Who Owns The Mountain

Who Owns the Mountain?

By Maisie McAdoo

–Blueline Literary Magazine, Summer 2025

  I. Hunting Season

           The bear stood still, sniffing the air. Cold was on the way. It was late afternoon but already a purple dusk blanketed the mountain top. Only days left to feed.

          Casey and Todd sighted her from the top of a nearby rise. Todd, wiry and hot-headed at 22, raised his rifle to his shoulder.

          But then Casey, four years older and three inches taller, put a hand on his brother’s barrel. “Not her, Todd. She has cubs.” His charcoal eyes fixed hard on his brother’s profile.

          Todd held his position.

          You saw her with them behind the lift, remember?”

          “That’s the same one?”

          “Almost definitely.”

          Todd stared a moment longer and then lowered his rifle, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. As he stepped back a stick cracked under his boot. The bear turned her head.

          The huge, pointed snout quivered. She pivoted, and the glassy eyes fixed on them, showing no fear.

          The brothers froze. They were close enough to see the sheen on the coat, the impossible blackness of it. Maybe pregnant again. That would explain her still being out.

          Then, exhibiting her good sense, the bear turned and walked away.

          Her departure was stately; even shaking with fear, Casey admired it. There was a sacredness about her. She took off on her own measured time, landing soundlessly on huge, flexible paws, heading to a den deep in a rocky crevice of the north Catskills woods, to await the end of hunting season. 

#

          Casey and Todd’s mom didn’t cook so much after their dad died. Sunday dinners were cooked by their auburn-haired sister, Violet (“Vi, please”), who, after screaming fights with their mother all through high school, now lived in a trailer right next door, and popped in two or three times a day.

          Their mother still lived in the sturdy double wide where they’d all been raised, on a four-acre lot in a township of loggers’ descendants. Their forbears had toughed out winters most people wouldn’t survive. Sunday dinners, no one said, still marked one additional week’s survival against the elements.  

          The Sunday after the bear, Vi was at the stove, fixing chuck steaks with mac and cheese, while her brothers played with Charlie, her ten-month old, named for their father.

          “It’s ready,” Vi called over her shoulder, and her brothers got off the couch and put Charlie in his highchair.

          As they ate, Casey told his mom and sister about their close encounter, while Charlie gobbled Cheerios, legs swinging like pistons.

          “Good thing you let her be,” their mom said as she passed the rolls. “That bear wasn’t coming for you.”

          “I was this close to shooting,” Todd interjected, holding up a greasy thumb and forefinger.

          “That’s our good-old ‘shoot-first-ask-questions-later Todd,’” Vi said.

          “Or I could just let her attack you,” Todd shot back.

          Casey deftly changed the subject to one the mountain top residents all knew well: their improbable construction boom.

          “You know that new ski house I’m working on?” he said. “Now the guy wants this 500 cubic foot hot tub on the deck, though it’s going to cost him an extra $7,000 to shore up the support beams.” Their mom gaped in wonderment.

          He went on. “His wife said she didn’t like the ‘tone’ of the patio stone. I had to return all of it.” Casey sat back with a grimace. “Then they decide they wanted a tile floor. I warned them it was going to be slippery as all hell, but that’s what they want.”

          “No swearing, Casey,” his mom said, sliding a hand over Charlie’s legs.

          But he’d saved the best for last. “These other clients, the ones I told you about off Leander Road? They’re talking about adding a 600 square foot ‘studio’ on their property–fireplace, plumbing, electric, the whole nine. But they are pissed off at the price because it’s supposed to be ‘rustic’ and ‘unassuming’—their words.”
          At that point their mom let out a burst of laughter. It was a great sound. This was the kind of Sunday Casey loved: the family together, laughing about outsiders.

          But family time had to be squeezed in this year. Most of the brothers’ days were taken up with excavators, wood chippers, cement trucks, and power tools. Vi was working for a property management business that kept her running among five different mountaintop villages.

          Skiers used to stay in local inns. But the new crop wanted to own: “a little weekend ‘cabin,’ ´as Todd said, “but with a chef’s kitchen and a three-story great room.” 

