Boulders

By S. K. Hubba Lodbrokson Ragnarsson

A somewhat true account of abiding love, love lost, love renewed, in the wilds of the Adirondack Mountains, aided by magic, dragons, trolls, Fairies, elves, brownies, and quantum physics. The prenuptial agreements had proved most difficult, she being from the Adirondack Lakelands, he being from the High Peaks Region. Of course, the two just could not be considered a beautiful couple. But the idea that anyone would consider a breeding pair of past their prime trolls as beautiful is rather silly.

• Language: English
• Publisher: S. K. Hubba Lodbrokson Ragnarsson
• Release date: Oct 10, 2014

S. K. Hubba Lodbrokson Ragnarsson

S. K. Hubba Lodbrokson claims to be hubris-free, which, of course, is the purest form of fiction. S.K. has lived, loved and laughed in most places presently accessible to human beings. He has frequented Siberia Forests, Arctic Wastelands, Caribbean Beaches, the Adirondack Mountains and of course, Las Vegas. He has walked Tectonic Fault Lines, Roman Roads, Scottish Highlands, Black Forest Ridgelines, Mexican Highways, the California Coast, Hollywood and Vine, K Street and Wall Street. He has sailed the waters of Cape Cod, the Gulf of Mexico, the Adriatic, the Hawaiian Islands, the Norwegian Sea, Japan's Inland Sea and the Pirate Coast to name but a few. He has stood on the Great Divide on three Continents. He is a survivor of Black Death, Diffi-Qs, muscle cars, gold panning in California, Colorado and Eastern Manchuria, Florida hurricanes, Texas dust storms and the dearth of daily exposure to good poetry. The Author presently calls Florida's Pirate Coast home, which he claims is as near to the Magic as is humanly possible. Specific to these stories are the Author's first hand experiences in the places depicted and the events, taken in the aggregate, portrayed.

Book preview

BOULDERS

Hubba Lodbrokson Ragnarsson

Copyright©1996, 2000, 2014 by David Allen Hubbell

ISBN: 978-0-9765104-8-2

Smashwords Edition

–

BOULDERS

Volume I

By: S. K. Hubba Lodbrokson Ragnarsson.

BOULDERS

Volume I

--

other books by Hubba:

Bear & Bunk

Billable Hours

Boulders Quantum

Case Of The Missing Case

Case Of The Missing Velvet Nudes

Conscious Awareness

Keepers Of The Secrets

Lisbeth & George

Me Myself & I

Mr. Dark Side, Vol. 1

Mr. Dark Side, Vol. 2

Murder by Xmas Scone

Shield Wall

Wood Book

Fourth Edition, Second Digital Edition, Second Digital Image Posting

All Rights Reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions

thereof in any form whatsoever.

For information address;

HEI, PirateCoastEtchings, Rights Department

P.O. Box 171, Ft. Walton Beach, Florida 32549, or

contact: [e-mail]

[e-mail]

Photos Permission: E. Leavitt

Copyright©1996, 2000, 2014 by David Allen Hubbell

This is a novel. That means it is possible that not everything actually happened or looks exactly the same as I have described it in the book. But it could have happened, exactly as described. Poetic license gives the author the freedom to create .... If necessary. And it sometimes is.

Henning Mankell

Ditto.

Hubba Lodbrokson

–

"This is a somewhat true account of abiding love,

in the wilds of the Adirondack Mountains,

aided by magic, dragons, trolls, Fairies, elves, brownies,

and quantum physics.

The prenuptial agreements had proved most difficult,

she being from the Adirondack Lakelands,

he being from the High Peaks Region.

Of course, the two just could not be considered a beautiful couple.

But the idea that anyone would consider a past prime,

breeding pair of trolls as beautiful is rather silly."

"What is unseen flows to what is unseen

passing in part through what we partly see"

Merwin / Vision

PROLOGUE

A last refuge for untamed wildlife, of the usually unseen sort, is high in the alpine valleys, hidden away on the north slope of the Adirondack Mountains.

