valley to the eight thousand feet level. After that it was nothing but red, grey, yellow, black and
white undulating and jagged rock. A few shrubs managed to grow here and there but nothing
serious. It's flat top was often obscured by cloud, even in the Summer. In Winter, it was always
snow covered. His ex mother's house was three thousand feet down the other side and built on a
huge, wide ledge, but sheltered under a massive overhang. On the very summit was a one hundred
feet tall antenna tower his Pa had built and which housed the antennas that his ex mothers radios
were attached too. His Pa had built those radios also but the county had installed them in her house.
His Pa had flat out refused to so do.
Sometimes, when the sun was right in the sky and the air was clear and a south wind was blowing
right, a rising thermal would carry water droplets high into the air and a rainbow would form
halfway up the mountain and six miles down the valley. It was caused by the high falls that dropped
over their water-cut ledge nearly four hundred feet to Becks Pool below. To a stranger, the sight
would be breath taking. The local people tried hard to pay it no mind. It was just another stain on
their memories and on the pristine mountain. A stain caused by his ex mother's family.
Some thought that his ex mother's father, Colbert Davison, had fallen down the falls by accident.
Many more thought he had jumped to his death on purpose. His wife, and Billy's maternal grand
mother, was a nasty bitch. Free with her punches and not adverse to using whatever weapon was
closest to hand on her husband, if he displeased her in any way. Displeasing her was the easiest
thing to do in the world. She had a tongue like a rattle snake bite and a mind to match.
When her daughter had run away to be with Billy's dad, she had come after her and punched Billy's
dad in the face as he tried to protect his ex mother. It was a big mistake. Billy's Pa had not been
ground down the way Billy's Grandpa had been. He had hit her with left right combination punches
that were so fast she never saw them happen. She went down like a cheap whore in a parking lot.
That was the last time she ever spoke to any of Billy's family. One year later, and on a day when the
rainbow had come, Billy's Grandpa, Colbert, had gone off the falls. The coroner said he had two
black eyes and a broken nose that were not caused by his fall but had been inflicted before his
death. Everyone could guess where they had come from, though his wife, as ever, swore she did not
know. Many thought that was the reason he had jumped if he had from the falls; it was a shame
too far and much too hard to bare.
Growing up, Billy's dad would tell him, Son. Never hit a woman, unless she hits you first. And
never let a woman drive your head to the falls.
The valley Billy lived in had an almost perfect climate in Summer. Even on the hottest days when
the rest of the country was sweltering in the heat, cool air falling down the mountain slope would
keep the temperature to bearable levels. Only the house would get really hot and on those days Billy
and his Pa would sleep out on the porch. The house got hot because his Pa kept the roof painted

black.
The snow hates black His Pa would tell him. That was the reason they had painted the bridge over
the river in black paint. It seemed to work. The black absorbed the heat from the sun and air and the
snow found it hard to settle on any black surface. When other people in the valley had to shovel
snow off their roof in Winter to stop their houses falling down under the weight of it, Billy and his
Pa never did because the snow never stuck. The bridge over the river was almost never blocked by
drifts and was the first to clear if it was. On the down side, the house could get unbearable in the
Summer, but sleeping on the porch was a nice thing to do.
Fallbeck Relay calling Tarzan. Fallbeck Relay calling Tarzan. Schtand by for your re..., replysh
from Jane. Over.
Billy shot up from the swing seat and ran to the bedroom. His heart pounding as if he had just run a
marathon. Too excited to register the drunkenness in the voice calling him, he snatched up the
microphone and turned the volume switch back down to a normal level.
He spoke rapidly, anxiously, almost shouting, into the microphone.
Tarzan calling Fallbeck Relay. Tarzan calling Fallbeck Relay. Go ahead Fallbeck Relay. Over.

Sarah McKenzie was seated at the table with her mother by her side and wearing the black, spidery
patterned, Bakelite headphones that were plugged into the radio. Startlingly pretty, with hair that
fell to her shoulders and tumbled down the back of her Royal Blue dress, like a corn coloured
waterfall. Her fine, small nose centred between clear, big, innocent looking violet coloured eyes, set
above high cheekbones that were a legacy from her Grandmother's Apache blood line. She had a
quick smile and an easy laugh that revealed perfectly even and white teeth. She was a sweet natured
as a field mouse. She looked over to her mother and smiled. Her mother, squeezing her hand in
response and smiling back at her.
For Sarah and her mother Molly, this was a daily routine. Her mother was not there to spy or
interfere. She never asked the meanings of the codes her daughter and Billy exchanged, for
example. She knew young people needed to be private sometimes and she trusted her daughter and
liked Billy. She knew full well that many of the codes Billy and Sarah were exchanging were sexual
in nature but that did not bother her either. She had already had the talk with her daughter and
Sarah knew all about prophylactics and cycles. She had explained to her daughter that sex was
wonderful and nothing to be ashamed of, but that one had to be discreet and very careful.
No, she was not there to pry. She was there in case Fallbeck Relay needed a word to be spelled or a
message to be written down. Sarah could not do that. Sarah could not spell, or add up and could
barely read and write.

