Poisoned Soil: A Supernatural Thriller Page 18

  The yipping and yelping channeled horrible memories of suffering through Ozzie’s ears to his mind. But the pain and physical suffering he was thinking of wasn’t his own. Rather, the memory of the coyote attack reminded him that he had cowered and run. He had run away from the coyotes but had not escaped. He had run away from evil men and had left his mother and brother behind. He had been a child of the forest and fear had controlled him, but now, fear wasn’t the primary emotion that Ozzie felt. It had been eclipsed by new emotions. Shame. Revenge. Rage.

  Picking up his pace, Ozzie jogged toward the pack, the alpha male suddenly within sight. The pack leader stopped on the ridgeline as he felt an unfamiliar sensation. He was the one being hunted. The alpha male stood his ground with his mates at his shoulder to convey the appearance of a large predator. Ozzie came to a stop ten yards away and looked down. He saw the alpha male for what he was; a smaller adversary that could do him little harm, weak cronies at his side. As he swung his head from right to left, Ozzie oscillated his jaw, allowing the moon’s rays to reflect through the branches off of his long and razor-sharp tusks for his opponents to fear. With sharpened hooves he pawed the ground, kicking dirt back and making his intention clear. He stood, prepared to defend what was his, but not looking for battle. Unless...

  The alpha male lunged forward, charging at Ozzie and intent on extracting revenge for the brothers that fell at his feet the month before. Ozzie’s eyes widened as he saw the three of them coming strong for him along the ridgeline. He quickened his breath, dug his hooves into the earth and sprinted forward, his conscience abandoning him as he prepared to confront all of his monsters, both real and imagined. And he saw and heard them all coming for him. The coyotes, the men, the menacing monster growling up the mountain, the yellow eyes in the blackness and shrieking screams in the middle of the night that tortured and taunted him. In his mind, Ozzie ripped into each and every tormenter, flinging them one by one into the bottomless ravines of death on each side of his ridgeline, towering above them as they fell, their screams fading with them until all had subsided.

  Ozzie panted and heard only his breath and his pounding heart until his breathing slowed and the forest sounds rose to meet him. The notes were mostly calm and peaceful. Only the singing of distant frogs and crickets that sang their last songs of the Indian summer drowned out the last dying gasps of a trio of coyotes.

  He looked to the sky. The full moon still shone its beacon brightly, and guided Ozzie home. As he began his descent to the camp he felt a chill, even though his muscles were flush from battle. A haunting chill as if a change was in the air. As if time was running out for something, someone. He trudged along and thought about his mother, as he lumbered past Hal’s garden and around the front of his cabin. He stood and watched Hal wail. Hal looked, saw three of Ozzie, and smiled at the one in the middle. Tammy raised her head and looked at Ozzie, at the blood that stained his tusks. She called to him with her eyes.

  Ozzie stepped up onto the porch, lying down close to Tammy and drifting asleep. For the first time since he had been with Hal, nightmares didn’t chase him. Instead, Ozzie dreamed he was the one atop a mountain, looking over the expansive forest as he commanded the soil to wash away his enemies. To wash away anyone who meant to harm him.

  Chapter 21

  Rose walked out of the master bathroom and down the hall, stopping just for a moment to linger in the doorway to the girls’ bedroom. It was the first night in six years, since their first child had been born, that she had been separated from either of the girls. John bounded through the kitchen and began climbing the hardwood staircase to the master bedroom.

  “You ready?” he asked as he glanced at his watch. “Dinner starts in half an hour.” Before Rose could answer, John looked up at her to see that she was ready. “Wow,” John said, stopping on the third step from the top. “You look— breathtaking.”

  Rose tilted her head to her left shoulder slightly, just enough that her ebony hair flipped off her ear in a flirtatious way. She swept it back behind her ear with her right hand. “Thanks Johnny. It’s so quiet without the girls here.”

  “Now, now,” John said. “You don’t want to change your mind, do you? Just a little R & R, me and you on the beach of a secluded Bahamas island.”

