Unknown by Unknown Read Free Book Online Page B

savouring the fragrance of the pine. Occasionally they passed open meadows, and dirt trails, but no sign of houses. But the pull of the mountain glades could not fight back her major interest. Out of the corner of her eyes she watched him. He had pushed his sleeves up to the elbow, and held the wheel lightly, his corded muscles flicking corrective actions as the road curled and weaved upward. His hair sparkled in the sunlight, showing gold flecks among the red. He whistled as he drove, carefree, looking younger than— whatever his years were. It was altogether a pleasant thing, watching him, she thought. Gradually her head turned, until she was staring, devouring him with her eyes. Her Ups parted, with her tongue slightly protruding as she concentrated. She was so engrossed that she hardly noticed they had swung off the paved highway, and were following a dirt track through an open meadow, pointing straight ahead towards a clump of rock and woodland that rose higher than the flat area in which they were driving. He braked the Jeep, set the handbrake, and turned to her.
    ‘From here on,’ he laughed, ‘it’s shank’s mare, lady.’ He pointed to where the trail they were following split in three directions. ‘We take the left-hand bend.’
    ‘Okay,’ she sighed, thinking of the weight of the big camera. ‘Where do the other two go?’
    ‘The middle one leads on to Business Ridge, towards Devil’s Creek Gap,’ he said. ‘The other one is the Appalachian Trail. You know about that, I guess?’
    ‘No, I guess J don’t. Should I?’
    ‘I would think so,’ he commented drily. ‘It’s a hiking trail that follows the higher ridges of the Appalachian Mountains, all the way from the centre of Maine to North Georgia. About two thousand miles, I would guess. It has rest areas and hostels along the route, and only one major gap, up in New York, where the Hudson River carved a mighty hole in the mountain chain. We must try it some time.’
    ‘Two thousand miles? I—I don’t think I can spare the time. Especially if I have to carry these cameras.’
    ‘So I’ll help,’ he chuckled. He climbed out, reached back for her heaviest camera case, and started up the trail. She slid out of her seat as fast as she could, fumbled at the straps of her lighter cameras and her supply case, and hurried after him.
    ‘Hey wait,’ she was finally forced to call. He stopped in mid-stride and glanced back at her. She thought he was about to say something sarcastic. Instead his eyes lit up, that wide grin swept across his face, and he slowed his pace.
    ‘It’s called Rat Top Mountain,’ he announced grandly when they reached their destination. ‘Because it’s flat, of course. And behind us, that’s Big Bald. Straight ahead and down is Business Ridge. The town on the other side is Erwin, the biggest city in Unicoi Country. We’ll go there one day.’
    ‘Yes. Nice,’ she muttered as she struggled to assemble her folding tripod, and set the camera up. It was about an hour before the sun would be overhead, so she had a clear view ahead, into the valley of the Tennessee. ‘It looks like an ocean of waves, all fixed in place,’ she called to him. ‘What am I looking at?’
    ‘You’re on top of the Smokey Mountains here,’ he returned. ‘Ahead of you are a whole series of smaller ranges, running generally from north-east to south-west. In between each of those ranges is a little river which generally runs south until it joins a larger river, and then eventually into the Tennessee. They tell that in the old days every spring brought floods and destruction. In the 1930s the Federal government organised a public corporation, the TVA, and gave it the job of stopping the floods and producing cheap electricity. They built more dams than I can count, and it all worked. There hasn’t been a flood in my lifetime. How about that?’
    She was busy at her tripod, tightening the clamps on the legs, and paying only partial attention.