Molly had tried sending Sarah up the mountain to get extra private tutoring by Celeste but it had not
worked out. Sarah had complained that Celeste was always drunk and bad tempered and that she
did not feel safe or comfortable with her. As a result, Molly had taken on the task of helping her
with her reading and writing and had seen enough of an improvement in her daughter to keep it up
full time and home school her.
Home schooling Sarah had some disadvantages. It was very hard work for both of them. However,
it also had an unexpected and, from Molly's point of view, a delicious advantage.
Her husband, Roy, had started a furniture business just before Sarah was born, and it was doing very
well. Molly used to work with him as his personal secretary until she had made the decision to
school Sarah at home after she was mercilessly bullied at school for falling so far behind in her
classes. This situation of course, meant that Roy was forced to hire another personal secretary.
A week after leaving her job, Molly returned to her old office one afternoon to pick up one or two
things she needed at home and as she walked into the office she was greeted by the sight of her
husband's new, young and beautiful secretary, laying naked, arms and legs akimbo, leaking sperm
and looking like a crashed helicopter on the office carpet. Her husband, equally naked, had his back
to her and was standing at his desk doing a business deal on the telephone. Neither of them were
aware of Molly standing in the doorway.
Molly had backed out of the office and silently closed the door. She headed for the rest room and sat
in the stall trying hard to calm herself down. To her personal amazement, she not at all angry.
Instead, she was consumed by desire. A desire more powerful than anything she had ever felt
before. The orgasm that followed was so intense, and so loud, that it brought her now soberly
dressed husband, bursting into the ladies rest room, half convinced that someone was murdering
his wife. By the time he left that stall again, he had experienced the second most amazing sex in his
life, and the biggest ever confusion in his mind, all in one day.
It transpired, through subsequent frank and open discussions with Roy over the next two days, that
quiet, dutiful, hard working and dedicated Molly, harboured a previously unrealised voyeuristic
streak as wide as the Mississippi river and just as powerful. The result was, that Roy, much to his
amazed delight, got to have to sex with lots of different women while Molly watched, until she
could stand it no longer and had to join in.
The people of Fennemore noticed of course, that Roy was losing weight rapidly and had a
permanent grin on his face. They also noticed that little, slim, demure Molly McKenzie seemed to
have lost ten years in age; was dressing more sexily that she ever had before and that she had a
dreamy air of new confidence about her that no one could explain. The people of Fennemore could
not have guessed why. Naturally, Molly, Bill and their women were very, very, discreet.
Sarah knew little of this, of course. Her only clue that something had changed in her house came
about when she discovered a secret stash of pornographic magazines in her mothers closet beneath a
pile of old clothes, and a carved wooden phallus in the same box. Both females kept knowledge of
the stash secret from each other; both enjoyed the phallus and pictures with equal privacy and so
everyone was happy. Sarah's big eyes were not as innocent as her mother thought and her

knowledge of sex was as great as her own, thanks to the magazines. It was a knowledge she longed
to put into practice with Billy. She also had a new a deep respect for her mother. She had always
loved her, but this discovery had opened a new and hidden knowledge about her mother that Sarah
completely approved of.
A loud and tinny voice in her headphones caught Sarah's wandering attention and she pressed them
closer to her ears. It was Celeste, calling out a relay from her mountain perch as she did most every
day at this time.
Messhage for Jane from Tarzan. Jane, do you copy Fallbeck relay? Over
This is Jane calling Fallbeck relay. Receiving you loud and clear. Please proceed with your
message. Are you receiving me? Over?
Celeste spoke again. Her voice sounding oddly slurred but soft and happy. Sarah knew instantly that
Celeste was drunk.
Fallbeck calling Jane. Fallbeck calling Jane. I am resheiving you. Please standby to take down
your messhage. Over.
Sarah replied. Hello Fallbeck relay. Hello Fallbeck relay. Ready to take down message and
standing by. Over.
This is Fallbeck relay, messhage from Tarzan to Jane reads as follows:
I love you like a shegull loves the ocean.
I love you like a storm cloud loves the rain.
I love you with a heart full of devoshun.
My heart shighs 'till I she your fashe again.
Please acknowledge resheet of the messhage. Over.
As was Sarah's habit, she had repeated out loud, word for word, as the message was relayed to her.
Her mother writing the words down on the pad on the table.
Sarah, Molly, young girls and women of all ages up and down the valley on Sarah's side of the
mountain, felt tears spring to their eyes as they heard the message from Tarzan to Jane come
through their radios. Men sat with water covered eyes in trucks, cars and homes. Some kissed their
crying, happy wives. Some just stared into the distance, perhaps remembering moments from their
youth when love had also gripped their hearts and led them to poetry. Young men sniggered
mockingly with a disgust they knew was false and was invented to hide the emotions rising like Old

Faithful in their own chests.

Only anxious Billy was still ignorant of the effects of his words on the two communities.

Sarah was gripping the microphone as if her life depended on not letting it go. Her face was tear
stained and her voice thick with emotion as she replied.
Hello Fallbeck relay. Hello Fallbeck relay. Message to Tarzan from Jane. I love you too Tarzan. I
love you with all my heart.
She had to stop. No more words would come. Instead she stared at the radio and let the tears flow
like her eyes were mountain springs. Her heart tap dancing to the music of love blaring in her
simple mind.
Sarah's mother laid her head on her daughters shoulder and whispered softly.
I am so happy for you both, darling. Her own tears rolling softly across the powdered skin of her
face.
All along Sarah's valley people whooped and cheered. Some raised glasses of whiskey or bottles of
beer in salute to the young lovers. Some pounded on steering wheels and blew the horns in delight
at Jane's answer to Tarzan. Some people just cried. Others smiled, and one couple danced out of
their house, laughing together, and waltzed along the side walk under the bemused gazes of those
not in the know. These were those who had followed Tarzan and Jane's burgeoning radio love life
for years, as if it were a real life soap opera. Many of them had become expert code breakers.
Prising out of their own kids the meanings of the secret phrases Tarzan and Jane used, and swearing
those kids to utter secrecy upon pain of the worlds longest bedroom lock-in if they revealed to
anyone that their parents had broken the code. Both Sarah and Billy were oblivious to all of this, of
course. Neither would have thought their conversations were of any interest to others, except
maybe, Celeste.
On Billy's side of the mountain, those wanting to hear Sarah's reply would have to wait a little
longer for Celeste to relay it. Even so, many were glued to their sets. This was the kind of drama
almost everyone loves.