          Vi got up to clear. “The log cabin look but definitely not the log cabin reality,” she said. “My boss says some of his clients don’t even bring in their own wood.”

          Casey was working steadily for a company building a dozen new homes near the slopes of the Vendome Mountain Ski Center. Strong and good with tools, Casey was a problem solver who showed up on time. He had all the work he wanted. In July he’d gotten Todd hired on too.

          “The new Vandome homes are all getting 220 current.” Casey said, lifting his nephew out of his highchair. “What do you think, little guy? You want to live in one?”

           “I just wonder how they can afford it all,” their mom said.

          “How ‘bout cuz they’re rich?” Todd said, eyebrows raised, wearing the cocky look that Casey had often tried to wipe off his face.

          But yes. Suddenly there was a lot more green in their old hills. People who’d gotten through winter by trading with each other, were now earning top dollar building the new homes. There was talk of new investors at the ski mountain, with plans to upgrade.

          Casey wished their dad was here to see it. He would have been amazed, after raising them on the small salary he made as road agent for the town. Daily fare back then was canned soup and instant potatoes. He’d drive their mom down the mountain once a month to the market in the valley and then they’d get lettuce and tomatoes, cheese, hamburgers and buns. But a lot of the year they lived off deer he shot and dressed himself, blackberries boiled into jelly, potatoes from the cellar.

          Now there was a Shop Rite on the mountain top. Casey and Todd were building their mom a brand new two-bedroom on their lot, though she kept insisting she didn’t need it. The windows were already in, and Casey and Todd were living in it, pissing in the woods and cooking on a propane stove while they did the plumbing and electric on weekends. The plan was to move her in next spring.

        # 

          On the last day of hunting season, the new ski center investors announced themselves on an Instagram post. They planned a lot more than an upgrade. They planned to purchase Vendome Ski Mountain and take it private. It would become a members-only club. Those who were building houses near the slopes would be invited to buy into the “Vendome Club” for $275,000, not counting dues of $9,000 a year–to start. The slopes would not be available to others, except maybe certain weekdays. The dirt bike trails were to be permanently closed.

          Casey learned about it when he stopped for a beer at McFarrell’s after work. Someone had printed out the Instagram post and taped it to the mirror over the bar. McFarrell’s was next to the gas station, strictly local, where customers could talk freely. They were incredulous. Who were these “investors?” Could they really make a mountain private? What would happen?

          Casey started out as angry as the other guys. But by the second beer he started to feel empty and stupid. He thought he was finally making good money? There was money and then there was MONEY.

          Soon, the town learned more about the investors. Richard (Rick) Twohey was the founder of a chain of “work casual” clothing stores, and his partner, Alexander (Alec), Hornblower was heir to a hotel fortune. The two had met as undergraduates at Stanford. Though Rick had built a business and Alec had inherited one, the two saw eye to eye on the future of the leisure industry.

          People, at least the ones they planned to attract, wanted a “curated” experience, the best of the best; but they also liked to feel like pioneers. The Catskills were perfect. Close to the city, underdeveloped, with rural charm. The ski center just needed polish.

          On the Instagram post, Rick and Alec promoted an “elevated experience” in “rarified air.” Skiers would enjoy “Italian Alps-inspired Mediterranean-themed dining” at an all-new “state-of-the-art” lodge. Slope-side homes would allow members to enjoy every convenience in a “select private community.”

          They had to take the Comments section down almost immediately. It was bombarded with memes of rich dandies sipping “rarified air” from tubes, and gentlemen in top hats slipping on the “upper crust” ice.

          But the jokes landed hard. Longtime residents respected private property, but this was another degree of private. Locals couldn’t ski there but for certain weekdays? They couldn’t even walk on Vendome Mountain? A petition circulated through the six villages in the township and got 700 signatures. It was presented to the Town Council of Vendome, calling for some restrictions on this kind of purchase, block the sale, do something.

          “A watershed moment,” Vi called it, but Casey predicted the petition would go nowhere.    “Harriman,” Casey said, referring to Jim Harriman, the town council president, “is a ‘the rules are the rules,’ kind of guy, just like Dad was,” he told his sister. “He isn’t going to come up with any way to overturn the sale.”