  “Of course not,” she said, and smiled at John as he passed and walked to the bedroom to finish dressing.

  The truth was that Rose would have been happy to stay home. The trip was John’s idea, one to which she eagerly agreed, but not because she wanted to be away from the girls. She knew the stresses that John had in his job, the relentless pressure he was under to keep customers, to win customers, to find and keep employees. Even with all the success of WallCloud, John often spoke of the pressure in managing cash flow. Rose didn’t understand the details the way John did, but she wasn’t ignorant of business finance. She knew that the business could be profitable on paper and still have trouble paying its bills at the same time, the result of having to pay money out before receiving payments from customers. When the business was stable and not growing, managing cash flow was pretty easy, John had always said. But the past few months had seen rapid growth.

  “We’ll increase revenue by forty percent this year,” John boasted the month before, after winning a number of new accounts. And the company was well on its way, but the new business meant that John had to incur expenses up front, in the form of hiring more employees, additional computing capacity, increased health care costs—the list went on and on. Costs that had to be paid now, even though customers wouldn’t be on board until November. After waiting the customary thirty days to invoice them the cash wouldn’t start rolling in from them until they paid thirty days later, in January. Rose had always thought it was peculiar that the faster John grew the business, the more strapped the business was for cash. But WallCloud was John’s thing now. Rearing the girls and community volunteer work was largely hers. She knew that John needed a break from business even if she didn’t need a break herself.

  Rose sat at the hallway computer for a second while waiting for John. She moved the mouse to deactivate the screen saver and stared at the email John had opened. It was the invitation he had received earlier in the day to the dinner. Rose perused the email and noted the address and directions. Then her eyes drifted to the bottom of the email, which read to her like a legal agreement. “Hey, John, did you read this legalese at the bottom of this email?”

  John poked his head out of the master bathroom, his fingers running styling gel through his wavy brown hair. “Which one? The dinner invite?” John asked.

  “Yes,” Rose said. “Get a load of this.” Rose mimicked a fast-paced voice the way a lawyer closes a commercial on a radio advertisement.

  When you attend a 50-Forks dinner you’re attending a “dinner party” hosted by Nick Vegas at a private home. The home is not a restaurant, and has not participated in any health inspections. It is not subject to the standards required by law of a legally licensed restaurant. By attending the 50-Forks dinner you agree that you are attending a dinner party and not a restaurant, that you will not hold Nick Vegas or any member of 50-Forks liable, and that you willingly forfeit any right to sue any member of 50-Forks for any circumstances, including, but not limited to, food poisoning or any accident that may occur at, or as a result of, the event.

  Rose paused and read the last sentence slowly in her own voice.

  You’re eating at your own risk.

  “He’s just covering his assets,” John said with a wink, as he elongated the first syllable of “assets.”

  “Kinda takes the fun out of it,” Rose quipped. “Sounds pretty scary, actually.”

  “Relax, honey. I don’t think Nick Vegas would do anything to risk his reputation,” John said. He pulled the chair out for Rose and took her hand as they walked down the stairs toward the garage.

  ***

  John pulled the Lexus IS 350C around the gravel circular driveway that fronted the antebellum home, and pa
rked after passing two dozen cars and two television vans that had already arrived. He walked around to open the door for Rose, a chivalrous act that Rose had resisted for years before finally relenting to John’s loving gesture. She smiled and took John’s hand as he helped her from the car. They walked, hand-in-hand, up the graded gravel drive and glanced into one of the vans as they passed. Three technicians were busy on high-end computers rendering real-time video of the visitors’ arrival and the chefs’ preparations. A cameraman stood at the base of the steps at the entrance and trained his camera on the two of them as they approached.

  Don’t trip! Rose said to herself as a cameraman filmed her climbing the stairs of the front porch.

  “You okay there, hon?” John asked.

  Rose smiled nervously, but continued looking at the stairs. “Just don’t like these cameras,” she whispered.

  John patted her hand to ease her as they arrived on the front porch.

