In the autumn of 1932, a game warden named Merrick Ashdon was living in a remote part of the Ozark Mountains. The area was called Long Shadow Ridge on county maps, though the people who lived there rarely used that name. Older maps, drawn by surveyors long before, called it something else in a language most locals no longer spoke. The oldest maps, made by the people who lived in those valleys before any surveyor arrived, did not name the place at all. They simply went around it.
Merrick was 38 years old that fall. He was tall, but not the kind of tall that draws attention. He had been a game warden for 12 years, long enough to learn every hollow and the sound of the wind in each one. He was not from the mountains originally. He had come up from the plains after his wife died in the influenza outbreak of 1929. He came because the mountain was the highest thing he could find that did not carry her voice.
He lived in a cabin about two miles above the town of Fern Gap, on a rise overlooking the small creek that gave the valley its name. He had a dog named Bone, a large red hound with a soft mouth that was afraid of nothing. That changed in mid-September of that year. Bone would go out in the evening and stop at the gate instead of running to the edge of the yard. He would sit and look up the hill and not move. Merrick tried to whistle him out. He tried walking ahead of him. He even tried leading him with a rope. After Bone planted his weight and gave him a look Merrick had never seen on a dog before, he stopped trying. He wrote in his notebook that Bone was getting old.
That was Wednesday. Merrick remembered because Judson Vestal had come out of the county office in Fern Gap the previous Wednesday and shaken his hand. Vestal said he was going to Long Shadow to survey timber for a company from Little Rock. Judson Vestal was 41 years old, a large man with a tobacco-colored beard and a wife in Russellville he had not seen since Easter. He had walked the Ozarks for nearly 20 years. He knew what he was doing. He told the county clerk he would be back in three days. Three days passed, and Judson did not return.
At first, no one paid much attention. Men who work in timber get delayed by weather, a twisted ankle on a rocky slope, or a stand of trees more interesting than the one they were sent to see. Four days passed, then five. On the sixth day, the clerk sent a message to Little Rock. On the seventh day, the timber company sent two more surveyors, and Merrick was asked to accompany them. They walked Long Shadow for two days. They found Judson’s pack hanging from a branch of a black oak about a mile below the peak on the eastern face, where the light fades early. His pencil, measuring tape, and tobacco tin were still sealed. His notebook was there too. The last entry, written in his neat surveyor’s hand, said only: “Something is moving on the ridge above me.”
The two men sent from Little Rock came down after sunset. When they returned to the county office in Fern Gap, each told Merrick privately that they would not go up that ridge again. Not for money, not for any timber growing on it. Merrick wrote the report the way such reports are written. He said Vestal may have fallen into one of the sinkholes that pock the limestone below the ridge, and that the body would likely surface in a spring downriver in the spring when the water rose. It was the sensible thing to say. Merrick was a sensible man.
Two weeks later, they found the still of Pecher Hawrin. Pecher was an unlicensed distiller, and everyone knew it. No one cared except when he sold to the wrong people, which he usually did not do. He was a thin, short man in his fifties with hands that shook so badly in the morning he spilled more than he sold. He ran a small still in a hollow on the north side of Long Shadow Mountain, in a grove of hemlock where smoke could not be seen. His brother came up on Sunday mornings to take him to church. Pecher did not go to church, but his brother came every third Sunday anyway, and Pecher would sit in the back row and tell his brother it was nice without meaning it.
That Sunday, Pecher’s brother came down alone. His face was pale as dishwater. The still was there. The fire under the kettle was cold, but it had not been cold long. There was a coffee cup on a stump beside the fire, half full, with a thin film of dust on the bottom. There was a jar of finished liquor on the ground, sealed and ready. There was a coat, Pecher’s coat, hanging on a nail in a tree. Pecher was not there.