          “There’s 700 signatures,” Vi reminded him.

          “And a million bucks in new tax revenue,” Casey replied.

          Sure enough, the petition was reviewed and tabled. The signers were advised to “look on the bright side.” The Vendome Club would bring more business. For now, locals could still pay the day rate to ski. But “beta” changes would begin immediately, whatever the hell that meant.

 II. Christmas

           Casey and Todd found a straight pine with dense branches, took it down with a few ax blows and dragged it to their mom’s trailer. There was almost no snow yet, but when their mom and sister finished trimming it, and the brothers hung the outdoor lights, the place looked Christmasy and nice.

          There were about 20 families at the church when they arrived for the Christmas Eve service. Todd’s ex-wife Michelle was there with her folks, and they nodded to each other. Todd and Michelle had married too young, at 18. They’d lived with her parents. There’d been awkward sex, daily fights over money, and a year later Todd had moved home. But he’d cried on Michelle’s shoulder when he left. And later, when Todd lost his job on the ski patrol, Michelle had defended her ex-husband to the patrol chief, calling Todd a “a better man than you know,” and Casey loved his ex-sister-in-law for that.

          It was warm and dim inside the church as they squeezed into a pew. Everyone greeted their mom, everyone greeted everyone.

          The pastor talked about traditions and the mountain way of life, which Casey liked. The kids dressed as shepherds and kings and sang “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem,” and got donuts and a special prayer printed out with a picture of a lamb.

          After the service, around the side of the church, was the food giveaway. Casey didn’t go, didn’t need to, but more than a few neighbors lined up for bags of rice, a couple of chickens and cans of vegetables. Casey knew who had and hadn’t made enough this summer and fall, whose business had failed, who had someone sick at home, who was drinking harder. They didn’t need to see him looking. It was embarrassing enough.

          If these neighbors could have just one half of one of the “chalets” Casey was building, with the radiant heat stone floors, the big bathtub, the mountain view, they would have more comfort than they ever believed they deserved. It would have eased the feeling of not being worth anything. Mountain people had it hard. But Casey believed they toughed it out for a reason.

          There was one day seared in his memory. He was 13 and his dad got him up before sunrise, ignoring his groans and complaints. It was freezing cold and dark when they slipped out of the house and into the truck. His dad had made him a Thermos of hot chocolate and he could still remember how good that tasted. They drove up the logging road, then left the truck and walked in with their rifles, following a stream bed. They came out on a rock ledge just as the sun rose over the distant Berkshire range, lighting the world. The river below them turned orange and the sky became lavender.

          At that moment they realized they were surrounded by animals. Deer lifted their heads to salute the sun, chipmunks paused their scrambling. Even a pair of coyote stood stock still. They were all visible, close by the clearing. And his dad had quietly broken his rifle stock open and shook out the shells, then laid both their guns on the ground, disabled. He’d swung an arm toward the view. “This is your heritage,” he said, his voice cracking as he spoke. “It’s what I can give you.” His dad rarely talked like that.

          That was the year his dad was diagnosed with the cancer that took him two years later, leaving them—his mom, Casey at 15, Vi, 14, and Todd, who’d just turned 12—all broke and broken. So it was Casey who’d taught Todd to hunt, to drive and to ski, and Casey who’d gone to work as soon as he finished high school. He’d been determined to be the man of the family but he wasn’t his dad. No one was.

          The first big snow arrived two days after Christmas: 18 inches of fresh powder. Casey and Todd went skiing, climbing up the back of the mountain, bypassing the lift and entry fee completely. They got to the top, sweating even in crystalline cold, and pushed off, cutting long, arcing paths through virgin snow and pine forest. Casey lost sight of Todd. He was waiting at the bottom with a big grin on his face.

          When Casey taught him to ski, his little brother mastered it big time. “The kid just pointed his skis downhill and managed to stay on them,” he told Vi. Todd raced all through high school and his team won the regional championship. Trophy in hand, he’d crowed that he “owned the mountain.”

