Graveyard Fields

by Steven Tingle

  “Dale brews beer too,” I said. “He’s got quite a knack for it.”

  Dale put a full pint glass on the table and squeezed between us. He then started a dissertation on brewing techniques using words I’d never heard him say before, like consequently and statistically. Diana listened patiently for a few moments, then put her hand on Dale’s arm.

  “Would you be a sweetie and get Davis another beer?” she said. “I want him to try the coffee porter.”

  Dale suddenly looked like a kid whose ice cream scoop had fallen off the cone.

  As he stomped off, I told Diana there was a very slim chance he would return.

  “That’s the point,” she said.

  “So how long have you owned this place?” I asked.

  “I started the brewery a couple years ago. Then I added the restaurant last spring. It’s not exactly a gold mine, but it pays the bills. Hey, would you like to get some guacamole one night? I’d love to hear more about your book and maybe try some of your beer.”

  “Yeah, I’d like that,” I said. “But my phone doesn’t really work very well around here, so I’m not sure …”

  “Do you have an email address?”

  Diana pulled out her phone and added my name and email to her contact list. As she tapped the screen, I grabbed one of the growlers and inspected the label, which showed a finger pressed against a pair of closed red lips. Above the logo were the words DARK SECRET IPA.

  “So what’s the dark secret?” I asked.

  Diana put her phone away and winked. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  15

  By the time Dale and I climbed back in the Mercedes, his mood had dramatically improved. He was in love.

  “Can you believe that Daiquiri girl? God! Damn! I talked to her a little bit up at the bar. I think she was impressed I’m a deputy. You gotta work that shit, know what I mean? Women love a man with a badge.”

  “I thought you were interested in Diana. That was the whole point of going there tonight.”

  Dale had a mild seizure.

  “Aw, she’s too skinny. Got a body like an ironing board. And she’s snooty as all get-out. No, I’m telling you, Daiquiri is the woman for me. Little bit sweet, little bit sour, make my head spin. God! Damn!”

  Dale connected his phone to the car’s stereo system and played “Is This Love” by Whitesnake. While he sang along, I somehow resisted the urge to vomit.

  * * *

  When we pulled up in front of Junebug’s, Dale was still riding his Daiquiri buzz.

  “Brother, we need to go back there tomorrow night. I’ll pay. You can have that grilled-cheese bullshit you like.”

  He reached over to the back floorboard and grabbed one of the growlers Diana had given me.

  “What are you doing?” I said.

  “One of these is mine, dickhead.”

  Dale got out of the car and walked toward the front of the house. As I pulled away, I rolled down the window and yelled, “That sweat shirt makes you look like a three-hundred-pound Cheeto!”

  Dale didn’t turn around. He just reached behind his back, extended his middle finger, and walked into the house.

  * * *

  Back at the cabin I poured a glass from the growler of Dark Secret, took a pill, and fired up the laptop. I had one new email. It was from Laura, and I hesitated for a few minutes before opening it. I got up and circled the table a couple of times, anticipating what the email might say. I finished the beer and poured another. When I was halfway through that one, I sat back down and double-clicked on the message.

  Davis,

  You have hurt me for the last time. Do not come back here. Do not contact me. Stay away.

  Laura

  And that was that. It was the communication I’d been waiting for. I wasn’t surprised by what she’d written. I knew she had to still be furious with me. But at her core my sister was a softy. She’d forgiven me for many things, both large and small. She’d even forgiven me for missing our parents’ funeral. I knew she’d forgive me eventually. It was who she was. I would just have to wait until she was ready. All those hours sitting in my car waiting to photograph a cheating spouse or insurance fraud had taught me one thing: patience. I could wait on Laura. That was actually the one thing I was good at. Waiting.