On Snake Ridge, high in his cabin, retired trapper, seventy two years old Orville Mowberry, was
one of the very few people apart from Celeste herself that could monitor both Billy's frequency,
and Sarah's, and hear both sides of the conversations. His cabin was even better situated than
Celeste's place with its clear views down both sides of the mountain, but it was too small to pack all

those radios into to make a relay station. It was also harder to get at. Orville had built it where it
was because it was hard to get at.
Orville was a man who liked most people, he just liked them at a distance. He enjoyed his solitude
but his radios kept him in touch with what was going on and allowed him to choose who to talk to
and when. In towns, that was not possible. In towns you had to be polite to everyone. Even those
critters you can't stand. Orville had no truck with the two faced nature of it all. In his way of
thinking, if you hated a critter you should say so; then either shoot it, spit at it, or ignore it. You
shouldn't have to shake its damn paws and smile and say good mornin' to it.
Orville's radio was a fine rig. He had bought it from an army Major he had taken on a bear hunt
long ago, and he had gotten it for a steal. The darned antenna on his roof cost more than he paid for
the radio from the grateful Major, but it was a powerful set. It cranked out two hundred Watts of
power at full blast, and just one Watt in its lowest power setting. It was a big, heavy radio, that the
army had used from its command HQ on various battlefields during the war. So big, he had to
transport it up the mountain on his mule a little bit at a time and then put it all back together once he
had it up there. It was worth it though, apart from blowing an occasional valve, it had never given a
moments trouble. And, it was a dual band set, just as Celeste's radios were. That was how he was
able to hear Tarzan and Jane calling Fallbeck Relay. He just had to set the frequencies on each band
and then flip that old band switch between the two.
When Orville heard Jane's reply to Tarzan he set about whoopin' and hollerin' just like most
everybody else that heard it. Like most other folks, Orville had done his celebrating in his own
peculiar way. Though it is fair to say it differed from other folks in at least one respect. First he
kissed his old dog, Shutup so named because as a pup it barked non stop at every little noise. Then
he played a country song on his banjo as he danced his own invented steps across his cabin floor.
All the while yelling, Yeee Haaa's at the top of his old lungs. Then he rushed outside and stood on
the flat rock behind the cabin and aimed a jet of piss down the five thousand foot drop to the tourist
trail below. Pissing on tourists from a great height during high Summer, being somewhat of a hobby
of his.
The tourists guides all knew he did it and would hang back on the trail until it was over to avoid
being splashed themselves. They would tell inexperienced and gullible tourists not to worry, it was
just, Eagles pissing on them to scare them off. Orville did not like tourists littering the place up on
'his' mountain. He would stand there on the flat rock, pecker in one hand and binoculars in the other,
sending yellow spurts of piss through the air at his targets below. His best victims being the ones
that were dumb enough to keep looking up, hoping to spot the Eagle. He would try and give them
dummies a free face wash. In ten years he had only been spotted once and that was by an old fart
who happened to have a pair of binoculars of her own. She had taken cover under a tree and then
fallen to the floor in a heap of blue Gingham dress and howls of laughter as Orville's natural organic
shower peppered the other members of her group.
I shoulda proposed to that old biddy, he told Eddy, one of the tour guides, when he saw him in
town a month later. She was my kinda people. She knew how to take a joke and keep her mouth
shut about it.
That's good advice to give my tourists. Eddy had said.

What is? Orville said.

If you are goin' ta look up for the Eagles, keep your mouth shut.

Up on the mountain in her nest, Celeste Moxon was anything but oblivious. She knew human nature
very well and she knew that the people in the valleys with radios were aware of these kids and
would be following their story closely. She knew the kids could become instant stars after swearing
their love for each other and she intended to steal their limelight and keep it forever.
She looked drunkly down at Sarah's return message on her pad and reached for the microphone
again. The moonshine was talking a firm hold of her now.
Message re..., resheeved, under undershould and forwarding. Over an' out.

Sarah noticed the increasing slurring in the voice in her earphones and worried that her return
message might never be relayed to Billy. She was right to be worried. Billy never did get the
message.

Benright Moxon was over the worst part of his trip down the mountain, and through the gaps in the
trees here and there, he could see the white walls and black roof of the single story house he had
built in the middle of the green meadow, still far below. A thin wisp of smoke curling from the
chimney. He knew Billy was fixing to cook his dinner and a shaft of love for his boy flashed
through his heart.
Apart from the foundations and the fireplace that were made of stone, everything else about that
home was made of mountain Pine, including the furniture. It was a good house and a nice big
house. He had built it to raise a family in.
Celeste had killed that dream and Benright cursed the bad choice he had made when he fell in love
with her. She had hidden her true self well and it hadn't emerged from its nice girl camouflage until
a few months after their wedding on the night she told him that the only reason she had married
him, was to get away from her mother.
Benright shuddered at the memories as he always did when they came back to haunt him. He could
see her clearly in his mind, as if it had happened yesterday, bending over him and screaming into his
face. Her spittle peppering his skin. Her voice hard, vicious, and her eyes dead. Her face twisted up
into a sickening mask of pure hate. It was on the same morning he had opened the letter from the
Army telling him they did not want him, back in April '44. News that seemed to flip a switch in his
new wife's head.

