Read Online Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 03 - THE SPRING -- a Legal Thriller by Clifford Irving - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Clifford Irving
Tags: Thrillers, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Law, Thrillers & Suspense, Professional & Technical, Criminal Law
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staircase, wearing his red flannel pajamas with pictures of Mickey Mouse and Pluto.
“I heard something, Daddy.”
“I think a cow’s poking around in the garbage. We threw out all those delicious chicken teriyaki bones from supper, remember? Let’s go look.”
With Brian at his side, Dennis opened the kitchen door—the bitter cold night air struck them a solid blow. He stepped outside, flicked on the beam of the flashlight, and said, “Shoo!”
A black bear turned its great head toward him. It crouched on all fours by the laden garbage cans. Its eyes, crimson buttons in the yellow cone of the flashlight beam, suddenly and unaccountably blazed with what struck Dennis as malevolence. Dennis smelled the animal’s meaty breath. It took a shuffling step toward them. Dennis shoved Brian behind him. The boy screamed and wet himself.
Dennis could never afterward recall where he had read or heard what to do, but some clear memory lay rooted in his mind. The white toweling bathrobe was only loosely knotted. Rising on tiptoes, he thrust his arms up and to the sides. Look larger, he remembered. At the same time he lowered his eyes to avoid challenging the animal.
The bear turned and shuffled off quickly into the darkness of the forest.
For a month, whenever Dennis spoke to friends and family in the East, he related the story, although he left out the part about Brian’s wetting his Disney World pajama pants. He began to feel like some kind of modern-day mountain man—nearly naked under the moon and sharing the turf with Neighbor Bear. An adventurer, a former city boy happily out of his element: this image pleased him.
Chapter 7
Trust Me
BRIAN REMEMBERED HIS stepmother had told him the town of Springhill was named after a nearby warm-water spring.
“You said it was a special place, and you promised to show it to us. Why is it special?”
“When we go there, I’ll show you.”
Brian kept nagging, and early on a Sunday morning in May Sophie announced that she would escort him and his sister and his father through the woods to the spring.
“Grab your snowshoes, gang.”
During the night it had snowed four inches of corn snow. The snowshoes had been Sophie’s Christmas present to everybody. The family tramped through the property and across the creek and onto a path that led into the forest. There they halted and strapped on the snowshoes. A hundred yards deeper into the forest they came to a sturdy wire gate set into a four-foot-high barbed-wire fence that snaked between the trees as far as they could see. The gate was padlocked with a combination lock.
Sophie twirled the dials. With a snap, the lock sprang free.
“This isn’t your land, is it?” Dennis asked.
“No, this is village land.”
“How come you know the combination? Is that one of the mayor’s privileges?”
“Every adult in Springhill knows it.”
“If every adult knows it, why bother locking the gate? To keep out the children?”
“The path leads to the spring, and then beyond to Indian Lake. We don’t want strangers poking around here.”
“Sophie, in case you haven’t noticed, strangers don’t come to Springhill.”
“Valley people go hiking in summer. Do you think they know which creeks contribute to a drinking water supply and which don’t? They can contaminate without realizing it.”
She plunged ahead in the snow, where drifting powder had piled up in some places as high as her head. The pines were hung with tufts of snow and the blue sky shone through branches like a winter postcard on a drugstore rack.
“There,” Sophie said, pointing to a small hill, a thin waterfall that dropped perhaps a dozen feet from a rocky ledge, and a stream below. Only three feet wide, the stream coursed turbulently along its bed for fifty feet, widened briefly into a pool of five feet in diameter, and then disappeared in an abrupt dogleg into the hillside. Its surface carried moss and ferns, some rotting branches, and dark
“I heard something, Daddy.”
“I think a cow’s poking around in the garbage. We threw out all those delicious chicken teriyaki bones from supper, remember? Let’s go look.”
With Brian at his side, Dennis opened the kitchen door—the bitter cold night air struck them a solid blow. He stepped outside, flicked on the beam of the flashlight, and said, “Shoo!”
A black bear turned its great head toward him. It crouched on all fours by the laden garbage cans. Its eyes, crimson buttons in the yellow cone of the flashlight beam, suddenly and unaccountably blazed with what struck Dennis as malevolence. Dennis smelled the animal’s meaty breath. It took a shuffling step toward them. Dennis shoved Brian behind him. The boy screamed and wet himself.
Dennis could never afterward recall where he had read or heard what to do, but some clear memory lay rooted in his mind. The white toweling bathrobe was only loosely knotted. Rising on tiptoes, he thrust his arms up and to the sides. Look larger, he remembered. At the same time he lowered his eyes to avoid challenging the animal.
The bear turned and shuffled off quickly into the darkness of the forest.
For a month, whenever Dennis spoke to friends and family in the East, he related the story, although he left out the part about Brian’s wetting his Disney World pajama pants. He began to feel like some kind of modern-day mountain man—nearly naked under the moon and sharing the turf with Neighbor Bear. An adventurer, a former city boy happily out of his element: this image pleased him.
Chapter 7
Trust Me
BRIAN REMEMBERED HIS stepmother had told him the town of Springhill was named after a nearby warm-water spring.
“You said it was a special place, and you promised to show it to us. Why is it special?”
“When we go there, I’ll show you.”
Brian kept nagging, and early on a Sunday morning in May Sophie announced that she would escort him and his sister and his father through the woods to the spring.
“Grab your snowshoes, gang.”
During the night it had snowed four inches of corn snow. The snowshoes had been Sophie’s Christmas present to everybody. The family tramped through the property and across the creek and onto a path that led into the forest. There they halted and strapped on the snowshoes. A hundred yards deeper into the forest they came to a sturdy wire gate set into a four-foot-high barbed-wire fence that snaked between the trees as far as they could see. The gate was padlocked with a combination lock.
Sophie twirled the dials. With a snap, the lock sprang free.
“This isn’t your land, is it?” Dennis asked.
“No, this is village land.”
“How come you know the combination? Is that one of the mayor’s privileges?”
“Every adult in Springhill knows it.”
“If every adult knows it, why bother locking the gate? To keep out the children?”
“The path leads to the spring, and then beyond to Indian Lake. We don’t want strangers poking around here.”
“Sophie, in case you haven’t noticed, strangers don’t come to Springhill.”
“Valley people go hiking in summer. Do you think they know which creeks contribute to a drinking water supply and which don’t? They can contaminate without realizing it.”
She plunged ahead in the snow, where drifting powder had piled up in some places as high as her head. The pines were hung with tufts of snow and the blue sky shone through branches like a winter postcard on a drugstore rack.
“There,” Sophie said, pointing to a small hill, a thin waterfall that dropped perhaps a dozen feet from a rocky ledge, and a stream below. Only three feet wide, the stream coursed turbulently along its bed for fifty feet, widened briefly into a pool of five feet in diameter, and then disappeared in an abrupt dogleg into the hillside. Its surface carried moss and ferns, some rotting branches, and dark
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