Folks say the average age of whitetail bucks in these areas are well over seven maybe eight years old. What the New York State Environmental Conservation Department folks don't talk about is that some of the other forest folks tend to be much, much older.

Most of the unseen forest folks stay out of sight. Oh sure, the occasional weary hiker, up from the City for the weekend, will catch a quick corner of the eye flicker, a glance. Especially when the shadows are long. Sometimes by moonlight, rarely by a camp fire's wavy glow, but for sure if only they watched the far shoreline of an alpine brook by starlight. But they don't.

Too tired by the six hour drive from the City to stay awake until the Milky Way is in its full glory, the City folks fall into the usual deep slumber brought on by twilight's clean fresh alpine air.

The unseen forest folks, for the most part, first arrived with the Dutch. Of course there were already some native species but they were few in number and, a surprise to both, crossbreeding not only occurred but in fact took place with abandon. The predictable end results were predominately European with some noticeably non-European traits.

For all that, the trolls still lived in caves or under hillsides, and the gnomes still congregated near gardens. Although it was said the nymphs and elves were more beautiful than their European cousins, certainly they were much more forward. Proof positive was in the return, year after year, by hikers to the same campsite. They might not remember the details but they remembered having a good time.

Now the ogres, well, the appetite for flesh and especially bone marrow, if anything, was greater than any one might have the misfortune to meet in say the Black Forest or the Carpathian Mountains. Worse than normally bad behaving ogres was somewhat balanced ever so slightly by less mischievous elves although throwbacks to European traits are numerous among the elfin.

Just to muddle things there are, in fact, a fair number of non-teutonic forest folk. Banshees reside near heavily forested lake shores. Hobgoblins fish the marshes. The valleys, where there have been some centuries old permanent human habitations, have the odd leprechaun.

In fact, it was a leprechaun, also known as 'Leps', that saved what little remaining free range the unseen forest folks call home. Soon after the start of the potato blight an enterprising collection of wee folk jumped aboard a Boston-bound schooner. It was one of these little Lep guys that bankrolled John D. Rockefeller's oil business.

As an aside, some of the Lep's cousins were the financial strength behind Durant's motorcar company. Yes, it's true, America's robber barons were by and large venture capitalized by recent immigrants of the Gaelic persuasion.

As in most business transactions between humans and the unseen, John D. got took pretty good. For a very modest initial loan of gold coins allegedly taken off a beached ship from the Spanish Armada, John D. spent the rest of his natural life just paying interest.

In fact he never did pay back the principle, although the cagey Lep got most of his gold coins back as part of the first couple of interest payments. Seems he only let John D. use most of the gold coins as collateral on a bank loan.

Now, for today's unseen folk, the most important part of the robber baron transactions was the contract clause that required the barons to buy large tracts of land and then turn them over to the State as a permanent 'forever wild' public park. Of course, being new to the area, the Leps had no idea how really nasty the living conditions were in most of the Adirondacks, except, of course, for the two or so weeks of Summer which usually arrived once every few years.

As a consequence, only the very hardy, some say masochistic, Leps live there today.

For the Germanic and Slavic forest folks, having escaped their collectivized, sanitized, European environ, why naturally, they thought they had died and gone to unseen folk heaven.

The rest of this text consists of firsthand accounts of the Adirondacks and interactions between unseen folks and the normal people the reader usually encounters.

The author notes that while the term unseen is a general tag attached to the many varied species that live among the normals, they really aren't unseen.

These unseen folks remain mostly unseen because only two dimensions of their existence exist in our universe. As such, unless their visible two dimensions are exactly right for the light to reflect back to our eyes, should they choose, they remain unseen.

They remain unseen, except, of course, for the cursedly blessed of the normal who aren't completely normal. And yes, those who are not completely normal are usually carrying some unseen genetic material. They are the truly cursedly blessed.

These are the stories they don't tell.

