Chapter 1 Steam Valley
Lycoming County, PA August 1954

The sun was setting on the hot August day. The gliding shadow crossed over the rim of Bear Hollow, dipped down the steep side, then circled back. On the rim, dry leaves rustled under the snake as it worked its way to the warmest exposed rock on the ledge. The sluggish female, with a dozen squirming kin inside, was near term, and careless.

There was another rustle of leaves followed by a rush of wind with weight upon it. Vicelike grips squeezed behind the snake's head and around her belly. Pain coursed through her as talons pierced flesh and backbone. Then a final rustle of leaves as powerful wings beat the ground and the snake was taken aloft, writhing and buzzing an angry, futile protest.

The shadow continued its silent glide. Starting above the heavily timbered sag beyond the mountain rim and the dense laurel thicket surrounding it, the shadow passed the rim again, dipped down the steep, rocky side of Bear Hollow, then up the more gradual opposite slope to the top of Blackwolf Mountain. Going east across the mountain the shadow skimmed the treetops the length of Longstar Hollow to Blackwolf Swamp, then flanked the swamp to Jacob's Landing, the gravel bar formed at the junction of Packhorse Run and Blockhouse Creek.

The shadow had reached the bottom of the mountain, a journey of five miles in twice as many minutes, its passage only frequently breaking through the vast green canopy of trees to the ground below. From the Landing the shadow skirted the lower edge of the village of Buttonwood, meeting U.S. Rt. 15 at the Big Curve, then banked southeast directly over the road, into the middle of the valley of steam.

The shadow passed over the pickup as it rounded Big Curve. When it got to the straighter, safer stretch that cut through the forested valley the pickup slowed, its driver peering upward for a glimpse of the bird. The sun casts a long shadow at the end of the day. It took a while for the bird itself to appear.

When it did Tom Donachy was startled, and he was used to woods things.

It was low, so close to his open side window he could reach out and almost touch it. It was big, five feet at least from wingtip to wingtip. It was powerful, a struggling four-foot snake as thick as Tom's forearm was no hindrance. Instinctively, he drew his own arm inside. And the bird was determined a great horned owl beating a steady course down the valley to his perch tree for supper.

Tom guessed where the big owl was headed the huge dead chestnut that towered over the roadside parking area and water tank at Steam Valley Spring. The FFA boys had cleaned up that two-acres for the township before school started a year ago and Tom had noticed owl pellets under that tree.

Tom followed the owl, fascinated by the grace and ease of its flight. By its thickness he figured the snake to be a rattler and wondered how the owl was going to control its live catch in that perch tree.

It wasn't.

As they neared the Tank, the owl suddenly soared higher and Tom lost it. His attention turned to an approaching car. Coming too fast, he mused, especially for going into the sun and Big Curve. Must be a stranger. Nice car, he noticed, as it drew closer. Late model, cream color, must be a Just then the snake landed on the car hood with a heavy metallic crunch, split open and spread herself and her babies over the windshield and top of that hot, new, cream-colored car.

The driver, a woman, braked, pulled over and stopped near the tank. She screamed when she realized the commotion outside was a snake flopping on her windshield. Tom turned around, pulled alongside, and yelled at her to stay in the car. He got out, grabbed the broom kept in the back of his pickup, and removed the convulsing rattler, flinging it into the ferns. He swept the baby snakes that remained on the car to the ground, stomping on the their heads with the heels of his workshoes. He didn't get them all. He could see bloody trails in the parking area dust where the surviving babies wriggled frantically toward a life somewhere.

He didn't pay any more attention to them. The lady, she seemed young, had her face in her hands but had stopped screaming. Tom noticed she had pretty, strawberry-red hair. He dipped the broom in the tank, swept water over her car, a Ford Convertible, then wiped it off with the towel he used as a seat cover. He made a bad job of it. Tom worked for his brother in the woods, the towel was more dirt and oil than fabric, and left dirty streaks. But when he finished all evidence of the snake was gone, except for the dent in the hood.

"There," he said. "Good thing the top was up." The awkward attempt at conversation made her laugh. You never are very smart around girls, he scolded himself, throwing the wet towel into the box of the pickup. But the laughter calmed her down and she thanked him.

"My name's Tom," he said, trying again. She noticed him then for the first time; a tall, big-boned, homely boy with unruly black hair and mischief in his hazel eyes. An intelligent, sensitive youth who needed to shave every day.

"Mine is Abigail," she replied and reached through her open car window to shake his hand.

As his big calloused hand enveloped hers he noticed she was trembling. "You look a little peaked," he said. "You want to go back to the Turkey Ranch for a Coke? You just passed it."

"That would be nice," she answered. Then, pointing to the ferns where Tom had tossed the snake, she asked, "Do things like this happen often up here?"

The "up here" told Tom that Abigail was not used to the mountains. "This is a bit out of the ordinary Ma'am," he said. "But unexpected things do happenup here."