CRIMSON MOUNTAIN
Authors: Grace Livingston Hill
© 2013 by Grace Livingston Hill
Print ISBN 978-1-62416-320-3
eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-62836-253-4
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-62836-254-1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.
All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
Cover design: Faceout Studio,
www.faceoutstudio.com
Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683,
www.barbourbooks.com
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses
.
Printed in the United States of America.
Chapter 1
1940s
L
aurel Sheridan stood right in the way as Phil Pilgrim rounded the curve and came rattling down the old road from the cow pasture where he used to sometimes drive a few cattle to the railroad junction long years ago when he was a mere boy living on his grandfather’s farm.
She was a pretty girl with a halo of gold hair and big, troubled blue eyes, and what was she doing there? This wasn’t a regular road, just a cow path to the junction.
Phil hadn’t wanted to take this road today. It held no pleasant memories. He had come here as a boy because there had been no other place for him to go when both his father and mother died. His grandfather had sent for him, and they had lived there together, a couple of sorrowful hearts, one young, one old, never even getting well acquainted with one another, and both grieving silently for the ones who were gone. Then one morning his grandfather didn’t wake up as usual at dawn, and when Phil returned from his early trip driving the cows to pasture, he found him dead in his bed with the first look of peace on the tired old face he had ever seen him wear.
The boy had walked down the mountain and gotten the undertaker and a couple of men who had been friendly to them, and they had buried the old man in the little hillside cemetery across the road and a short distance down the mountain from the house. After that Phil locked the plain little home and went down to the village and got himself a job, also a place to work for his board and room. From that time on, he began to save up till he could buy a simple stone to mark his grandfather’s resting place, a mate to the stone his grandfather had put up above his grandmother’s grave.
It was to visit that simple little burying ground, to make sure his orders had been carried out about the stone, that Phil Pilgrim had taken that road that day. Of course it was a rough road, scarcely more than a cow path in some places, but it passed both the old home and the cemetery. He wanted to stop a moment at the old house and look it over carefully, for he had received a letter the day before saying that the government was planning to build a munitions plant in that neighborhood and wanted to buy his land. He wanted to be sure whether he should sell it all or perhaps retain the house and a bit of land to rent. But it had been a sad pilgrimage and only brought back desolate days when it had seemed to him that life was nothing but a burden, young though he was.
He did not linger long after his investigations were over. With lifted hat he passed the little plot of ground at the edge of the road with its two white stones that gleamed side by side, and he drove on down the mountain rapidly, glad to be away again out into a world that was not shrouded in sorrow.
Phil brushed his hand across his forehead and eyes and drew a deep sigh. He was bidding a final good-bye to that sad youthful part of his life.
True, he had been out and away from it for a number of years now. He had worked his way through high school, working Saturdays and after school in a filling station. Later he had won a scholarship to college and had been a dedicated student there. Now he was through and had the coveted diploma, which had been his goal for his dead mother’s sake. And now suddenly the world had gone mad with war! So, he had taken the next step that duty demanded of him and enlisted. Life didn’t look any too bright, anyway, even now when he had finished doing what he had been striving for so long. He hadn’t had time for friends or relaxation, except a little dash of athletics now and then when he had found that he could make his ability to run and swim into a source of more revenue.
But now all that was over. He was a soldier. He was wearing a uniform. He was going into a new life. And if, as some of them said, the next scene would be battle, with maybe death ahead, well, what of it? Would it be any worse than all the other changes that had come into his empty, hardworking young life? Would there perhaps be heaven, as his mother had always believed, where all the hard things would be over and joy ahead forever? Well, it might be! But there must surely be some conditions to that, and he had never learned the conditions. If his mother had lived, she might have taught him. Perhaps she had tried, but she was so sorrowful during those last days after his father was gone, and she was so ill and weak! Well, if there was a way out of this maze, he would find it if he could, and work his way through, as he had worked it through other hard things. How he had gone out at night alone and practiced running, and in the dark, swimming, when his hard day’s work was over! Oh, of course that had been good for him, too, keeping him in fine trim physically in spite of his plodding days and nights of study and hard work. Yes, he would find a way through!