THE CASE OF THE LOST MICKEY

Blue Butterflies, bottle rockets,

Boulders by the Shore,

Black inner tubes, young boys,

Laughter floating on a quiet lake,

Lost summers found, at the oddest of times,

In the minds of men with better things to do?

D. Allen Hubbell

That sound, that beautiful, too sweet sound.

He felt his whole body tingle, the sound, the sound, ... oh it danced so fast up and down his spiny back, his brain just shut down all thought just to embrace that magic sound.

His name was Spike, probably because of his love of stalagmites, especially ones with lots of phosphorescence.

Even for a young Brownie, Spike had very good eyesight.

Most Brownies, and their cousins, the Hobgoblins, have a tough time seeing anything other than in very dim light. Not so Spike.

It was during one of his braver night explores that he found the cave that ran under the road. He had been playing inside the culvert pipe, perfecting his abilities at mimicking the sounds of gurgling water, and before he knew it the morning sun was bouncing beams through the trees.

For the most part, young brownies must avoid direct sunlight. Just the touch of one direct sun ray and Spike would have been indistinguishable from the large rocks strewn the length of the culvert.

Fortunately for Spike, the culvert pipe roof was rusted through in many places. He was able to climb up and into the spaces where dirt had fallen down through the holes.

Spike didn't get much sleep that day. True, it was a quiet mountain lane, but the occasional car and pickup truck rumbling overhead not only woke him but also caused dirt to fall into his ears.

It was just after the shadows began to grow rapidly that Spike heard the sound for the first time. That sound, that demanding sound. Far away it came, almost covered up by the water dancing over the culvert's rocky bottom.

So faint, so exotic, so demanding attention.

No sunbeams, not even a strong reflection of green fell from tree leaves. He took a chance and lowered himself down into the pipe, careful his large ears didn't catch on the sharp, rusty, metal.

He immediately felt a tingle, the sound was getting louder, stronger, oh so demanding!

He let the culvert water's current carry him to the outfall. The end of the pipe was in shadows.

Spike put one ear outside. Yes! Oh how delicious but could it be? Oh yes, the sound was growing in volume and also in tempo. The sound went, "flick .... flick .... flick ... flick .. flick . flick flick flick."

Then as suddenly as it had arrived, it was slowing and fading away, "flick ..flick .. flick ... flick .... flick." Never had Spike heard such a sound, so pure, so demanding, so sure of itself!

From that day, at the first long shadows, Spike would rush to the culvert pipe and wait. Most early evenings rewarded him with a brief moment of ecstasy.

Then came the evening that the sound stopped, right overhead. He nearly fell out of the pipe. Spike was completely perplexed.

Slowly, oh so slowly, he moved farther out from the pipe's mouth. Immediately he recognized the sounds of a young male human.

Spike peeked above the embankment.

The paper boy had stopped right at the bottom of the little vale, at the gully. The load of newspapers had shifted on the bike. He put the kick stand down and readjusted the bags.

As he once again straddled the bike, and flipped up the kick stand, his sneaker hit one of the clothespins holding a baseball card sticking between the spokes of the back wheel.

He pushed off and the cards sticking through the wheels went, "flick, ..... flick, .... flick ... flick ..."

Spike couldn't believe what his ears were telling him. And yet there it was, even in the bright light of late dusk, he saw the cards and heard their song. Oh, what magic, how very strange, so magnificent a sound.

Just then the miracle happened. One of the cards on the back wheel fell from its clothespin. It floated to the roadway as the bike started up the hill.

Spike's wide eyes narrowed to slits as he watched the bike and the boy disappear into the next dip in the road.

He glanced this way and that. He looked up into the trees. He tested the evening air for scent.

Slowly, slowly he crept up through the grass on the short embankment. There it was! All he had to do was reach out and pick the card up.

His long bony fingers had just grasped the card when the sound began coming back. In panic, Spike clutched the card to his bony chest and ran into the woods.

From behind a sapling he watched the boy who was obviously searching for the lost card. After only a moment, with a