Whack Job by Mike Baron Page B

a rich neighborhood smells like.”
    It was true. In the water-starved west only the wealthy or original settlers got the land with the trees. Uphill. The richer you were the further uphill you moved. By those standards Otto was a millionaire. She remembered when he’d showed her around the place two years ago. His land was mostly flat rock snugged up against a red rock shelf, low ground cover of juniper, prickly pear, mountain rose, yucca, a stream, if you could call it that, winding through the rocks, several clumps of aspen. The remains of an old cabin with a stone foundation lay in shadow beneath the rock.
    That was where he planned to build the main house, tucked under the shelf like an Anasazi dwelling. Where he’d put the rain basins and holding tanks, and where he planned to build a tank trap for anybody foolish enough to drive in uninvited.
    Stella assumed the tank trap was hyperbole. Otto said a lot of things in an inflectionless voice that might lead people to think he was insane.
    She was climbing now through ponderosa, stalks of brown kindling where the bark beetle had done its work. She came around a bend and a wall of meat filled the narrow space between the trees. The moose regarded her with disinterest and ambled off into the forest. Even from within the Jeep she could feel the animal’s bulk and power and it had made her afraid. This was not the park and concrete jungle she routinely roamed.
    This was the wild. And as Sam always said, the wild could rear up and bite you in the ass when you least expected it.
    Pikas scolded her from boulder tops. A coyote slinked across the trail. Through the trees she could hear the burble of the creek as it tumbled down the mountain. The air was rich now with the scent of pine. You could bottle that air and sell it by the quart, she thought. She checked the odometer. Coming up on six miles. Any second now. The entrance to Otto’s land was unmistakably marked by a red pole gate swung shut and latched. There was no lock. There were no casual visitors up here.
    She wallowed around a tight bend and there it was jammed between two granite formations that looked like the aftermath of a giant baby’s building block tantrum. She stopped the Jeep and got out. It was at least fifteen degrees cooler up here than back in the city. There were two signs affixed to the gate: “PRIVATE PROPERTY--STAY OUT” and “PROTECTED BY SMITH & WESSON.” Although the gate was unlocked Stella decided to leave the Cherokee there. She opened the tailgate and hoisted the backpack over her shoulders, cinching the belt tight around her waist. A water bottle hung from a carabiner affixed to her belt. She found a Water Valley ball cap in the rear seat and put it on over wrap-around shades, threading her hair into a ponytail through the back of the cap. She put a piece of jerky in her pocket. In her multi-pocketed khaki shorts, Adidas hiking boots and scout shirt she was indistinguishable from the Standard Issue Colorado Woman.
    Stella climbed over the gate and followed the cratered trail which curved out of sight around another granite outcropping. Stella looked up. A few fluffy white clouds scudded overhead. The wind whistled through the pine. It felt good to be out here on the mountain, far removed from the pressure of her job and the tension from living in a pressure cooker with millions of others. She could feel her shoulder muscles relaxing.
    Stella walked around the bend and paused to enjoy the view. Spreading her arms she inhaled deeply. Pure ambrosia. City stress exited with each exhalation. One minute she was looking at a red rock outcropping over a peculiar stone wall, the next she realized she was looking at Otto’s house. True to his word he had built it out of stone and tucked it under the red rock shelf. It looked deserted.
    Stella took a step and stumbled. The rock she stepped on rolled a few inches and disappeared. Disappeared into a hole in the ground.
    Stella got down on her hands