  16

  It was another cold morning. My head hurt, my stomach hurt, and my leg felt like it was being pricked by a thousand invisible needles. I made some instant coffee, swallowed a pill, and opened the laptop. I reread the email from Laura several times, not sure what I hoped to discover with each fresh view. It was a waiting game now. Waiting for Laura to forgive me. Waiting for Greg to live or die. Waiting to learn who’d shot me and wondering if they would come to Cruso to finish the job. Waiting for inspiration to strike and a book to begin to take shape. Waiting to become a better man.

  I pulled up Facebook and searched for Dale’s page. When it loaded, I noticed he’d changed his profile picture. The old one had shown him standing on a wooden boat dock in a sleeveless Bon Jovi T-shirt. The new photo was his official sheriff’s department head shot. I figured he had changed it in hopes Daiquiri might look him up.

  I opened a new tab and pulled up the website for the Post and Courier, Charleston’s leading newspaper. I clicked on the NEWS section and entered storage unit into the search field. I was hoping to find some new information on the investigation, but the only story that appeared was the same one I’d read close to a month ago.

  Police Investigating Robbery at Isle of Palms Self-Storage Facility

  A Charleston Police sergeant is in serious condition after being violently beaten during a robbery at a self-storage facility.

  Authorities were called to the U-Store-It facility on Isle of Palms at 11:31 p.m. Thursday after the sounds of gunfire were reported. Sergeant Greg Evans was found inside an open storage unit suffering from what a police spokesperson described as a “brutal and savage beating.”

  Another man, Davis Reed, suffered a gunshot wound to the leg during the robbery.

  Both victims were transported to the Medical University of South Carolina.

  Further information was not immediately released.

  The story was factual but misleading. A better version would have read:

  Police Investigating Clusterfuck at Isle of Palms Self-Storage Facility

  A dirty cop is in a coma after his brother-in-law discovered he was trafficking drugs and then proceeded to beat the living shit out of him. An unknown assailant, driving a gray Audi sedan, then shot the brother-in-law in the leg and absconded with several cases containing drugs and cash.

  An Internal Affairs investigation is now under way.

  I closed the newspaper’s website, pulled up Google, and typed Cold Mountain into the search field. With no news of the storage unit investigation and no ring of keys to distract me, I figured I might as well do some actual book research.

  The first page of results focused on the book and the movie. Like the newspaper report of the storage unit debacle, it showed how fiction is more popular than fact.

  On the next page I browsed through a couple of results that dealt with the actual mountain, then for the hell of it typed Cold Mountain gold. The first few results were for local jewelry stores and “We Buy Gold” businesses. One of the links toward the bottom of the results was for an amateur treasure hunters’ website called Ray Hicks Treasure Guide. When I clicked on the link, the first thing I saw was a photo of a frighteningly tanned man with a white beard holding a handful of dirty coins. According to the photo’s caption, this was Ray, who was described as the world’s greatest treasure hunter.

  Below Ray’s photo was a map covered with dots denoting his treasure-hunting sites. I clicked on a dot located at the western end of North Carolina, and a new page appeared.

  Posted by Ray. December 20th 2011

  Is There Gold Buried on Cold Mountain?

  Hello fellow hunters! You’ve read the book! You’ve seen the movie! But did
you know Cold Mountain may hold a lost treasure! That’s right! According to some locals millions of dollars in gold bullion may be buried somewhere among the lush hills of the mountain best known as the setting for a confederate love story!

  A B-25 Bomber crash landed on the mountain in 1946 and some believe the plane was carrying a stash of stolen gold bullion! Could this gold be strewn among the hardwood forests of the most famous mountain in the Blue Ridge range?!?

  If you would like more information on the Cold Mountain Treasure click the link below to order my e-book, “Digging Up Your Fortune!” This book will furnish you with first-hand knowledge, tips, tricks, and the do’s and don’ts of finding hidden treasure! It’s a how-to book on how to become financially independent! Order Today!