Merrick went up with the sheriff, a man named Boyd Quill. Boyd was 62 years old and had been sheriff of that county since before the county road to Fern Gap existed. Boyd walked around the still twice. He picked up the coffee cup and set it down. He looked at the coat. He said, “Merrick, I want you to write in your report that Pecher fell into a sinkhole.” Merrick looked at him. Boyd said, “I want you to write it now, and I want you to write it before you say another word.” Merrick said, “Boyd.” Boyd said, “Quiet. Write it, son. Write it, and do not go back up that ridge after dark. I ask this as a favor to your dead wife, and as a favor to me.”
The third one came in the last week of October. His name was Cletus Garnell. He was 71 years old, a trapper who lived in a cabin halfway up the eastern side of Long Shadow Mountain. He had lived there alone for 39 years. He had four dogs. Three were old and slow. The fourth was a small dog named Digger, capable of treeing a bear if asked politely. One morning at dawn, the four dogs walked into Fern Gap. They came together on the main road, slowly, without barking. They sat in front of the county office. Digger’s front paws were bleeding as if she had been running over rocks. The other three were fine, but their heads were low and they would not take food.
Merrick gathered a group of men and went up. Cletus’s cabin was clean. His fire was laid, the way a man does when he intends to come back to it. His coat was on its hook. His boots were by the door. There was a book on the table, open face down. It was a King James Bible, open to the sixth chapter of Judges, with a hickory nut on the page as a marker. They found Cletus’s rifle in the woods about 100 yards above the cabin. It was leaning against a tree, straight, the way a man leans a rifle when he stops to get water or listen for something. They did not find Cletus. They searched for three days. On the afternoon of the third day, Boyd Quill called Merrick over to where he sat on a stump above the cabin and said, “This is the last time I come up here. I want you to know that. This is the last time.” Merrick asked what he meant. Boyd looked at him for a long moment and said, “There’s an old woman who lives in the hollow on the other side of Fern Gap, where the road ends and the creek begins. You know her.” Merrick knew her. Boyd said, “Go see her.” Merrick said, “Boyd, I don’t need to see a Cherokee grandmother about a missing trapper.” Boyd said, “Either you see her, or you leave the mountains. Those are your two options now. And if I hear you didn’t go see her, I’ll sit on my porch and wait to hear that you’re the fourth. I’ll grieve for you, son, but I won’t be surprised.”
The next morning, Merrick went down. The road from Fern Gap runs south for about a mile, then stops being a road and becomes a suggestion of one, then stops being that too. Beyond it lies a depression mapmakers called Cold Hollow long ago, though it is not particularly cold. The creek that runs through it has no name Merrick had ever heard. Some places still do not like to be named.
The old woman’s cabin was in the hollow, in the back where there was no road, beside a spring so clear you could see pale little crayfish moving along the bottom. The cabin was small and old. It had been built, Merrick thought, before the county was a county. The chimney was square, the door fitted tight. There was a peach tree beside the front step, tended with great care, as if it had been pruned branch by branch. She was on the porch when he came up. She was small. That was the first thing he noticed. Small the way some old people get small, as if the years had folded them over and over until they took up only the space they had needed all along. Her hair was white and unbound, hanging down her back in a heavy braid. Her face was full of lines, and her eyes were black and steady. When she looked at Merrick coming up the path, she did not rise, did not smile, did not stop what she was doing, which was shelling beans into a wooden bowl in her lap.
She said, “You’re the game warden.” Her voice was low and calm. She spoke English the way one speaks a second language mastered over eighty years. Carefully, with great love for it, but not entirely at home in it. Merrick said, “Yes, ma’am. My name is Merrick Ashdon.” She said, “I know your name. Sit down.” He sat on the edge of the porch. She kept shelling beans. After a while, she said, “The boy sent you.” He said, “Yes, ma’am.” She said, “You’re here about the ones who didn’t come back.” He said, “Yes, ma’am.”