  “What kind of house is this?” Rose asked as they stood in the breezeway. John began to answer, but a kindly face at the top of the steps asserted itself.

  “Why, this here’s a dogtrot, ma’am,” Wade Ferry said. “Or a possumtrot, if you prefer.” He smiled at John and extended his hand. “Howdy, John.”

  “Hi, Wade,” John said, shaking Wade’s hand enthusiastically. “Thanks so much for the invite, really.” John looked to Rose. “Wade, you remember my wife, Rose, don’t you?”

  Rose extended her hand and smiled at Wade, knowing him as both a kind man and an investor in John’s company.

  “Well, sure I do!” Wade said. “I never forget the face of an angel.” Wade was grinning ear to ear as he took Rose’s hand and kissed it.

  An image of Rhett Butler flashed in Rose’s mind. She smiled, but didn’t blush. It was a cliché response, but an appropriate one just the same, she figured. And it was a nice thing to say.

  “Why do they call it a dogtrot?” Rose asked.

  Wade turned and pointed his arm through the breezeway that ran from the front porch to the back porch. “Dogs were free to just trot down this here breezeway,” Wade said. “Unless you lived out in the sticks. In that case possums might run through here so some folks call these homes possumtrots.”

  Rose smiled in amusement.

  “Of course this is a modernized dogtrot,” Wade continued as he pointed out the accordion glass doors framed in rich mahogany that could be closed to secure the breezeway and protect the six-inch heartwood pine floors that ran throughout the house. The enclosed rear porch had both skylights and ceiling fans that made sitting comfortable in the cushioned wicker furniture. The rear porch was crowded with the members of 50-Forks who had been invited to gather two hours earlier for their business discussion and introductions.

  “Well,” Wade said, “Mighty happy you both could make it. Y’all go now and enjoy yourselves.”

  John and Rose smiled and walked into the breezeway, taking in the lingering aromas of roasted meat and, Rose thought, candied yams. To the right and left were the main rooms of the 1830’s home. The entrance to each had been enlarged to impart both the feel of separation and of being in one large room that swept the house.

  In the breezeway all eyes were directed to a centerpiece table. High above the table hung four beautifully cured whole hams, each hanging by its black hoof. The star attraction on the table below was a whole roasted pig’s head on a platter, eyes and teeth intact. The platter was stylishly decorated with forest flora and acorns from the north Georgia mountains. On an adjoining table behind the head was a fifth ham resting on a Salamanca, hand carved and made by Nick’s own father. In true Spanish artistic design, the two-inch hardwood base of the Salamanca itself had been carved in the shape of a ham leg. A heavy, stainless steel open ring, secured to an arm that rose and curved a foot higher than the base, formed a cradle for the ham hoof. The butt portion of the ham rested on its own hardwood cradle on the opposite end.

  About thirty guests stood around the table and in the breezeway, watching a very serious man expertly shave razor thin pieces of the ham with a long knife. Nick Vegas walked up beside him as he did so and held court as cameras zoomed in.

  “This is an art form!” Nick began. “The man who wields the knife has to know precisely how to do this, how to shave thinly along the grain to extract maximum flavor. In Spain this man is known as a Maestro Secadero and he oversees the entire process of curing, grading, and slicing the ham,” Nick added as he flashed his smile for the cameras.

  By now, both the front and rear porches had emptied and Nick was surrounded in the packed breezeway by almost fifty guests, each of whom, other than John and Rose, had written a check for $75,000 to join Nick’s exclusive 50-Forks Sales & Marketing group. “Look how thinly he slices it,” Nick said, as he rolled his arm toward the ham in the manner of a maître d’.

  Nick held up a translucent slice of ham and looked through it. Then, he rolled it in the shape of a cigar and savored it, kissing his fingers to his lips as he rolled his eyes. “Mmmmm!” he said, as he waved for his servants to plate small samples for each guest. “Sliced in this manner, at room temperature, the marbled ham will literally start to melt. Go on, taste it for yourself.”

  “Is this mold on the side?” one woman asked, pointing to a white powder that lined the edge of some of the slices. “Is it safe to eat?”