  The world’s greatest treasure hunter hawking an e-book seemed a bit suspect, but not nearly as troublesome as his affinity for exclamation points. I spent a few more minutes looking around Ray’s website but didn’t find any more information on Cold Mountain or the rumor of buried gold. “They ain’t no fucking gold,” is what Dale had said, and I was inclined to believe him.

  I made another cup of coffee, then clicked on Google and searched for Long Branch Brewery. The first link took me back to Facebook and the brewery’s social media page. The profile listed the brewery’s hours along with a link to its beer offerings and the food menu. I clicked on the PHOTOS tab and started scrolling through the pictures. Some were interior shots of the restaurant and behind-the-scenes looks at the brewing process. The rest of the images were taken by customers who had tagged the brewery in their pictures. More than a few showed red-faced twentysomethings playing cornhole, the devil’s gift to breweries, or raising pints of beer in a toast toward the camera.

  I scanned the photos for Diana. It took a few minutes, but I finally found a picture of a group celebrating what I guessed to be a birthday. They sat huddled around a table while a young woman blew on a candle poking out of the top of an oversized cupcake. In the background I could see Diana leaning back against the bar and smiling toward the celebration. She was gorgeous, even in a snapshot like this. Next to her, sitting on a barstool, was a man facing away from the camera and wearing a yellow T-shirt with the Long Branch Brewery logo emblazoned across the back. Diana was close to him, their arms almost touching. I zoomed in on the picture to get a better look, but the more I zoomed, the more the picture blurred.

  The details of the image were fuzzy, but if I squinted just right, I could see a shiny object near the man’s waist. It was a tiny mess of square silver pixels surrounded by flecks of brown and orange. The devils suggested I was staring at a large ring of keys. The angel shrugged. I shrugged back and swallowed another pill.

  17

  I threw on some clothes and hopped in the Mercedes. A few minutes later I pulled into the parking lot of El Bacaratos. I called Dale to ask him if the couple had picked up the keys.

  “They came by this morning to collect ’em,” he said. “But guess what? The keys wasn’t here.”

  “What do you mean? I handed them over to Barbara yesterday.”

  “Yeah, Barbara says you did, and she says she put them in her desk drawer. But when that couple came by this morning, the keys was gone. Barbara was pretty embarrassed and said the couple was rightly pissed. Especially the dude.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Barbara said he went on bitching about this and that. Said we was unprofessional and that kind of shit.”

  “Did they give their names or leave a number?”

  “Nope. The dude said they’d check back later today and that them keys had better’ve turned up.”

  The keys disappearing made no sense to me. I also didn’t understand why the couple kept refusing to give anyone their names or leave a number where they could be contacted. If their goal was to act suspicious, they were doing a good job of it.

  “Could Barbara have just misplaced the keys?” I said. “I mean, could she have looked in the wrong drawer or something?”

  “That ain’t very likely. Barbara keeps her shit tight. If she says them keys are gone, then they’re gone. You know, Davis, I shouldn’t have let you fuck around with those keys. I should’ve made you give ’em to me yesterday morning.”

  “I wish I had given them to you. Then I wouldn’t have gotten stuck listening to Barbara ramble on and on about her damn blog. I should’ve snuck out when your cousin came in.”

  There was a long pause, followed by, “What do you mean, my cousin?”

  “Floppy. He came in when I was talking to Barbara. He said someone had broken into his garage.”

  Dale grunted like he was trying to open a stuck jar lid. “Did he see them keys?”

  “Yeah, they were on the counter when he came in.”

  “Motherfucker! I betcha my left nut he took ’em when Barbara wasn’t looking.”

  “Seriously? Why would he take them?”

  “Floppy’s a klepto-fucking-maniac. He’ll take anything that ain’t bolted down. Calls hisself a collector, but he ain’t nothin’ more than a hoarder.”

  I tried to imagine what Floppy’s house looked like—and smelled like. I didn’t care for the thought.

