by Celia Roman
“She passed out coming up her porch steps. Trey found her the next morning.”
Relief sagged outta me as Dori fussed over me. I tried to defray her concern. Me, I was healthy as an ox, but she went on and on, and wouldn’t hear of letting us leave without taking half a fresh cooked sour cream pound cake with us.
When we said our goodbyes, accompanied by promises to visit soon, Riley’s triumphant grin stretched his mouth nigh on ear to ear. I shook my head and got in his Range Rover, and vowed it’d be a long while yet before I made him another cake.
Chapter Sixteen
A letter from Mama was waiting on me in the mailbox when we got home. I shooed Riley back to work and plopped down on the couch to read it.
Dear baby girl, it said, and I sighed. No matter how old I got, Mama still thought of me as a kid.
I shook off the exasperation and continued reading.
Soon as I got your letter, I sat down with this one, and will pass it off to a guard to mail this very day. I hope it reaches you soon, as there are too many things you don’t know about your daddy’s family. Too many things your daddy would’ve told you, if he lived long enough.
I let that one pass without dwelling on it. No amount of wishing could undo the past.
Johnny ain’t a bad sort, but you best steer clear of your grandmother. Was her that kicked your daddy out of the Panther clan, after they split from the main branch in Qualla.
A sharp chill run down my spine and I let the letter fall into my lap. The Cherokee had seven different clans. Ever blood member belonged to one according to the clan they was born to through their mother or adopted to by a clan mother, if they was taken in. Some Cherokee families still practiced their traditional matrilineal customs. The wife was the head of the household and, as such, the one making the decisions, was my understanding.
Which explained a lot of what I heard about my grandparents.
The mention of the Panther clan concerned me most. Was it a coincidence that painters was haunting the deep wood and I was, by my father’s blood, descended from the Panther clan, though never a part of it?
Or was my imagination scaring up haints what wasn’t there?
I picked Mama’s letter up and continued reading.
Stay away from Betty Walkingstick, Sunshine. She never forgave your daddy for marrying me, nor me for luring him away from the Res. She’s bad news, baby, real bad. I don’t want you tangled up in all that. Next time Johnny comes around, you tell him to scat real quick, you hear?
Mama ended the letter there, signing it, “All my love.” I started at the first word and read it again, careful to take in ever nuance I could ferret out. When I was done, I tucked it away and slumped onto the couch, overwhelmed by the questions running rampant in my noggin.
Daddy was born to the Panther clan, like his mama before him.
Painters appeared in the deep wood and stalked humans.
An old legend implied the painter spirit could be absorbed by humans.
And a painter with human eyes died on Patterson Gap Road, starting the whole chain of events leading to this moment.
I didn’t know what to make of it, couldn’t fathom the possibility staring me in the face like a haint hovering in the air in front of me. If these separate instances was linked, if the painters in the deep wood was in some way related to the Cherokee Panther clan, not related in the blood sense, but somehow connected, did that mean the Panther clan was really shifters? Had they the nature of the beast and of humans both?
Old Mother’s words jumped into my head. She of two worlds. My grandmother? Or was that too literal an interpretation?
Above all, the question that bothered me the most was, why now? Whether they was two-natured or not, why was the painters making themselves seen when they was so scarce before?
I sat there stewing over ever thing ‘til the sun slid low on the horizon and Riley come back for Wednesday supper.
Soon as Riley walked in, I jolted into action and threw myself into whipping up a good meal for him. Now, some folks’d say I was acting the traditional role, but I saw it as doing for somebody what done for me. Kindly a tit for tat sorta thing, and I reckon Riley saw it about the same way when he grilled steaks for me.
Bless him, he really needed to learn how to fix something else.
I weren’t gonna complain, though. Gratitude prohibited a sour attitude, if friendship didn’t. Whatever he wanted to do for me was done with my blessing, long as he didn’t overstep none.
Besides. The questions roiling around in my noggin could be tucked away behind concentrating on something else, there still, sure, but not so much in the forefront of my mind.
Riley sat at the kitchen table and chatted with me about his day. The rivers was down, thanks to a lack of rain. He caught one of Harley Jimpson’s grand young’uns fishing on the Tallulah without a license. Had I heard about so-and-so having a baby?
I listened with half an ear, participating where I could, and by the time supper was ready to eat, my spirit had calmed a good deal. Riley had that way about him, always had. Even when we was too young to know what friends was, his laid back acceptance soothed me.
I dished up a plate for him of pork chops breaded and seasoned with rosemary and butter, fried taters topped by cornmeal gravy, and crowder peas from some I canned over the summer.
He sidled up next to me at the stove and rested a casual hand on my hip. “What’s the occasion?”
I handed him his plate and snagged an empty one for myself. “Why?”
“This is…” He breathed in real deep and exhaled loud. “Something else. I figured you’d give me the cold shoulder for hiding your keys.”
I mighta, if I’da thought about it. Too late now. I done cooked him supper.
I contemplated that for a good minute, then said, “Veteran’s Day was yesterday. We didn’t get to do nothing special, so.”