She was quiet for a moment. She finished the beans. She set the bowl aside. She looked out at the yard, past the peach tree, toward where the sky above the hollow was held in by the hills. Then she said, “Do you want the whole truth, or do you want the part of it that lets you sleep at night?” Merrick thought about it. He said, “I want the truth.” She looked at him. She said, “Then you won’t sleep well again. Not for a long time. Do you understand that before I tell you?” He said, “Yes, ma’am.” She said, “All right. Come inside. I need to make coffee.”
Her cabin was one room. It had a stove, a table, two chairs, and a bed covered with a quilt made of a hundred different pieces of cloth. Herbs hung from the rafters. Not the dried decorative bundles you see in gift shops now, but fresh herbs stained with the smoke of a hand. There was a basket on a shelf so old it had turned the color of dark honey. Merrick understood without asking that it had come with her, or with her mother, from somewhere in the east. She had not always lived in the Ozarks. She had come here, or her people had, the way people come to those valleys when what is behind them is worse than what is ahead.
She made coffee slowly. She poured him a cup. She sat across from him. She did not drink her coffee. She held the cup in both hands. She said, “The men who didn’t come back. They were all on the ridge.” Merrick said, “Yes, ma’am.” She said they had all been on the ridge after the sun touched the tops of the trees. Merrick thought about it. Judson Vestal’s pack was on the eastern face where the light fades early. Pecher Hawrin’s fire was cold, but not cold long, and Pecher would have run the still all day and only shut it down when the light began to fade, because then the smoke would be seen against a pale sky. And Cletus Garnell. Cletus was a trapper. Trappers run their lines at dusk. He said, “Yes, ma’am. They all were.”
She nodded once, without satisfaction. She said, “That’s the first thing you need to know. It’s the oldest rule, the one my mother taught me.” Her mother taught her, and her mother’s mother taught her, long ago, farther back than you can count. She said, “Do not set foot on the ridge after the sun touches the trees.” Merrick waited. She said, “There are others.”
She recited them. She recited them the way one repeats something learned so young you do not remember not knowing it. She said, “Do not answer your name after dark if the voice is not a voice you can see.” She said, “Do not turn to look at what walks behind you. Not once, not to check.” She said, “Carry iron on your skin. Silver is better. The metal must be on the skin, not in a pocket, not through a shirt.” She said, “Running water distracts them. If you are followed, cross running water, and do not look back.” She said, “Accept nothing from a stranger on the ridge after dark. No shelter, no fire, no water, no hand offered to help you up. Accept nothing.” She said, “If they speak to you, do not answer. Silence is the only language they understand as an answer, and silence is the only word you will not regret.”
She stopped. She looked at Merrick. She said, “These are the rules. Do you have one?” Merrick was writing them down in his small notebook. He looked up. He said, “Ma’am, who are they?” She smiled for the first time. It was not a warm smile. It was the smile of someone who has been asked a question so large that a smile is the only thing that fits. She said, “That is not a question you want answered.” He said, “I would like to know.” She looked at him for a long time. Then she said, “My people had a word for them. I will not speak it. It is not said in a house at night. It is not said in a house at all if it can be helped. Do you understand?” He said, “Yes, ma’am.” She said, “They were here before my people. This is important. Do you understand? We did not bring them. They were here. They were here when my grandmother’s grandmother came to this country, fleeing what came for us from the east. We did not bring what walks the ridges. It was already walking.”
He said, “Then what are they?” She said, “They are the mountain.” She waited. She said, “That is the closest word in your language. They are the mountain. Not the mountain as a man means it, but the mountain as it means itself. When the mountain is hungry, it walks. When it is old, it walks. When it wants to know what it is, it walks. And when it walks, it walks on two legs.”