I hate you Benright Moxon. I hate this kid in my belly. I hate this house. You won't keep me here. I
used you, you fool. I used you to get away from my mother, that is all, and you were dumb enough
to help me do it.
The words had hit his heart like a hammer and his love for her had shattered under them. There was
nothing left in her to keep it alive. His wife had become a scorpion.
You didn't make it. He told her.
Make what?
Your escape from your mother.
She had sneered into his face. I am here ain't I?
Benright had risen from the dining table and walked out onto the porch. As he passed through the
screen door he stopped and turned his head to look at her over his shoulder.
You brought that old witch with you. She's in your heart and you will never escape her and where
you go, she will go. Your mother has possessed you Celeste and in time, she will kill you, but I will
make damn sure she doesn't kill any of us. I promise you this though Celeste, if you ever do
anything to harm my child, the world will not be big enough for you to hide in and I will kill you
with my own two hands, even if I swing for it.
It was a promise he was to find he could not keep, but the prophecy was true.
It's our child Benright. Ours! Don't you ever forget that. Celeste had screamed back at him.
Benright's eyes had blazed like hard fire but his voice was soft.
No, Celeste. It's my child. You ain't fit to be a mother.

Benright shook his head to try and clear it from the memories but, as always, he could not force
them out. He knew the routine by now. He would have to let them tumble through his mind until
they faded on their own. They would fade. They always did.
He moved the heavy axe to his other broad and strong shoulder as he picked his way carefully down
the rugged, stony, twisting and steep trail. In another twenty minutes he would be sitting at the table

with Billy and killing the raging hunger in his belly with one of Billy's fine stews. Another days
good work done. Another days pay earned.
His left thigh was sending jagged bolts of pain to his brain but Benright ignored them. When the
pain got too much he would rest. Until then he would carry on as he always carried on. It's what
men do, they carry on.
When that darn limb had snapped from the falling tree he had cut down and smashed into his thigh
bone, breaking it in five places, it had also ripped and torn the muscles in his thigh to shreds. The
hospital had fixed the bone. They had sewn the muscles and tendons back into place but they could
not fix the torn nerves.
Benright thought the accident to his leg was God's punishment for hating his wife. The Bible said to
love your enemies, but Benright just could not do that. He had tried. He really had. He even talked
to Pastor Burt at the 'Jesus Lives Baptist Church,' in Anderson. He asked him how to forgive. How it
works and what you have to do to make it work.
Benright had called in to see old Pastor Burt on his way to pay Celeste's home wrecker a visit at the
motel. It was not hard to track her down, Ellen Blake worked the town switchboard. It did not take
much persuasion to get her to tell him that she had connected Celeste's call from the local drug store
to her man at the Motel. Ellen had listened in as the new man in Celeste's life had told her he was
staying at the motel for the next three days on a business trip but that afterwards, he would take her
to California with him.
Benright, the old Pastor had said, clasping one of Benright's shoulders in his big hand and looking
him straight in the eye, you have to want to forgive her. That's the first step. What I recommend
people to do is this: when she comes to mind and you feel your guts churning with bitterness and
hate, pray for her. Right then and there boy don't leave it until later so it has time to grow do it
right then and there. Ask God to forgive her and then tell Him that, despite what you feel in your
guts, you forgive her too. It works boy, but you have to work at it. In time you will forgive her and
she will stop coming to mind all wrapped up in your fury. It's not no free ride. Jesus says that if you
do not forgive you cannot be forgiven. You have to have a willing heart. Do you have a willing
heart Benright? That's the question. It's a willing heart that God loves.
Benright had not answered the Pastors question. He knew the answer and he knew the Pastor knew
it too. Benright did not want to forgive Celeste. He wanted God to punish her. To beat her down. To
send her into hell for destroying his life and the family he always wanted. For ruining Billy's life
too. 'She 's a witch! He had thought, An evil, selfish witch; just like her mother had been. She
deserves to burn in hell.'
As Benright had turned away from the Pastor he heard him call out in his deep and booming,
preaching voice.
Beware of pride and bitterness, Benright. They will conspire together to kill everything you love.
They are the devils brew. Don't drink from those cups or you will rue the day you did.

