THE RED DOT TRAIL

RED DOT TRAIL

By Andrew Paul Grell

“It’s called Breakneck Ridge for a reason, you know. They used to have to carry the luggage of the lodge guests on mules. Even after they put in the funicular railroad, they still did it just to please the guests.” Emily was the only Cold Spring native in the party. Not very popular in school due to her well above average grades and her somewhat less than average looks and fashion sense, she was indispensable to the crew investigating the strange occurrences around this stretch of the Appalachian Trail. Unmarked black step vans had been showing up around town, moving north and south on Route 9D along the west bank of the Hudson. All-terrain vehicle traffic had greatly increased, even though it was months before the traditional season. Shoshana, a transplant from Great Neck, Long Island and editor of the school newspaper, decided to investigate.  Seven students responded to the editor’s notice for anyone else wondering about the black trucks. At the meeting, two of them left when they found out real work would be involved. George the Goth bowed out when it was made absolutely clear to the different-drummer sophomore that there was absolutely no connection to the black U.N. helicopters from the previous decade. That left the editor, the native, and Kyle and Pat, two friends continually seeking a thrill.

“Spread out, folks. Radio check.” They each picked a cardinal direction and paced out 200 Roman Legion steps. Everyone’s radio worked fine. That was the last item on the checklist, right after everyone made sure they had long sleeves, long pants, and long socks inside boots, trail mix, a knife and a canteen. Time to start the climb.

The expedition party followed the remaining rails to the top of Mount Beacon.

“Someone stole the cable,” Pat observed.

“Stolen? Or did it just age away?” Kyle could never resist challenging Pat. 

“Save your breath, you two. And I mean that literally. You’ll be bellows a-blowing by the time you reach the top,” the native guide exorted. “Besides, it was stolen. By my grandfather and his friends as a prank. It was after the line shut down, though. They got $42 for it as scrap, bought some whisky, and climbed to the top. Most of them made it; Francis slipped and broke his leg. Not the brightest bunch, Grampa’s friends. They should have climbed first and stole second. Let’s get going. That peak isn’t going to get any shorter.”

Everyone made it to the top without anyone breaking anything. The crew reached the top terminal and Emily led them to the first red dot and gave her friends a briefing on how to read a trail.

“About every fifteen trees there’ll be a tree with a colored dot. Around here, they’re either red, white, or blue, usually dots. If you plan your route, when you start hiking, you follow the dots of the color on the map. We’re taking the Red Dot Trail until we spot something; if we don’t see anything out of the ordinary, at least we’ll wind up at Lake Surprise and we can have a waterside picnic…”

“Found something!” It was Shoshana. “Take a look at this.” The end of a rope was sticking out of a foliage covering. The rope led to more rope and to a tiny little rail car, like those found in amusement parks. In the little kids’ section. “With the rope and the little train, you could discretely move stuff up and down at night, and nobody would think the funicular was actually being used. Why are they hiding it?”

“Doing things in hiding is nefarious. I had to learn that word in SAT prep. Perhaps they’re criminals,” opined Kyle. 

“Maybe they just didn’t want their stuff taken.” Pat, in turn, could resist rebutting Kyle.

The high school journalist did what journalists do: trying to turn everything into a story.

“No matter what the reason for hiding it, it means that there’s a rig here and it can be used to move stuff up and down the mountain. For whatever reason. It’s our job to find that out.”

“Funny, I never noticed that rope being here, and I used to come up here and smoke dope with my friends,” Emily chimed in.

This was one time Pat and Kyle agreed. “Perhaps you were too stoned to notice it?” Her smile was the only response to the suggestion.

“Alright, troops. Kyle, Pat. Whichever one of you has longer arms, take the fire tower. Stay with us along the red dot until we reach the intersection with the white dot. Then turn right and climb up. See if you can spot anything aside from fires. Do a radio check when you get up there. If you don’t hear us, come back down right away and make a right at the red dot.  Everyone else, look for anything suspicious.”

The expedition found six spent shotgun cells, twenty-three crushed beer cans, about a dozen of what Shoshana called “Coney Island Whitefish,” and   seven assorted undergarments. Shoshana was getting nervous. This was the sort of haul you would get from any park in the country. Nothing special. Until they found the still.

