center because Gil Brady ran that place and Brady wasn’t someone these make-believe tough guys wanted to mess with when they got feeling their oats. Besides, Brady was careful and watchful enough not to let anyone get sufficiently drunk to consider the idea. This meant that with only one watering hole, when bad blood broke out between two or more men, no one could back out and get drunk elsewhere. The Sheriff got called over to Tony’s at least once a month and so far had always been able to break things up, only having to make one arrest so far. But secretly, inside, Sheriff Bosley had a gnawing fear that one of these times he would freeze up and be unable to enter the fray. Some of these men were burly monsters who might go after each other with pool cues or broken beer mugs and were drunk enough to not give a shit. The sheriff knew if he ever chickened out just once, he would be through in this town. Word would get out that he could be had; that he could no longer keep folks safe. And since there was less for him to do these days, he knew he needed to be impeccable with what was left if he wanted the Town Board to keep renewing his contract.
So he didn’t really mind driving Sam down to the hospital in Bennetsville; didn’t really mind making out the reports; didn’t really mind having to answer all the silly questions that came later from the people in town who had already heard several versions of the story. He let pass most of the wild conjecture with a shrug and a smile but did feel compelled to squelch the rumor that the Boudines had drugged Sam and violated his person in a bizarre sexual dalliance of some kind. Others—who considered themselves to be good God-fearin’ folk—professed themselves to be above such prurient squalor, and declared the entire subject out of bounds among polite company.
Only the Boudine sisters knew that earlier that autumn, there had been two other visitors to the mountain when the leaves turned to shades of bright orange and gold during one of the best leaf seasons anyone could remember. No one saw these visitors in the predawn hours as they parked in the abandoned school parking lot, passed through town and headed up Bakers Mountain. They were Native Americans, one from the Mohawk Tribe and one a Mohican. They had become fast friends in New York City where they worked together at construction on many of the high-rise buildings that push toward the sky on the paved-over island of Manhattan. It is a strange irony that when the White Man should begin constructing these massive steel towers of our modern cities—-so much the antithesis of the New England Indians’ long-houses—it would be Native Americans who were hired by the hundreds to work up high on them. No other people come close to the ability of many Native Americans to work quickly and fearlessly on the narrow precipitous beams towering hundreds of feet above the teeming city streets. The two climbing Bakers Mountain had rescued themselves from years of heavy nighttime boozing by instead becoming immersed in their ancestors’ heritage. They read books, they visited museums, libraries and archives. They travelled too, painfully visiting the sad, isolated enclaves of poverty and hopelessness that the White Man so innocuously calls “Reservations” where out of sight has meant out of mind and where a once proud and vital people have been cast aside to languish as their heritage winds down into forgetfulness—soon perhaps into irretrievable loss. Many are the ways that their conquerors have absolved, justified and excused themselves: They’ve never really wanted to integrate themselves into our society; they won’t help themselves so we can’t help them anyway; they’ve turned their reservations into third world ghettos; we already let them have casinos and sell untaxed cigarettes; what else do they want...and besides they drink...
Randle Marsh did not see them pass his cabin in the early morning light. Later the Boudlne sisters would see them, though the travelers did not see them. And even if they did notice the faint paths they sometimes crossed on their way up the mountain, they were intent on business of their own and did not tarry. The sisters might well have followed but for the fact that they sensed the men had interests on the mountain that were private, concerning things sacred and very old. Perhaps not as old as the sisters’ concerns, yet still a part of the mountains’s endless unfolding history as the two men understood it. Tara and Ariel exchanged glances and smiled; for a few minutes they felt less alone and they reached out and clasped hands as the travelers passed the thicket of tangled cedar behind which the sisters crouched. One of the men stopped abruptly and the other bumped into him from behind in a comical slapstick way. The leader had felt a strange chill pass down his neck and into his arms and back. It was a chill like he had never felt before and both men looked around and then glanced at each other. A freshening breeze rustled through the tops of the trees and tousled their hair. The leader accepted this reluctantly and doubtfully as the source of his chill. A chickadee lisped from somewhere above, startling them further. The two men gave each other sheepish glances and moved on.
They eventually came to the high falls along Black Brook. The deep pool at the foot of the falls reflected the late September foliage. Already the swamp maples and the sumac were fiery red among the more numerous sugar maples of orange and gold. The oaks were still unchanged, letting the deer and the wild turkeys wait a while longer to gather their bounty of acorns. Around the deep pool bloomed the purple and blue Asters, among the loveliest of all New England wild flowers that keep the memory of Summer alive when all else speaks of Autumn. By now the hikers were feeling hot as the afternoon sun poured into the clearing. They would have gratefully stripped and dived into the pool had they been sure they could dally and still be off the mountain by dark.
Reluctantly, they passed up the inviting water and pressed on toward the summit, keeping their goal firmly in mind. That goal was to bring back a piece of the Spirit Stone, so sacred to the Mohicans and Hoosacs who had roamed these lands for centuries. The tribes had known these stones as Manitou Asenith. Later the Dutch and French would refer to them as Stone Arabia. The Indians carved this glittering and alluring quartz into symbols of the Wakon-bird, believed to have had the ability to appease dangerous spirits. These same rocks were also much used in tribal burial ceremonies.
Seen from a distance, the rounded top of Bakers Mountain can belie how steep it is below, especially on the west side of the mountain where the men had decided to climb. They knew that by late afternoon, when they should be approaching the top, the sun dropping into the west would throw this side of the mountain into bright light, and reveal to them the location of the shining Spirit Stones. Near the top, the leaves had already begun to fall from some of the stressed trees that cling precariously to the rocky soil. The Indians used these small gnarled oak and mountain ash trees as handholds to prevent them from slipping on the dry fallen leaves. As they approached the top, great outcroppings of rock loomed out at torturous angles and it was here the two tired climbers finally found the shining Spirit Stones they had sought. A moment’s work with a small geologic hammer broke off a piece for each of them and they held them up to let the sun sparkle on them. It was a celebration of sorts, connecting them forever with the lives and lore of their ancestors.
They continued on to the top of the mountain and spent the next two hours seeking out the spectacular views from different points on the summit. Among the great charms of the Taconics are the unparalleled vistas that can be seen of the surrounding ranges. To the west and southwest can be seen the cat-like peaks of the Catskill Mountains as well as the long line of the Helderberg escarpment. North and northeast lie the Adirondacks and Greens while to the east and southeast, more of the Taconics and the Berkshires roll away into the horizon like the waves of a great ocean frozen in time. As the two men took this all in and finally prepared to leave, a red-tailed hawk soared above them, at times passing low over their heads, his tail shining bright red when caught by the rays of the setting sun. The men smiled and clasped hands as they watched. Surely this was a good omen; perhaps the reason they had been directed to this mountain by the old Indian they had visited when planning this trip. Everyone called him Grandfather whether they were related to him or not. He had let the men stay with him for two days in his run-down trailer on the reservation in western New York while he quietly spoke of tales and legends of long ago. They had actually smoked a peace pipe with him for which they left him five pounds of tobacco as a parting gift. As they left, the old man had switched on his old black and white television as though fast-forwarding himself back into the Twenty-first Century and away from the memories of much older and happier times.
Now, just before they left the mountain summit, the two friends