Merrick drank his coffee slowly. His hand was steady, but he was aware of his steadiness, the way a man is aware of something he is holding in place. He said, “Ma’am, if I do everything you’ve asked. If I follow the rules. Will I be safe?” She looked at him. She said, “No.” She waited. She said, “You will be less in danger. That is the purpose of the rules. They are not to protect you. They are to make the mountain, when it looks at you, look past you, because you have given it no reason to look closely. But if the mountain is hungry and you are on it, and you are the only thing on it, it will look closely, and no rule will save you then.” He said, “Then how do I stop it?” She smiled again, the same smile. She said, “You do not stop the mountain, Mr. Ashdon.” She said, “The men who did not come back. You cannot bring them back. Do you understand?” He said, “Yes, ma’am.” She said, “Then what will you do?” He thought about it. He said, “I don’t know.” She nodded. She seemed to like the answer. Or at least, she accepted it. She said, “One last thing, and then you will go, because it is getting late, and I do not want you on the road at dusk. Not now that you know.”
She leaned forward. She was very small when she leaned forward, and her voice was still low and calm and careful, but there was something in it that had not been there before. She said, “If you hear the voice of someone you loved. Someone who is not here. Someone who is gone. Do not answer. Do not turn. Do not look. Do not do anything. Even in your heart, do not speak their name. Do you understand?” She said, “Not even in your heart.” Merrick set his cup down. His hand was not quite steady anymore. He said, “Ma’am, how did you know?” She said, “Everyone has a voice. That is how they call you. That is how they always call you. They find the voice you cannot help but answer to, and they use it. That is why the rule is what it is. Because it is the hardest rule to keep.” Then she said, “Go now, Mr. Ashdon. Go now, and walk to the end, and do not stop until you reach your own door.”
He went. The walk back to Fern Gap was two and a half miles, and Merrick made it in less than that. By the time he reached his own door, he had made his decision. He decided the grandmother was old, and tired, and believed what old people who have lived alone for a long time believe. He decided she had been careful and kind, and had spoken to him as if she were speaking to someone dear to her. He decided that what she told him was a story, and that the story was true the way stories are true. He decided the men had fallen into sinkholes. He decided the mountain was old limestone, and old limestone is full of holes. He decided he would write his reports, and file them, and take Boyd’s advice not to go up on the ridges after dark, and let the winter come. In the spring, the bones would surface in the springs downriver, the way bones do, and there would be an end.
Still, he followed the rules. He could not help it. He noticed on the way back that he was already following them without meaning to. He crossed the small creek at the edge of Cold Hollow instead of using the wooden bridge, because the creek was running water. When a bird called from a thicket behind him, a call that was close to right but not quite right, he did not turn to look. When he entered his cabin and took off his coat, he went to the small box where he kept things he no longer used. He took out the silver locket that had belonged to his wife. He opened it and put it around his neck, and felt the metal against his skin above his breastbone, cold at first, then warm. From that day on, he wore it every day under his shirt. He told himself he wore it because he missed her. He told himself that for a long time.
The first strange thing happened three nights after he saw the grandmother. Merrick woke late in the night and felt that Bone was not in the cabin. Bone slept at the foot of the bed every night. But when Merrick got up, Bone was standing at the front door, not moving, not making a sound. Bone was looking at the door. Merrick got up. He took the rifle. He walked over to Bone and stood beside him. There was no sound outside. That was the first thing Merrick noticed. There was no sound outside. It was late September. The crickets should have been running, the owls calling from the hills, the small creek below the slope murmuring as it always did. But there was none of it. It was a silence as complete as the silence in a room where a clock has stopped.
He stood at the door. He did not open it. He put his hand on the door and felt through the wood. He felt for anything. Any breath, any weight, any warmth, any cold. He felt nothing. He stood there for what he later thought was four or five minutes, but it may have been longer. Then Bone made a small sound, very small, from the back of his throat, and turned away from the door, and came and lay down at the foot of the bed. The crickets returned moments later, all at once, as if a button had been pressed. Merrick sat at the kitchen table and did not sleep that night, and did not open the door. In the morning, when he opened it, he found nothing outside. No tracks, no sign, nothing. But when he went down to check the yard, he found on the top rail of the fence three small smooth stones arranged in a line. He had not put them there. He looked at them for a long time. Then he took them from the fence and threw them, all of them, into the creek that ran below his cabin, because the creek was running water, and he was beginning to understand things without knowing it.