Benright swung his axe and buried its blade into an old stump next to the trail, then he sat down
heavy with weariness beside it. Automatically, his left hand rubbed his painful thigh. Trying to
massage the pain out of it. A new old memory assaulted his mind.
He saw himself sitting on the end of the long hard bench in the green and cream painted hospital
corridor outside the delivery rooms on the night Billy was born. There were three other expectant
fathers there with him. They kept staring at him and his face was burning with shame as his guts
boiled with a rage he was struggling to control. They could all hear her. Dammit! Everyone in the
county could hear her.
Get it out of me. Get this rotten kid out of me. I hate it!
Benright had put his hat on and pulled it low over his face. He was trying to hide his shame and
anger from the other fathers. His hands had betrayed him though. They had balled themselves into
rock tight fists in his lap.
Celeste was shouting again. The memory stabbing at his heart like a hot knife.
I hope it's dead. I hope it's born crippled. Do you hear me Benright? I hope it's dead!
Then she screamed in pain and Benright heard a baby howling shortly after.
The father sitting next to him on the bench reached over and touched his arm in sympathy.
It's not my place to talk bad about another man's wife and ordinarily I wouldn't, but you have got
an evil bitch there and you best get rid of her.
For a moment Benright had felt a surge of hate so powerful rise up within him that he wanted to
pound the speaker into the floor. He almost did, but he still had enough reason in his mind to tell
him that this stranger was simply speaking the truth. Benright was not a person to hit a man for
speaking the truth. So he sat there, saying nothing. Silently enduring the shame and the rage until a
nurse appeared and took him into an office down the corridor.
You have a healthy baby son. Seven pounds six ounces. Congratulations, she said. She was
smiling up at him. A dumpy little red head nurse just doing her job but happy that he had become a
father.
Then she dropped her voice to a discreet whisper. I am sorry about his mother. Will the baby be
OK with her? It's just that....

Benright cut her off.

It's OK nurse, thank you. My sister Mary is going to take care of him. She moved into the house
today and will pick the baby up in the morning. As you heard, his mother is not a fit and proper
person to raise my son.
The nurse took one of his hands in both of hers. Maybe it's just depression. A lot of new mothers
suffer depression when they have a child.
Benright had shaken his head. No ma'am. It's not depression. It's who she is. She has a devil in her.
A little present from her mother. There ain't no curing that because she don't wanna be cured. She
likes the company.
The nurse nodded sadly. I will pray for you both, she said. Then she added, What are you calling
the boy?
Billy. Benright said. After my Pa. He was a good man.
The nurse smiled and wrote the name down on her pocket pad. Billy it is then.
As they turned to leave the office Benright took a hold of her arm.
Promise me something. Promise me you will not give the baby to her. There is no telling what she
might do to him.
I won't. The nurse said, I will leave a message with the nurse who takes over from me when my
shift is over, also. Don't worry.
Promise me. Benright insisted.
She smiled at him. I promise. You have my word.
Satisfied, Benright had released her arm and then walked out of the office and the hospital for the
hour long drive home. He made no effort to see his wife. He did not care how she was doing.
Mary stayed looking after Billy until a week after Celeste had taken off with her fancy man. It had
been a hard ten years for her at Billy's house. Celeste lost no opportunity to tell her how much she
hated all of them, but Benright refused to put his wife out.
I bought the package, I have to look after it. He would say. He took his marriage vows very

seriously.
Mary's own husband was killed in a dogfight over France after volunteering to fly with the RAF
early in the war. He was a Canadian and he felt he had to be doing something. Other Canadians
were going overseas to the war, he could not bare to stay behind, no matter how much Mary begged
him.
Mary was grateful when Benright asked her to look after the new baby. It gave her something else
to focus on, other than the pain of her Frank's death, but she was relieved when Benright came back
from the motel without Celeste.
She done left us. Now she ain't welcome here no more. I did my duty, even if she couldn't do her
side of it. She done committed adultery and the Bible says I can put her away for that. I won't. It's
enough to know that I could, he had told Mary.
The truth was, that refusing to divorce her was the nearest Benright could come to forgiving her. If
anything ever happened to Benright and Billy, she would still inherit the family home and the
mountain land with its trees and business links to the lumber company.
Mary knew then it was also time for her to leave and re-start a life of her own. Benright had insisted
she take one thousand dollars from his savings as start-up money, so she left the Moxon house in
good condition.

Sitting on the stump next to the trail Benright pulled his tobacco pouch from his shirt pocket and
rolled himself a cigarette. He wiped the match down the side of his blue jeans to light it with and
took a long, hard, drag as he carefully shook the match flame out. He blew out the cloud of grey
smoke as he looked carefully around him. His eyes and ears tuning in to every sound and movement
with long studied and practised ease. Apart from the birds calling and the sound of an unseen deer
chewing its food, all was quiet.
It paid to try and stay alert on the mountain. There were cougars and bears that roamed around on it.
Snakes too. Mostly, they kept away from folks, but you never could tell when that might change.
Only last fall, Albert Schoondist, a Swedish wood cutter working further North along the mountain
from Billy had a run it with a bear. It had decided to charge the wrong wood cutter though.
Schoodist was an expert at axe throwing and he planted his squarely in the bears forehead. Dead
centre between its eyes. Dang! That was some nerve he had, and some throw.
With the pain in his leg quietened down and the thoughts in his head back in order and under
control, Benright stood up, pulled the axe from the stump and rested it on his shoulder, and started
off back down the trail for home, a welcome dinner and a few cold beers before he worked on Mrs
Lanscom's broken radio set.

Billy's call had been met with a long silence so he tried again.
Tarzan calling Fallbeck Relay. Tarzan calling Fallbeck Relay. Go ahead Fallbeck Relay. Over.
His radio crackled into life.
Thish ish Fall... Thish ish Fallbeck Relay, schstand by to take down your meshage, over.
Billy snatched up a pencil and pulled the writing pad closer.
Fallbeck Relay, Go ahead, over.