          He didn’t last long on the ski patrol, though. Weekend skiers who broke a leg or skied into a tree needed more of a “bedside manner” than Todd delivered, was the way then-owner Bob Davenport put it. Davenport said his customers did not share Todd’s view that a broken leg “wasn’t that big a deal” or appreciate his comment that the tree they skied into was “a beautiful white pine that had been there longer than they’d been alive.”

          But Davenport still assigned Todd to the final runs of the day, to check the trails before closing. Todd had good eyes and speed, and Davenport knew it. Plus, he’d known their dad.

          Davenport sold the slopes and lodge to an international conglomerate and retired in 2018. Lift ticket prices went up a couple of dollars. They installed a salad bar at the lodge canteen. But things didn’t change that much. The mountain reasserted its ancestral stillness.

          But then Rick and Alec made their move. They offered for the operation plus several hundred additional acres surrounding the slopes. The conglomerate liked the numbers.

III.  Martin Luther King Weekend

          Two weeks after New Year’s, Todd got banned from the mountain.

          The Christmas snow was mostly gone, and he’d decided to use the bike trails. He ignored the No Trespassing sign and rode his dirt bike straight through their yellow tape. He’d been biking these trails for years.

The men working nearby knew him and knew where he was heading, but they weren’t going to stop him.

          There was just enough snow remaining that Todd didn’t see the rock coming. First, he thought he could coast over it but there was a quick turn that came just after, so it was either hit a spruce dead on or swerve, and the swerve took him down. When he tried to get up he couldn’t use one foot.

          A few of the men carried him out. They called Casey but Casey was up on a roof and didn’t pick up so they called Michelle and she drove over. Michelle was technically not responsible and definitely not pleased, and she had a high voice that carried. That attracted a foreman’s attention all the way across the parking lot. He saw the mangled bike, not to mention the grimacing Todd, and reported it.

          So the “investors,” as they still called themselves, banned Todd from “their” slopes, banned him from the lodge, banned him from any job on their mountain.

          Casey was disgusted with him.

          “Why did you go there? You saw the signs.”

          “I wanted to go biking,”

          “Any other reason?” Casey glared at his brother.

          “Because the bike park is not theirs to close.”

          “Well, I guess it is, Todd,” Casey said, throwing up an arm. “But you’re gonna prove them wrong so you screw up your ankle and you’re out of work.”

          “My ankle’s gonna be fine. And they are going down, Casey.”

          “In your dreams. They own it, Todd. The rules are the rules, like it or not.”

          “Not.” Todd had that look of hard-boiled independence on his face that Casey knew well. Talking to him like that was like reasoning with a mountain lion.

          The next morning, Todd was gone, along with his blankets, boots, kerosene lantern, cooking pot, knife and gun.

           Casey headed to McFarrell’s right after work.

          “Everyone knows how he is,” the McFarrell’s bartender, Brenda, told him. “Your dad died at a bad time for him. At least you were a little older.” She caught Casey’s look. “Course there’s never a good time. But Casey, for whatever trespassing he done, banning a local man don’t sit well with any of us here.”

          “He’s gotta take his punishment,” Casey said and drank down half his beer. “Can’t storm out like a little kid.”

          “It’s not like your brother can’t look after himself,” Brenda said. Casey looked at her curiously.

          Even the town councilmen having breakfast in the diner the next morning were uncomfortable about the ban. Casey was seated in the back and watched Jim Harriman stop their conversation when Rick Twohey approached their booth.

          “Jimbo, we gotta keep the place safe. I love outdoor sports. I get it. But heavy equipment is being used and we can’t have a kid running all over the place on a bike.”
          The Council president had never been called ‘Jimbo’ and didn’t take to it.

          “Yup, it’s all good, Rick,” was all he said before scooping his check off the table and heading to the register. “It’s fine.”

#  

          At the start of the big MLK Weekend there was another good snowstorm, Todd was still gone. Casey was pretty sure he was living in the woods. He didn’t want his mother to know but he wound up talking to his sister, which was just like talking to his mother, he realized.

          “Case, he’s a survivor. He’s probably using that deserted cabin off the Olana Peak Road. He’ll be okay. Just cold,” Vi said.

          “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

          “What then?”

          “It’s like, he’s going to make everything worse than it is already.”