The second strange thing happened a week later. Merrick was walking a fire line on the eastern side of Long Shadow in the middle of the day, under a bright autumn sun. He was doing his job. He was not on the ridge, but well below it. It was two hours before sunset, and he intended to be down in Fern Gap an hour before sundown. As he walked, he heard his name. He heard it clearly. It came from up the slope, from among the trees, and it was a woman’s voice. It was a voice he had not heard in three years. The woman said his name the way she had always said it, with a particular inflection. The way she called him when she was in the kitchen and supper was ready and she wanted him to come in. She said, “Merrick.” She said it once.
He stopped. He did not turn. He did not answer. He stood there on the fire line in the middle of the day, under a bright autumn sun, with his hand on the small silver locket under his shirt, and he held his breath for what seemed like a very long time. The voice did not come again, but he felt it. He felt it up the slope. He felt it the way one feels a person watching from a room one has turned one’s back to. And he knew, with a coldness that had nothing to do with the season, that if he turned. If he turned and looked, to check, to prove to himself that no one was there, he would not leave the fire line. He left the fire line. He left it without turning once, all the way down. He passed every tree without raising his eyes to it. He crossed the small creek at the foot of the hill, and did not look back to see what was behind him, even when he heard from behind him the sound of footsteps on leaves that were not his footsteps. He got in his truck. He drove to Fern Gap. He went into the county office and sat at his desk and did nothing for about an hour. Then he took the report on Cletus Garnell out of his desk drawer and read what he had written. He had written that Cletus may have fallen into a sinkhole. He tore the report in half. Then he tore it in half again. Then he sat and looked at the pieces.
The friend he mentioned, the one he had not named, was named Elton Boyet. He was 34 years old. He was a deputy for Boyd Quill. Elton was a short man, not much taller than the grandmother, but strong the way short men from that country are strong, strong in the joints and strong in the will. Merrick told Elton on a Tuesday in the last week of October that he was thinking of going up to Long Shadow again. Not to the ridge, just to Cletus’s cabin. He wanted to bring Cletus’s dogs back. Merrick had been keeping Digger and the three old dogs at his cabin, and they ate and drank and slept, but they were not the same. He thought they might want to go home. He thought their home was still there, even if Cletus was not.
Elton said he would come with him. Merrick said he would rather go alone. Elton looked at him for a moment. Then he said, “Merrick, you look tired.” Merrick said yes. Elton said, “You look the way the boy looked when we came down from there. You look that tired.” Merrick did not answer. Elton said, “You went to see the grandmother, didn’t you?” Merrick said yes. Elton nodded slowly. He did not ask what she had said. That was one of Elton’s qualities. He did not ask about things a man would not answer. Elton said, “I’m coming with you. Not to argue. Just so there are two of us up there. I’ll come and I’ll be quiet, and we’ll get the dogs and be back by four.” Merrick thought about it. He thought about it and said, “All right.” That was the thing he came back to for the rest of his life. He said, “All right.” He could have refused. Elton would have shrugged. Elton would have gone home to his wife and his warm bed and his dog. Elton would have been alive on Wednesday. But he said, “All right.”
They went up on Wednesday. It was a bright, cold morning, the way late October mornings are there, with sharp slanting light and every leaf on every tree bright red or yellow, looking as if it were lit from within. They took the four dogs. They took Merrick’s truck to the end of the road, then walked. Digger led the way, ears up, tail low. The three old dogs walked behind them. They went to Cletus’s cabin. It was as he had left it. The Bible was still on the table, the hickory nut still on the page. They walked around the cabin. They walked the yard. They walked the small path Cletus had kept that ran up the slope behind the cabin and into the trees. Merrick thought that maybe when Digger saw her home, she would tell them something. She would smell something, bark or dig, or do something a dog does when it knows something. Digger sat on the porch. She would not go in. The three old dogs lay down in the yard.