  “Why didn’t you tell me he was your cousin when I asked you about him? When we were watching the game, you never mentioned that you were related.”

  Dale grunted again. “ ’Cause that ain’t nothin’ I like to admit. The man’s as crazy as a shit house rat.”

  “So how are you two connected?”

  “Floppy’s granddaddy, Ol’ Gerald, was Daddy’s uncle.”

  “Okay. So that makes you and Floppy, what, like third cousins?”

  Dale hissed. “Fuck if I know. Or care.”

  “Or maybe it’s second cousin once removed.”

  “I wish it was all the way removed,” Dale screamed.

  “What about Floppy’s parents?” I said. “Are they still around?”

  “Nah. Floppy’s daddy died in ’Nam a few months ’fore Floppy was born. Then Floppy’s momma got that depression shit some women get after they have a young’n and ended up slittin’ her wrists in the bathtub. Momma and Daddy said they thought about taking Floppy in, but I was just a curtain climber back then, so they had their hands full with me. I’m a handful, in case you ain’t noticed.”

  Dale was more than a handful, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging it.

  “So where’d he go? I mean, where did Floppy live after his mother died?”

  “Ol’ Gerald took him in. Raised his grandson to be just as crazy as he was.”

  I laughed. “So your great-uncle was Gerald Johnson. The man who claimed to have found a chest of gold up on Cold Mountain.”

  Dale exhaled so loudly I could almost smell his breath through the phone.

  “I’m gonna tell you two things right now, Davis. One, there never was no fucking gold. And two, you get your ass up to Floppy’s garage and get them keys back.”

  It was my turn to exhale. “Why should I go up there? He’s your cousin and you’re the one with the badge.”

  “Well, unlike you, dickhead, I have a job. I gotta be at court at eleven, some dumb fuck challenging his DUI charge.”

  Dale bitched for a couple of minutes about having to appear in court, then gave me directions to Floppy’s garage.

  “And listen,” Dale added. “Floppy ain’t to be trusted about nothing; he’s as much a liar as his granddaddy was. He ain’t gonna admit he’s got those keys, so there ain’t no reason asking. You’re going to have to poke around and see if you see ’em laying around somewhere.”

  “So he’s supposed to let me just wander around his garage as if I’ve misplaced something? He’ll kick me out in five minutes.”

  Dale started giggling.

  “Five minutes, my ass. Davis, you’ll be lucky to get yourself out of that place before nightfall. Now go on. Get!”

  18

  I followed Dale’s directions to an area called Sunburs
t. The winding two-lane road led through a valley dotted with modest homes, trailers, and the occasional cow field. After a few minutes I came upon a small lake with a several cabins situated along its edge. A sign near the road read LAKE LOGAN EPISCOPAL CENTER. It was a picturesque spot, and I figured if there was a god, this looked like as good a place as any for him to hang out.

  After another couple of miles I spotted a blue cinder-block building surrounded by junk cars and rusty appliances. I was afraid it was the place I was looking for.

  I pulled into a dirt lot in front of the building and parked next to a primer-gray Ford Explorer sitting on four columns of bricks. I hesitated a moment before getting out of my car, wondering if there was a guard dog somewhere on the premises. The last thing I needed was a junkyard dog gnawing on my one good leg.

  The building held two garage bays, and both were so full of junk I couldn’t imagine fitting a vehicle inside either of them. As I stared at the building, Floppy materialized out of the cluster of junk. He slowly dragged himself to the edge of one of the bays, then stopped and stared in my direction. I finally stepped out of my car, figuring if there was a dog prowling about, it was probably as lethargic as Floppy.

  “I work on them foreign cars, if that’s what you’s gonna ask,” Floppy said as I approached.

  He was dressed in the same greasy outfit as the day before, and as I closed the gap between us, his body odor hit me like a cloud of noxious gas.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” he said. “Didn’t I see you yesterday at the sheriff’s office? You’s talking to Barbara.”