Where the Summer Ends - By Karl Edward Wagner Page 0,11

familiar shape of a Barlow knife.

“It that a real Barlow, or a Japanese copy?” he asked.

The storekeeper looked up sharply. “No, sir! Those knives are every one made in America. For your real quality knife you want your American one every time—though there’s some likes the German. Take them Case knives there. Now you can’t ask for a better knife. Lots of folks swear by a Case knife. Now that Barlow’s a fine one too. It’s a Camillus, and as fine a knife as any you could’ve bought fifty years ago. Cost you just four bucks. Want to see one?” Gerry tossed the stubby knife in his palm and decided to buy it. He had never carried a penknife, and this one was too bulky for his pockets. Still, a good souvenir. The storekeeper was disposed to talk, and the knife led to a rambling conversation.

Lonzo Pennybacker had run this store since the Depression. His uncle had built the place about the time of the Great War, and the gas pumps were some of the first in the area. Lonzo was interested to learn that Gerry was from Columbus—two of his cousins had families up around there, although he supposed Gerry wouldn’t know them. No, Gerry guessed he didn’t.

Lonzo’s expression was peculiar when Gerry mentioned he had rented The Crow’s Nest. “So they’ve got somebody to stay in the old Reagan place again,” he reflected.

“Oh? ” Gerry’s bushy eyebrows rose. “Why do you say that? Is the place haunted or something?”

Pennybacker scratched his pointed chin pensively. “Hants? No—don’t think you can say that rightly. Far’s I know, nobody’s ever seen no hants around the old Reagan place. If it’s hants now, you could’ve seen as many as you’d care in the old Griffin house. Everybody knew it was for sure hanted. Course it burned down in ’61.

“No. Far’s I know the Reagan place ain’t hanted. It’s just what they call unlucky.”

“Unlucky? How do you mean that?” Gerry wondered if he should laugh.

Lonzo finished packing the groceries before answering. “Well sir, I was just through schoolin’ back in ’22 when David Reagan built The Crow’s Nest. He was a mine owner out of Greenville and a wealthy man as we counted them in those days. Built the place as a honeymoon cabin for him and his wife. Fine handsome young lady, I can remember. She was maybe twenty years younger than David Reagan—he being in his forties and sort of stout. Renee, though, was a mighty prettysome girl.”

“Renee?”

“Renee. That was her name. Quite a looker. Wore her hair bobbed and those short dresses and all. A real flapper. Women around here was scandalized with all her city ways and manners. Men though liked her well enough, I’ll tell you. Red hair and the devil in her blue eyes. Used to draw a regular crowd down at the hotel swimming pool when she’d come down.

“Well, she liked it here in the mountains, so they spent the summers here. Back then this area was pretty lively Tourists came from all over to spend their vacations here. Used to be some big fancy resort hotels and all the cottages, too. Yeah, this place was real busy back before they opened the park.

“Well, Renee was a little too much woman for David Reagan, they said. Anyway, summer of 1925 she took up with one of the tourists—good-looking fellow name of Sam Luttle, staying the summer at a resort hotel near here. Far as anyone can say, David Reagan must’ve found out about them—you know how gossip gets around. So one day Renee just plain vanished. And before anyone really noticed she was missing, David Reagan one night drove his Packard off the side of the mountain. Remember seeing that one. Threw him through the windshield, and his head was just about cut loose.

“When Renee didn’t show up, they got to searching for her. But nothing ever did turn up of that girl. Disappeared without a trace. Since David Reagan was known to have a mean temper and a jealous streak besides, folks sort of figured he’d found out about his wife and Sam Luttle, and so he’d killed Renee and hid her body out somewhere in the mountains. All that pine forest—they never could find her.

“Some figured maybe she’d run off with Luttle, but he claimed he didn’t know a thing. Anyway, he got chewed up by a bear out walking one night not long afterwards. So there wasn’t nobody left who knew anything about