He wasn’t looking forward eagerly to war, yet he must take it as he had taken all the rest, a way to attain on earth, or to reach heaven if there was a heaven.
He drew a deep, heavy sigh.
Thoughts like these were unprofitable. He must get on. There were people in the village he must see. His old employer was a grim, silent man, but he had been kindly at the end and had even allowed a small bonus on the last few months’ work. He wanted to thank him for that kindness. Then there was a small bank account he must look after. A teacher in the high school to thank, who had given good advice and helped him to understand some of the difficulties that might have hindered him. He must not forget any who had been his friends. They might have forgotten him by this time, doubtless had, for the months had been long and there were many boys coming and going about the village. But still he would feel better to have hunted them all out and thanked them for their kindness.
A flight of purple grackles soared across the sky and dropped their bright iridescent blackness down among the autumn trees. They scattered on the ground, searching for favorite foods, filling the air with their strange fall sounds, those sounds that make summer seem so definitely a thing of the past and the autumn sunshine only a passing gesture. Phil turned his eyes to the scene he was passing and remembered days when he had wandered alone wishing for things that never came. There was a great flat stone by the roadside. He had sat there the morning he got the thorn in his foot and tried to extract it. There was the big tree whose gnarled roots had made an armchair where he came to study now and then when he had some hard task to master. It was cushioned with velvet moss. Sometimes when he had been sitting there for a while he would get the idea that maybe in the future something nice would happen to him and then he could forget all the gloom and drabness of his life and be really happy. Yes? He had actually believed that. And now look what was happening! Just out of college! No job, no special friends, no opportunity to forge into things and do something really worthwhile. War ahead!
Just war!
Life in a training camp! It hadn’t been very exciting so far. And then what? Nothing to get excited or happy about.
Joy?
Maybe there wasn’t any such thing as joy in this earth anyway, although he had always fancied that he saw other people having it.
Well, he mustn’t get morbid. It certainly hadn’t been a cheerful thing to come to his grandfather’s old farm and the little cemetery. Still he had to come and see that everything was all right before he went back into camp and would no longer be able to order his life as he pleased. He had to be sure he wanted to sell.
Then, with another deep sigh, he swung his car around the curve of the hill, jolting along over the stony way, and there, right ahead of him, was a car standing with its hood open and a girl in front of it looking anxiously toward him. Fool girl getting in his way! He almost ran over her! Why did girls always have to get in the way? This was no road for a girl to be on anyway, a cattle path! How did she get here?
He ground on his brakes and came to an abrupt halt before her.
“I beg your pardon,” he said politely. “Are you having engine trouble?”
“Yes, but I don’t know what it is.” The girl lifted her very blue eyes apologetically, and instantly he wondered where he had seen those eyes before. Yet of course that was absurd. He didn’t have much to do with girls, especially not out here in the country. He’d never had anything to do with girls, even in school, when he lived on Crimson Mountain. He was too busy studying and working. It must be something in his subconscious memory that was brought to him by the look in that girl’s eyes.
These thoughts were vaguely passing through his mind as he sprang, annoyed, from his car and went to investigate the other one. What a nuisance it was to be interrupted at this point in his journey, when he had only just so much time and quite a good many things he wanted to do before he went on his way back to camp to meet whatever was about to be the next scene in his life.
Laurel Sheridan had turned from the highway several miles back into a wooded road that she
thought
was the shortcut around the high hill that was familiarly known in that vicinity as Crimson Mountain because of its gorgeous color in the autumn. But Laurel did not choose that road for its beauty, although it was glowing and lovely. She was in a hurry. She was going to be late for an appointment, and she was worried. She
thought
she remembered that this road was supposed to be the shortcut to Carrollton. But it didn’t seem to be so short. It certainly was farther than she remembered.
Could
she have made a mistake? It wasn’t a very good road either, but she had come so far now she couldn’t turn back. Oh, this
must
be right.