Elton and Merrick worked through the afternoon. They cleaned up the food, which was nearly gone. They put out the fire. They took down the Bible and wrapped it in waxed cloth because Cletus’s brother wanted the Bible and it was time to bring it down. The light began to fade. Merrick was watching the light. He had been watching it since they entered the yard. He knew where the sun was at every minute they were there. He said to Elton, “We need to go now.” Elton looked up from what he was doing. He was tying the waxed cloth around the Bible. Elton said, “Give me two minutes.” Merrick said, “Elton.” Elton said, “Two minutes, and then we go.” Merrick said, “Get the dogs.”
Elton went to get the dogs. The three old dogs came. Digger did not come. Digger was sitting on the porch, looking up the slope toward the small path that ran behind the cabin, and she was not moving. She was not making a sound. She was sitting the way Bone sat at the fence when he refused to pass. Elton went up to the porch. He knelt beside Digger. He put his hand on her neck. He said her name. Digger did not look at him. Digger stood up. Digger walked slowly off the porch. She walked toward the path behind the cabin. She did not run. She walked the way one walks when one’s name is called and one cannot help but come.
Merrick shouted at Elton to grab her. Elton grabbed her. Digger, who had never shown a tooth to anyone in her life, turned in Elton’s arms and bit him. She bit him hard on the wrist, bit him until the blood ran. Elton let go out of surprise, and Digger left the porch, passed Merrick, and walked up the path. She did not look back. Elton said, “Jesus.” Merrick said, “Leave her.” Elton said, “Merrick.” Merrick said, “Leave her. We’re going now.”
They went. They came down the mountain quickly, but not running, because Merrick knew the mountain would notice them running if they ran. They took the three old dogs on leads. They walked the small path they had come up. They did not look back. The sun touched the tops of the trees when they were about a quarter mile from the truck. Merrick felt it. He felt the change in the light. He felt the shadows of the trees lengthen suddenly, the way shadows do at that hour. And he felt something else. He felt something begin to walk. Not near them. Not yet. Somewhere on the ridge, above them, far enough away that it was still choosing.
Elton felt it too. Elton did not say it. But Elton put his hand on Merrick’s arm once without saying anything, and they both walked faster. Then Elton stopped. He stopped so suddenly that Merrick was three steps past him before he realized it. Merrick turned. Elton was looking up the slope. He was looking at nothing. He was looking at a place between the trees about forty feet above them, where there was nothing. Elton’s face was the face of a man who has just heard something. Merrick said, “Elton.” Elton did not answer. Merrick said, “Elton, don’t.” Elton said, “That was my mother’s voice.” Merrick said, “Don’t.” Elton said, “Merrick, that was my mother’s voice.” Elton’s mother had been dead for 11 years.
Merrick said, “Elton, listen to me. That was not your mother. Elton, look at me. Don’t look up that slope. Look at me.” Elton looked at him. Elton’s face was wet. Merrick had never seen him cry. Elton was a short, hard man who had lost his mother when he was 23, and he was the one who buried her. Merrick knew that. Elton said, “She said my name.” Merrick said, “I know she did. I know. Come with me now.” Elton looked up the slope again. Merrick grabbed him. Merrick grabbed him by his coat and pulled him. Merrick pulled him down the path. Elton took about five steps. Then Elton stopped again. Elton said, “She’s calling me, Merrick.” Merrick said, “I know.” Elton said, “She says she’s cold.” Merrick said, “Elton.” Elton said, “Quiet. Merrick, I have to go get her.”
Merrick was carrying the rifle. He raised it, not at Elton, but at the slope, at the empty space between the trees. He raised it and aimed it at the woods, at nothing, and he shouted. He shouted a shout with no meaning. He shouted the way you shout at something in the dark that will not name itself, and he fired the rifle once, into the trees. The shot echoed off the hill and came back to them. There was a long moment of complete silence. No birds, no wind, nothing. Then a voice answered from up the slope. The voice said, “Elton.” It was the voice of Elton’s mother.