  Nick smiled reassuringly.

  “Yes and it’s fine to eat,” he said. “You’ll be getting a lot of mold tonight. We have local, raw milk Camembert cheese featured in the first course and a local, organic blue cheese we’ll use for the dessert course.” The woman and a few other guests took the slice close to their nose first and inhaled the meat and mold as if their nostrils could instantly confirm Nick’s stamp of approval. The cameras panned and zoomed, capturing the expressions of the guests, who both wanted to act as if they were the recipients of culinary bliss for the camera and, literally, were overcome with the explosion of delicate and complex flavors on their palates. The phrases uttered through the mouthfuls of one of the world’s most prized meats varied, but conveyed the same satisfaction.

  “Oh, wow!” one woman exclaimed as her husband simply mumbled, “Jesus!”

  Another lanky man held his mouth open with apparent disbelief at the explosion of flavor. “Holy cow!” He said.

  “No, this is no cow,” Nick said with a smile. “It’s a pig!”

  The cameras caught the laughing faces as the group discussed the intense flavors and marveled at how very little salt they could taste compared to any ham cured in America. They walked closer to the centerpiece and pointed to the ham leg, asking questions of Nick as if he were a curator at a culinary museum. With everyone intoxicated by the taste of the delicacy on the table, Nick shared his vision for introducing a food culture to Georgia and the southeast.

  “These hams, along with Kobe beef and Beluga caviar, are among the most prized foods in the world. The problem is that the real Jamón Ibérico de Bellota hams are only available in Spain and not available in the U.S. due to your U.S.D.A.” Nick made sure he pronounced the U.S.D.A. as U.S. “duh” for the camera, eliciting a roaring response from the group.

  “The U.S. duh does allow one company to export a cheap knock off from Spain, and they charge a hundred dollars a pound for that!” Nick said. “But it’s garbage compared to the real thing. You see this black foot? You won’t see that on their ham, as the U.S. duh forbids it to be imported anywhere in America.” Nick pointed to the black hoof that pointed up to the ceiling from the Salamanca. “That black hoof is the only proof that you’re eating the real thing,” Nick added. “That you’re getting the real pata negro or black-footed Iberian pig that grazed freely on acorns, or bellotas as we say in Spain.”

  The guests hung on each of Nick’s words and marveled at the dark, ruby red slices of ham, seeing it not merely for what it was (the leg of a pig) but rather an exquisite human accomplishment of mankind, in a class with the Egyptian pyramids, Picasso, or even th
e space shuttle.

  “We have taken a beautiful animal, a pig, and made it into so much more. Something far more elevated than what nature created.” Nick said. “We have taken it and created art!”

  “I’m not so sure the pig, or P.E.T.A. for that matter, would agree with that assessment, Nick,” one of the unsmiling faces said. Nervous chuckles surrounded the centerpiece as eyes fell to the floor.

  Nick turned his gaze to the man and then cast a mischievous smile. “I’m all for P.E.T.A.” Nick said to the shock of his guests. “People Eating Tasty Animals, right?”

  The group roared as the camera panned back from the lone vegan in the group to the carnivorous frenzy surrounding the pig’s head.

  “If the U.S.D.A. doesn’t allow the black hoof to be imported, then where did these come from?” a woman asked. She was a senior vice president of marketing at IBM, and the $75,000 membership fee to network with so many other high ranking marketing gurus in this intimate setting hadn’t been an afterthought in her multi-billion dollar budget. Nick had known that would be the case for each of the contacts that Wade had cultivated from his executive recruiting days, and that once a tipping point of membership was achieved, everyone would want in. That’s exactly how it had played out, with all ten 50-Forks Clubs selling out within six months, each with its fifty paying members. Using the existing restaurant staff he had in each city, and with virtually no investment in the private meeting homes, Nick would rake in over $37 million dollars in membership fees the first year alone. He could afford to splurge on celebrity keynote speakers and extravagant dinners to create an over-the-top experience.