“Now you’re talking,” said Pat, and missed a beat when realization dawned the Kyle was in the fire tower and wouldn’t be answering. Pat keyed the walkie-talkie. “Kyle, we found a still.”

“A still what?”

“Moron. An alcohol distilling apparatus.”

“Idiot. You hooked us up as revenuers hunting moon-shiners?”

“Whatever we find is what we’re hunting”

“That’s mighty philosophical of you, Pat. Quite unlike…”

“Let’s shelve the marital squabbles for when we’re back on the surface,” Shoshana ordered.

A haversack. Mason jars, some whole, some stove in or otherwise unable to fulfil their mission to preserve the contents entrusted to them. A copy of Prepper: A Survivalist Journal. The party had to stop at the intersection with the blue dot trail for what looked like a convoy of all-terrain put-put cars. They came to a spot with a thick copse to the north and some open meadow to the south.

“It’s facing west.” 

“What’s facing west, Pat?”

“The moss on these rocks. It’s facing west. Moss is supposed to face north.”

“Let me see,” the local girl said. “Anyone have a compass?”

Emily was local but Shoshana came prepared. She verified that these rocks had west-facing moss, and that the rocks 50 yards behind and 50 yards ahead had proper north-facing moss. “It’s a steganographic message.” Pat and Emily stared at her; Emily chipped in that “steganographic” wasn’t on the SAT vocabulary list.

“It means it’s a message that makes sense only to someone who knows to look for a message. The colored blazes on the trail are clear, we can line them up with the trail map. The rocks are a trail marker for people who know what they’re looking for. This could be the end of our rainbow. Does anyone else smell smoke?”

As soon as they smelled it, Kyle reported in from the fire tower. “I think I see a fire. Or at least smoke. I’m looking at a clearing just across from a really thick stand of trees.”

Pat answered. “That’s where we are. This may be what we came for.”

“Pat, I solved the mystery of the black vans. It’s a publicity thing. They’re food trucks, lunch wagons, mobile coffee shops, taquerias. The black wrap is gone, they’re all in living color now. I guess there really isn’t a connection to the U.N. black helicopters.”

“This is Shoshana, Kyle. We’re going in. Keep us in your sights.”

“Watch out for the ticks and poison ivy. Good luck!”

The first thing they saw when they emerged into the north side of the copse was George the Goth with a big smile on his face.

“You made it, great! Welcome to The Hang.”

The editor-in-chief still wanted a story. She looked around, saw that the smoke came from a campfire heating up a cauldron. Everyone commented that it smelled great.

“Acorn porcini soup. We make the stock; they serve it at Breakneck Lodge. They add the porcini. Only place in New York that has it on the menu. The chestnuts get picked up and sent down to New York City. Would you believe the hotdog carts charge five dollars for a bag of six roasted chestnuts? My dad told me that 20 years ago, there were only four carts left in New York that had roasted chestnuts. But when the Arabs came to New York, you could always get your roasted chestnut fix. We also collect pine nuts; Suzie makes a mean pesto. And then, of course, there’re the juniper berries.”

“Juniper berries?” Shoshana had a firm grip on her notebook and pencil.

“Gin. You make gin by distilling juniper berry juice. Too bad we can’t make vermouth too. We have an arrangement with some of the, well, gin mills in Beacon and Cold Spring.”

“What about the conspiracy stuff, George? Black trucks, black helicopters?”

“Nothing to do with us. Every few years someone decides there’s something going on up here. And that means someone has to vet whoever thinks they’re going to find something. We can make ourselves easier or harder to find. C’mon through.”

The party followed the faux Goth through another stand of trees and another open area. There were some tents and some structures that looked like they were made from giant, camouflage-pattern legos.

“So there’s no mystery? No Bogey Man up here? You’re not part of a conspiracy?”

“Nope. Sometimes a mystery is no mystery. It’s just The Hang. A place to hang out. You get the idea. We keep ourselves in folding money with what we export, and we get to have a place where nobody can bother us. You know, we can have a little privacy. Everyone pitches in o the foraging and prep. Let me how you the make-out dens…”

“Make-out dens?” Pat switched on her radio. Kyle! Get your ass down here immediately!”