Merrick did not look at Elton. He did not turn. Because if he turned, he was afraid he would see on Elton’s face what he felt on his own. He kept the rifle raised. He said, without looking, “Elton. Take my belt. Take my belt from behind. And walk behind me with your eyes closed and do not listen. Count. Count out loud. Count to a hundred. Then count to a hundred again. Do you hear me?” Elton did not answer. Merrick said, “Elton.” Elton took his belt. Elton began to count. Elton’s voice was small and shaking and ashamed, but he counted. He counted and kept counting. And Merrick walked. The three old dogs followed. And behind them, from somewhere among the trees, a woman’s voice called Elton’s name. Over and over.
They reached the truck. Elton was still counting when they reached the truck. He had reached a hundred once. Merrick had to open the door for him and put him in because his hands would not obey him. They drove away. The sun was behind the hills when they entered Fern Gap. Merrick took Elton to his house. Elton’s wife was on the porch. She took one look at Elton’s face and brought him inside. She did not say a word to Merrick, but she looked at him over Elton’s shoulder as she led him in. It was the look of a woman who understood exactly what had happened, and was telling Merrick without a word that it was not his fault. Or that if it was, she had forgiven him. He was not sure.
He went home. Elton survived. He lived, but he was not the same after that. He gave up his deputy’s badge in the spring. He and his wife moved to Little Rock, and Elton worked in a hardware store. Years later, Merrick heard that Elton had done well at the store and lived a good life. Merrick was glad to hear it. Merrick never saw Elton again. Digger never came back. The three old dogs stayed with Merrick until the last one died of old age in the spring of 1935.
Merrick himself gave up his post as game warden in the last week of November of that year. He did not tell Boyd Quill why. He did not need to. Boyd shook his hand at the door of the county office and said, “Take care of yourself, son.” That was all. Merrick moved down off the mountain. Not far, not to a city. He could never abide cities. He moved to flat land west of Russellville, his wife’s home country, and worked for a few years as a mail carrier. After that, he took a job with the state agricultural office. Then he retired. And he lived there until he was old.
Until he told me this story on a porch overlooking a valley where nothing walked, nothing watched, nothing called his name in a voice that was not there. He told it to me once. He told it to me all the way through without stopping. When he finished, he sat there for a long time looking at the valley. Then he said something else. He said the grandmother had told him something at the door as he was leaving her cabin that day, something he had not written down. She said at the door, quietly, so quietly he almost did not hear it, that the mountain remembered him now. That the mountain had looked at him and looked past him, but it had looked. And she said that if the mountain looks at a person, even from far away, it keeps their shape somewhere inside itself, and it knows them. And she said that a person the mountain has looked at will sometimes hear its voice for the rest of their life. In the last moments of sleep, or standing at a window at night, or in a room that has suddenly gone silent. They will hear it. It will not be loud. It will be a single voice calling their name, a voice they cannot help but answer to. And she told him that the rule he would keep for the rest of his life was the rule he already knew: do not answer, do not turn, do not look. Not once. Not ever.
Merrick told me on that porch that he had kept that rule. He had kept it for 42 years when he told me the story. He said he thought he would keep it a little longer. Then he asked me if I wanted more coffee. I said yes, and he went inside to get it. And while he was inside, I sat on the porch, and the valley was full of midday light and midday sounds. And there was nothing wrong with it at all. Nothing. But I remember that I sat there and did not turn when he came back. I heard him coming. I heard the door and the porch boards and his footsteps behind me, and I did not turn. Not until he was back in the chair beside me, and set the coffee down, and was a man in daylight beside me again. And I have sometimes wondered why I did that. I think I still wonder sometimes.
That is the story. That is what Merrick Ashdon told me. And this is what he told me. His Cherokee grandmother told him in the fall of 1932 in a small cabin at the end of a road that nearly disappeared into a hollow in the Ozarks that the people who lived nearby did not always call things by their names.