There was another long silence from the radio. Nothing but occasional bursts of atmospheric static
came out of the big brown speaker. Billy was tapping his feet on the floor and his pencil on his pad.
Chewing down on his bottom lip.
Come on. Come on He said to himself. The nervous tension in his teenage body becoming harder
to bare by the second.
Just as he was about to reach for the microphone and repeat his call, Fallbeck Relay came back on.
This is Fallbeck relay, messhage from Jane to Tarzan reads as follows:
I don't want your love Tarzan. I have met another boy and he ish better than you will ever be. I
don't want to see you ever again, so don't go bothering me. Meshage ends. Fallbeck Relay, over and
out.

Billy sat stunned for a while, throwing down his pencil and staring at his pad in a kind of
unbelieving stupor. A crack in his heart slowly spreading across it as the meaning of the words on
his pad crystallised in his mind with increasing clarity. He grabbed at the Microphone and clicked
the transmit button.
Fallbeck Relay, Fallbeck Relay. This is Tarzan. Please confirm last message over.
Silence.

Fallbeck Relay, Fallbeck Relay. This is Tarzan. Please confirm last message over.
Silence.
Fallbeck Relay. Come in Fallbeck Relay. This is Tarzan. Please confirm last message over.
The silence continued. Fallbeck was not going to answer, that much was certain. Maybe Celeste
was dealing with another call and had switched frequencies. Billy turned the frequency knob on his
radio but apart from Hams calling distant stations, the airwaves were silent. Fallbeck Relay was off
the air. His communication with Celeste was dead and she was not going to answer his desperate
calls. He switched the radio off.
Billy stared down at his pad again. He was hoping, irrationally, that somehow the words would
vanish from his pad. That what he had heard and written down was different to what he had thought
was there and which were now crowbarring the crack in his heart wide open. The pain when it came
and his heart broke in two, was overwhelming.

In his cabin on Snake Ridge, Orville Mowberry stood staring at his radio in disbelief. He switched it
off and turned and walked out onto the ridge with Shutup dutifully following him. He sat down
heavily on a rock and stared down towards the valley on the west side of the mountain. He could
see Billy Moxon's house from here. It looked, as it always did in Summer, like a black and white
matchbox on a piece of green felt casting a long shadow to the south west in the early evening.
Benright's old blue pick-up truck parked beside it. On the eastern side of the mountain, the shadow
cast by the big rock and the falling and reddening sun was already ushering in an early night. Here
and there Orville could see cars moving with their sidelights on. On the western side, the valley was
still bathed in glorious sunshine and would still be light for two more hours.
He pulled an old fob watch on a chain from his waistcoat pocked and glanced at it. Benright would
not be home yet. Close to home but not quite there. The boy would be alone. No one to hold him
and offer him comfort. No one to tell him it was all a lie. That his sweetheart loved him but that
bitch of a witch someone should have put to sleep years ago, had lied to him.
Orville looked down at Shutup laid out on the bare, sun-warmed rock at his feet. He loved this old
dog. Had him ten years, since he was six months old. Shutup was a half breed of some kind. Orville
had never figured out which kind. His mother was an Irish Wolfhound, that much Orville did know.
Who or what his father was, was anybody's guess. Orville sometimes thought he must have been a
mule. Shutup was big, with shaggy, red/brown fur and, if he was handled right, was a loyal and
fearless if a little lazy dog. Handle him wrong though and he would bite off chunks of you and
spit them out.
Old Shutup did not say much these days. He had finally got the message that if he wanted to be fed
he had to keep his big mouth under control. But, if a bear, a snake, a cougar, or just a mean bastard

human was around, Shutup would sing out a warning and attack on command. That, and the
company, was all Orville ever wanted from a dog.
Well, Shutup, what should I do? I don't hold with interferin' in things between folks, but it seems
wrong to ignore this. Celeste has done wrong. That bitch has hurt her own son and a little gal that
never did her no harm. A lot of folks are goin' to be mighty mad at her. Yes sir. Can't say I blame
'em neither.
He aimed a jet of spit at a small rock, missed it by a mile, frowned and rubbed his old eyes.
There is dogs and bitches in this world ya just can't tame. Too much evil in 'em. Like that Hitler
character. Ain't no talkin' ta 'em. No Sir. They don't hear ya. They is receiving on a different
wavelength ta the rest of us and the messages them mad ones get is different from ours. They is
tuned ta the devil's radio and all too ready ta do what he tells 'em. Trouble is Shutup, people are bad
at detecting evil and they sometimes give the mad ones power over others. The darn stupid county
did that with Celeste. Just like them stupid Japs did with Tojo. People a-start dyin' when the mad
ones get power. Always do. Always will.
Shutup cocked up an ear, listened for a while and then went back to snoozing. Whatever his dumb
old master was saying to him, there was no chore or treat involved in it for him.
Orville was not done talking yet. He had to get things straight and the best way he knew to do it was
to talk out loud and listen to himself. He knew it was not likely Shutup would suddenly sit up and
tell him what he thought should be done, but he made a good sounding board anyhow, and it
seemed less crazy to talk to him than to talk to a rock.
I ain't God ta go a-pokin' about in other peoples lives. He knows what He is a-doin' when He does
it. I would just make a bigger and bigger mess and prob'ly set folks ag'in each other. Yes siree. Old
Orville should not be poking about where he ain't supposed ta be. If I could rescue every critter
from the Cougars jaws, why, I would end up with a lot of sick critters ta nurse back ta health and a
lot of Cougars starvin' ta death. Nature is nature. Just gotta let her do her own thing. No point in
fretting about it.
Orville glanced down at Billy and Benright's house again.
On the other hand, Shutup, we ain't talkin' about no wild dumb nature here No insult intended ya
understand. We are having this here one sided chat about people and good and evil. It's about doin'
right and doin' wrong. The question I need ta consider is, is it right for me ta do nothin'? Yep, that's
the question, sure enough. Am I my brothers keeper?
Orville must have decided he was his brothers keeper because he stood up quickly and marched
back into his cabin. Shutup gave a pointed sigh, got up and followed him. Orville switched his radio
back on at the very instant that Billy, far below in the valley, switched his off. Orville was just a
split second late when he keyed up his microphone and called Billy to tell him the true message his

sweetheart had sent him.

