Read Gray Mountain for Free Online Page B

Others were thinking the panic would pass, the world would survive. In Washington, the brains appeared to be frozen as conflicting strategies were offered, debated, and discarded. She eventually ignoredthe radio, and the cell phone, and drove on in silence, lost in her thoughts. The GPS directed her to leave the interstate at Abingdon, Virginia, and she happily did so. For two hours she wound her way westward, into the mountains. As the roads became narrower, she asked herself more than once what, exactly, was she doing? Where was she going? What could she possibly find in Brady, Virginia, that would entice her to spend the next year there? Nothing—that was the answer. But she was determined to get there and to complete this little adventure. Maybe it would make for a bit of amusing chitchat over cocktails back in the city; perhaps not. At the moment, she was still relieved to be away from New York.
    When she crossed into Noland County, she turned onto Route 36 and the road became even narrower, the mountains became steeper, the foliage brighter with yellow and burnt orange. She was alone on the highway, and the deeper she sank into the mountains the more she wondered if, in fact, there was another way out. Wherever Brady was, it seemed to be at the dead end of the road. Her ears popped and she realized she and her little red Prius were slowly climbing. A battered sign announced the approach to Dunne Spring, population 201, and she topped a hill and passed a gas station on the left and a country store on the right.
    Seconds later, there was a car on her bumper, one with flashing blue lights. Then she heard the wail of a siren. She panicked, hit her brakes and almost caused the cop to ram her, then hurriedly stopped on some gravel next to a bridge. By the time the officer approached her door, she was fighting back tears. She grabbed her phone to text someone, but there was no service.
    He said something that vaguely resembled “Driver’s license please.” She grabbed her bag and eventually found her license. Her hands were shaking as she gave him the card. He took it and pulled it almost to his nose, as if visually impaired. She finally looked at him; other impairments were obvious. His uniform was a mismatched ensemble of frayed and stained khaki pants, a faded brown shirt covered with all manner of insignia, unpolished black combat boots, and a Smokey the Bear trooper’s hat at least two sizes toobig and resting on his oversized ears. Unruly black hair crept from under the hat.
    “New York?” he said. His diction was far from crisp but his belligerent tone was clear.
    “Yes sir. I live in New York City.”
    “Then why are you driving a car from Vermont?”
    “It’s a rental car,” she said, grabbing the Avis agreement on the console. She offered it to him but he was still staring at her license, as if he had trouble reading.
    “What’s a Prius?” he asked. Long
i
, like “Pryus.”
    “It’s a hybrid, from Toyota.”
    “A what?”
    She knew nothing about cars, but at that moment it did not matter. An abundance of knowledge would not help her explain the concept of a hybrid. “A hybrid, you know, it runs on both gas and electricity.”
    “You don’t say.”
    She could not think of the proper response, and while he waited she just smiled at him. His left eye seemed to drift toward his nose.
    He said, “Well, it must go pretty fast. I clocked you doing fifty-one back there in a twenty-mile-an-hour zone. That’s thirty over. That’s reckless driving down here in Virginia. Not sure about New York and Vermont, but it’s reckless down here. Yes ma’am, it sure is.”
    “But I didn’t see a speed limit sign.”
    “I can’t help what you don’t see, ma’am, now can I?”
    An old pickup truck approached from ahead, slowed, and seemed ready to stop. The driver leaned out and yelled, “Come on, Romey, not again.”
    The cop turned around and yelled back, “Get outta here!”
    The truck stopped on the