          “How so?” She had the baby on her hip and was trying to restock the wood box from her porch at the same time. He got up to help and she let him finish the job.

          “There’s nothing we can do about these people, Vi. They own the mountain. It’s the end of it and what we need to do is mind our own business and take care of our own.”

          “That’s what the Council says.”

          “I’m not the same as them.”

          “No?”

          “Shit, no.”

          Vi smiled at that. “You know what’s getting to you? You always think you got to be his daddy.”

          “Last job in the world I want.”

          “Job you got, big brother. But for the record, you don’t have to ride it so hard.”

          Casey thought about that as he drove to work. Was that what was eating him? He thought he was supposed to raise Todd and the kid had turned out bad. He’d failed his dad, never got control of his brother. He turned on the radio and lit a cigarette, though he was supposed to be quitting.

IV. Valentine’s Day

          The bear woke up to dripping snow, and the stirrings of ground animals foraging. It was too early for spring but there was a February thaw. She had a tiny, hairless male cub, six pounds, along with her daughter from last year, and an older son who would probably find his own den next winter. She had lost 150 pounds. She was ravenous.

          She set out with her son, leaving the newborn with her daughter, and headed to town.

          First, they broke into some ski chalets on the slope, making quick work of stored condiments, oils and peanut butter. Her son took off, but she headed to town and made herself a nuisance. People recognized her. They even gave her a name, Elise, after one of their elders, Elise Dunn, who’d passed in January. Elise Dunn had been an expert quilter, a maker of outstanding rhubarb jam, as well as a mom of four, a volunteer firefighter’s wife, bookkeeper for his excavation business, substitute teacher at the elementary, library fundraiser and a hundred other things. Elise the bear was honored to take the name, according to the townspeople, and went back to the woods.

          But outside the new members-only restaurant at the slope, they had not gotten around to fencing the new garbage area. Also, the lid of the big metal refuse can didn’t close perfectly. Elise tore through the pizza crusts, crudité remainders, cheese dips, wings sauces, fish skins, egg shells, a gallon of pudding and several sheets of butter pats.

          Rick and Alec photographed the mess she left, the claw marks and footprints, and posted pictures on their Instagram account. The next night Elise broke into a parked car whose owners had stowed leftovers in it, ripped the door off and left her scat as a souvenir. Pictures of it, posted on staff Instagram accounts, were immediately taken down.

          When she broke into their newly fenced garbage area, Rick and Alec sought advice from Jim Harriman, who said they’d be within their rights to take out the bear. They staked out the enclosure with plans to shoot on sight. The first night she didn’t show, and they spent a cold sleepless night. The second night she also stayed away, but on the third night, when just Alec was watching, she came.  At around midnight he saw black motion in the trees. The residents were all indoors, but that was definitely a big bear-shaped shadow moving along the edge of the forest.

          Alec snapped his rifle stock closed and eased off the safety. Silently, he slipped out to the patio, keeping his eyes trained on the spot where he had seen the shadow. Yes, he saw him again. Steady, steady, let him come closer. Alec started to anchor the rifle butt into his shoulder “Wait for it,” he told himself….

          BLAM! BLAM! There was a tremendous noise and a flare of light—but from the far side of the slope. Alec hit the deck. Owls screeched out of the trees. When he looked up, the bear was loping easily across an open patch of ground before disappearing into the woods. What the hell?

          It seemed like another hunter had shot into the upper branches. No “ping’ against a tree. Even the way the bear waddled away, she took it as a warning shot. Alec was furious.

          Both town cops paid a visit the next day and listened politely as Alec and Rick told them how much destruction the bear caused and pointed to where Alec thought the rogue shot had come from.

          “I hear there’s a guy living in the woods up here,” Rick told the cops, helpfully.

          “Didn’t hear about that,” the older one said.

          “But it could be that kid who was trespassing,” Alec offered.

          “Could be anyone,” the younger cop said to his partner, who nodded.

           Rick and Alec went back to spending their evenings in the owners’ chalet.

         #

          Valentine’s Day usually brought big crowds, but so far the weather wasn’t cooperating. Unusual warmth followed by several days of rain.  The snow melted, ice dripped off roofs, and Rick and Alec grew irritable.