Celeste was roaring with hysterical laughter when she got up from her seat. She staggered forwards
towards the table where her lump of bread dough squatted, surrounded by scattered flour. She stood
swaying back and forth in front of the table until she spotted her cigarette pack and decided to have
a smoke. She patted her apron pockets, found her matches and lit her cigarette and propped herself
on the edge of the table to smoke it. Now and then the laughter would return to her and she would
bend over at the waist, helpless, until it passed. Occasionally she would mumble something almost
incomprehensible about revenge tasting good.
She finished the cigarette and tossed the remains out of the open front door and then turned back to
the table and the dough. It was hard work kneading that dough. Her hands were not working right
and her eyes could not see straight. Now and then a wave of dizziness would overcome her and she
would lie, face down on the table top, dribbling spit onto the floured surface until it passed.
Sometimes she drunkenly and incoherently rehearsed out loud to herself how she would tell the
folks that would be angry with her that it was just a good natured joke she played on Billy, That she
intended to call him back but had forgotten.
Finally, she gave up on the bread dough and turned to find the cloth to wipe her hands on. She
almost made it to its hook on the wall by the cooking range but a sudden blackness over whelmed
her and she fell forwards.
The fire crew who attended the fire said later that Celeste had fallen and probably hit her head on
the corner of the iron range. Her arm had gone into the fire and it was her body burning that had set
the blaze in the house.

Benright limped across the green meadow and climbed the porch to his house. He knew instantly
something was wrong. The heavy, black iron stew pot on the cooking range, was busy burning his
dinner. The table had not been set and his washing bowl had not been filled. He pulled the pot off
the heat and looked around. He called Billy's name but he got no answer. He walked to the outhouse
and checked it, but it was empty. He walked around the back of the house but found no one. It was
the sudden southerly breeze in his face that filled his heart with terror. He turned and looked North.
There, high up on the side of the mountain, a rainbow curved above the falls that were hidden from
his view among the trees, six miles away.
No!
Billy?
No!

Benright rushed back into the house and threw open Billy's bedroom door. His son's body, gently
swinging from a rope tied around the roof rafters, slowly turned to face him. The open eyes bulging,
the tongue poking out and skin of his face a purple-black colour. The noose around his neck cutting
cruelly into his throat. On the floor was a note that had fallen from his dead hands.
Benright was sobbing like a child as he had cut his boy down and laid him on his bed. Then he
desperately called for the police and a doctor on the radio but the towns two policemen, Bert, the
Sheriff and Don, his young deputy, had both been called to assist with a firefight on the other side of
the mountain. Louise, the police radio operator, said the Doc had gone with them but as soon as
they got back, she would send someone over. It wasn't likely to be for around three or four hours
though. Maybe even longer.
It was a little over an hour before Benright reacted to his loss and the words that Billy had written in
his note that told Billy's side of the story. Benright knew instantly that the message Billy had gotten
was not the one that Sarah would have sent. Her heart was too sweet to send words like that. He
tried to call Celeste on the radio but she was not answering. In his mind he could picture her
laughing with sick delight.
When he did react, it was with a surge of fury the like of which he had never felt before. It was
beyond reason. It was a bubbling, white hot lava of burning hatred that tore and ripped through his
heart and mind like a tornado. He suddenly stopped his crying and stood up. His face contorted into
a mask of unnatural rage. He had made up his mind what he was going to do and forgiveness had
nothing to do with it.
Benright burst into his bedroom, pulled the pump action shot gun from its rack and filled his
pockets with shells.. Then he went back into his sons room and hoisted his body over one shoulder
before heading out the door. He carefully unloaded Billy's body into the passenger seat of his truck,
and then climbed into the other side. Switching on the motor he gunned the engine and took off in a
cloud of dust and tire smoke. He was heading to the highway around the mountain. Someone else
was going to die today. He had a promise to keep. Had he glanced to his left he would have seen the
smoke curling up above the mountain top and realised he was wasting his time. He didn't see it. In
his head he could see nothing but Celeste. She was dancing. Her body shaking and twisting and
jerking as he pumped it full of 12 gauge shells.

Up on the mountain, old Orville was busy on the radio. He was broadcasting to both sides of the
mountain all he knew about about what Celeste had done and telling people he could not raise Billy
to let him know.

On the east side of the mountain, Sarah McKenzie was inconsolable. She did not hear Orville's
broadcast but a neighbour had and come running with the story. Sarah had listened with mounting
shock and horror and was now sitting, screaming and pulling hair from her head, on the bathroom
floor. Her back pressed against the locked door as her mother tried to calm her down by calling to
her from outside. Her father Roy was swearing a hot revenge on Celeste Moxon for what she had
done to his daughter and Billy.

It was a hour and a half before Benright who had broken every speed limit in the county swung
his truck hard left and began climbing the road to Celeste's house. It was dark and he was ten
minutes into the climb when his headlights eventually picked up smoke drifting across the road and
hanging in the trees on either side of it. It was another ten minutes before he saw the flashing red
lights of the fire tender ahead in the thickening smoke that now resembled a thick and choking fog.
He stopped the truck and pulled Billy's body from his seat and flung it over his shoulder. Then he
grabbed his shotgun from the rack behind the drivers seat and shunted it in his hand, loading up a
shell.
Benright Moxon looked like a vision straight from hell as he emerged through the smoke to stand in
front of the burning house. The intense heat had forced the fire crew back and they were aiming
their water jets at a building too far gone to hope to save. Now they were just trying to subdue the
fire enough to stop it spreading to the trees. The men that were there knew by the look on
Benright#s face that if they tried to stop him someone was going to die. Benright was not going to
be stopped. The Doc and the Sheriff had shouted at Benright above the sound of the roaring flames
and crackling wood but Benright never heard them. He was there to keep a promise and Billy was
going to witness it. His Pa had never broken his word and he was not going to start today. That
witch has hurt his son. She had to pay the price.
There was no sanity in Benright Moxon as he waked towards those flames. Reason had died in his
son's bedroom. There was only a whirlwind of pain and a deep primitive vengeance urging him on.
He strode forwards, as if not noticing the skin blistering waves of heat from the roaring high flames,
being whipped into dancing and whirling tornadoes of yellow and red fire by the strengthening
southerly breeze. He did not stop walking when the heat hit him and began to smoke on his and
Billy's clothes and shrivel the skin on his face and hands. Instead, he raised his gun and began
firing. Pumping it with one hand to reload as he carried his son's body over his shoulder deep into
the burning house. He managed to fire off five shots within the house before the flames consumed
him. A feat that the assembled fire crew, sheriff, deputy and doctor all agreed was almost
supernatural.

The fire crew had worked all night and most of the following day to stop the fire setting the whole
mountain ablaze. The chief fire investigation officer from Blackstone had driven over and inspected
the remains of the house and three bodies reduced to black lumps of carbon. His report would be
crucial to the inquest later. One accidental death and two suicides while the balance of the mind was
disturbed would be the verdict returned.

The funeral was on July 6th, the day of the county fair. Even so, three hundred people turned up for
it. The entire family were interred together. Mary Moxon, now Mary Richards, stood at the grave
with her new husband and wept and clutched his arm tightly as the coffins were lowered in the
family graves at the northern end of the green meadow. The house and land were hers now but she
intended to sell it all to the lumber company on condition that they kept the graves tended in
perpetuity. She could not bare to live there herself.

The funeral service was given by old Pastor Burt from the Jesus Lives Baptist Church in Anderson.
He used this tragedy to warn the congregation of the dangers of hate, bitterness, unforgiveness and
revenge. He told them of his conversation with Benright long ago when he had come to see him and
asked how to forgive. He knew he was offending some in his hearing but he did not care. 'Better to
offend all, that one person may hear and be saved.' That was his motto when he preached the Gospel
message. He told them, as he had told Benright, how to go about forgiving others that have done
you great wrongs. He ended the sermon with the same prophetic words he had called out to
Benright as he had left him on that day with his heart still full of anger. His voice thundering around
the tent in the green meadow where the service was held.
Beware of pride and bitterness.. They will conspire together to kill everything you love. They are
the devils brew. Don't drink from those cups or you will rue the day you did.

Old Orville Mowberry didn't attend the funeral. He told Eric Brackenridge, the town barber, on the
radio, that he wanted to remember Billy and Benright as they had been in life and he had no desire
to remember the witch.
I hate funerals Eric. I never go to 'em. Why, if I can avoid it, I might not go to mine neither, he
told his old friend.
Eric said he could not attend because he had to wait at home for news from the hospital about his
sick wife.
As they talked together Orville would occasionally glance down at the meadow far below, from his
western window. He could see the house, the big tent and the three, still open graves, clear enough.
If he used his binoculars, he could recognise the people too.
The view from the eastern window was of fire scarred trees below the cabin. It was a view that
made Orville shudder every time he looked at it. Had the fire crew not stopped the fire spreading
through the trees that night, his cabin may have gone up too. Pine trees burn hard when they burn.
Orville clicked the microphone switch.
Ya know Eric, people a-start dyin' when the mad ones get power. Always do. Always will. The
county should never have given Celeste that job. She was bad to the bone and most folks knowed it.
Still, you know what politicians is like, ya can't tell 'em anything they don't know better 'n you.
He paused and lit a cigarette, scratched at a dog flee biting his chest under his shirt and then he
spoke softly into the microphone.

There is no need for us to burn no witches, Eric. No siree, Bob. God knows who they are and he
will burn them in his own good time. Either they git fried here, or they git fried down there in hell.
Either way, God fries 'em. Yes siree. God fries 'em if they don't listen to Him calling after them and
change the way they are bound.

Down in the valley, far below Orville's mountain perch, little Sarah Stanfield stood alone at the
grave of Billy Moxon. She was watched from a distance by her Ma and Pa. Molly and Roy wanted
to give her one last chance to be alone with Billy.
Her tears fell off her chin like devastated rain and wet the front of her new black dress. She stared
into the hole at the shiny brown coffin for a few minutes and then dropped a single pink rose onto
the lid. She sniffed and raised a black gloved hand to her eyes to wipe away her tears. The light and
happy laughter had gone out of her now. All that was left to fill her emptiness was the pain of her
loss
I still love you Billy Moxon, she said, then added, I always did and I always will.

THE END