          “We should have opened a place out West, like I said,” Rick grumbled at their weekly business breakfast.

Then four days before the start of Valentine’s weekend it turned wickedly cold. So cold that just forgetting a hat or gloves could be dangerous. So cold it was hard to breathe.

          Casey almost drove up to that cabin his sister had mentioned; then he told himself Todd could fend for himself, He’d heard his brother bought a cannister of propane at the hardware.

          On Wednesday it started to snow. The snow made everything still and quiet. and smothered the mountain with a cottony covering that draped the hemlocks, the big spruce and the roofs and streets with silence.

          Rick and Alec were thrilled. They called the travel sites, the weather shows, with news of “two feet” of fresh powder. They gave interviews. They got in extra lobster, extra sushi and seaweed salad. Folks from the city were calling the front desk, checking on conditions, asking to have their places cleaned, making sure their drives were plowed.

           The place was in an ecstasy of turmoil; everything had to be ready by Friday for the big weekend.

          On Thursday night, the mountain erupted.

          There was a cracking sound at the peak around midnight. Then another one. Some people thought it was an explosion.

          A moment of stillness. Then the snow came down. It came down in sheets, like a waterfall of snow and ice and rock. It screamed down the mountainside, picking up any debris in its path. The weight of the avalanche crushed whatever was in its way, rolling snow rivers so deep nothing could be seen but the white smoke of it, tearing out roots, wrenching out the foundation of one of the ski lift stanchions.

          Fortunately, when it took out half the lodge no one was there. But the new garbage enclosure, the patio tables, the ticket booths and the outdoor ski racks were all mixed together in a brutal mash of destruction, crazy stuff sticking out mounds of ice and snow.

          At dawn people started arriving to view the wreckage. The police and sheriff, but also Council members, and then pretty much everybody in town came to gape at the damage.

          “Pretty complete, I’d say,” Jim Harriman said to nobody in particular.

          “That’s a once in a generation avalanche there,” Brenda Shaw, the bartender, told her sister, Wanda.

          “What happens is the rain makes the ground real soft and then it ices up and the new snow weighs on it and destabilizes what’s already destabilized,” the WKIP-92 weatherman said into his mike, broadcasting live from the site.

          “I swear I heard some kind of explosion,” Rick said, but no one answered him.

          Casey was at the edge of the crowd. It could have been ice cracking, or it could have been something else. He went and bought a pack of cigarettes and smoked half of them in the truck. His brother could be dead. If he wasn’t dead he might be a criminal. Everyone on the mountain must suspect. It was crazy luck no one was killed. He’d have to move the family out of town. It was the end of them.

#    

          On the Sunday of Valentine’s weekend, Todd came home. He showed up with his ratty blankets and mangled stove, smacked a palm on the door frame and came into their mother’s future kitchen.

          “Bears awake and hungry,” he announced. “Me too.”

          Casey wanted to punch him across the room. “Go ask Vi to feed you,” he said.

          “No, big brother, I want to take a shower and go out to dinner—with you.”

          Casey stared at him. “Shower sounds like a good start,” he said.

          They went to McFarrell’s, put in orders for burgers and beer with Brenda, and headed towards a table at the back.

          As they walked to their table people turned to greet them. Todd got slaps on the back, smiles. Casey could not stop burning.

          “You could have killed someone,” Casey started as soon as their burgers arrived. “Or yourself.”

          “I had nothing to do with that avalanche,” Todd said, taking his meaning but denying any role. He speared a French fry. “The mountain did that her own self, man.”

          “Bullshit.”

          “Suit yourself, Case, I had nothing to do with it.”

          Casey’s anger turned into some kind of slush, then froze, then thawed. That was the version they would go with. That was what happened, or didn’t. His family was staying.

#

          Heavy rains in late April brought everything into bloom. Grasses grew tall and green. Forsythia sprouted. On the logging trail, mountain laurel buds emerged, while sap ran down the trunks of the elderly pines. Elise, her daughter and her newborn son strolled the trail in the late evenings, feasting on new shoots.

  THE END