“Sunny.” His voice held a soft, tender note, almost like that night not so long ago when he told me he loved me. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me ‘til you taste it,” I said, and the tart tone spurred him into laughter.
Lordy, I loved doing for him.
I bit the thought off, only too aware of how fleeting relationships like ours was, and filled my plate, then sat down beside him at the sparkling new kitchen table and dug in.
Riley sliced off a piece of pork chop, chewed it real slow, and hmmed under his breath. “Damn, Sunny. That’s some good meat.”
“Thank you.”
I sliced off a piece of mine, got up, and slipped it into the bottom of the critter’s cage. He stared at it for a long minute, then glanced back up at me, looking for all the world like I inflicted a mortal wound.
“You haven’t been cheating on me have you?” Riley asked, and I whirled around, aghast at the suggestion.
“Why’d you ask such a thing?”
He waved his knife at the critter. “Looking up stuff behind my back.”
The fear clutching my middle eased, though my heart pattered and tripped in my chest. I patted a hand to it, willing it back to normal, and plopped back into my chair. “No, I have not, Riley Treadwell, and I can’t believe you’d accuse me of it neither.”
“You were here for a week without a thing to do,” he pointed out. “Boredom does funny things to a woman as active as you are.”
“If you was so concerned about it, you shouldn’ta made me sit on the couch like a warty ol’ lump.”
“Doctor’s orders.”
I hmphed, forked up some peas, and stuffed ‘em in my maw to keep it silent.
Riley tasted the taters and gravy, and his eyes about rolled back in his head. Soon as he swallowed, he said, “Make this for me every day and I’ll give you the sun and moon and every star in heaven.”
I snickered. Yeah, right. “You hear anything from Dean Whitaker about Ol’ Blue.”
“Not a word. He’ll call when he knows something.”
“I’m just anxious, i
s all.” I fidgeted with my fork, pushed it through my taters. “Seeing Dori today, well. I reckon I was just hoping for some closure for her and Billy and them.”
“Be patient.”
“I am.”
He huffed out a laugh and set his knife to the pork chop on his plate. “What did your mom have to say?”
I winced. The letter. Hadn’t figured it out yet, and I weren’t sure I wanted Riley dragged through all that nohow. After a minute sorting through it, I said, careful like, “She said as how I should stay away from Daddy’s family. Bad news and such.”
Riley grunted. “You gonna listen to her?”
I clamped my mouth shut. That, I hadn’t decided on either, but there was one person out there what might could sort fact from fiction. Her, Mama hadn’t cautioned against. “I’m thinking on visiting Libby Squirrel.”
He glanced up at me, expression blank. “Is that a good idea?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged against the warning crawling up my spine, the one what screamed something bad clung to my cousin. The one what said I should leave well enough alone. “What do you think?”
He sat there for a minute, just looking at me, never moving a muscle. At last, he said, “I think you’re going to do what you think is best, and damn what I have to say about it.”
His words stung hard, in the deepest part of me where I hated looking. I glanced down at my plate, fighting tears for some reason, and forced myself to stuff a bite sized piece of pork into my mouth. Chew, swallow, fork up another bite, but the flavor was more like cardboard than the savory meat I prepared special for Riley. Dull, tasteless, empty.
I placed my fork and knife on either side of my plate, precise and even. “I listen to you.”
“When it suits you.” He set his own utensils down and cupped a warm, calloused palm over my hand. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“You got a right to say your piece.”
“Not when it hurts you.”
I shrugged a shoulder and glanced away, hiding what was going on in my heart. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Christ, Sunny.” His hand fell away from mine and he laughed, but it was bitter and hard, nothing like normal. “Just when I think we’re making progress you clam up on me again. When are you going to learn that I’m not letting you go no matter how hard you make it for me?”
My head swung around and I blinked at him. “What?”
“You heard me.”
He leaned across the table and pecked a kiss to my cheek, then launched into a tale about the mischief one of his cousin’s kids got up to over the past weekend, and I sat there like a worn down stump, too afraid of moving lest I dislodge the hope blooming irrational and fierce in my heart.
I let a few days pass before I made a decision on whether or not to visit Libby and ask the questions of her what my own family refused to hear. There was too much at stake here, too big of a gap between what I knowed and what was going on for me to let a chance to learn pass me by.
Riley uttered nary a word about it after our Wednesday supper, and I was sure not to let so much as a whisper slip to Fame or Missy or the boys about it. I had a right to know my own kin, for one, but for another, I was a woman fully growed. Riley was right on that. Weren’t nothing could stop me once I made up my mind.
Though I sworn, I listened to the folks I respected, including him, more often than he thought.
While I was mulling over contacting Libby, me and Riley took another stab or two at identifying Aunt Sadie’s critter. On Saturday, we went to the matinee up in Franklin and et an early supper. After Riley drove us home and parked beside the trailer, he followed me in and plunked down on the couch, fairy encyclopedia in hand.
I busied myself with laundry (old habits die hard), then picked up a new book on Sumerian mythology I bought way back when and lost myself in the old stories.
A few minutes later, Riley sat forward on the couch, startling me out of my reading.
“What?” I asked.
He glanced between the book and the critter, eyes narrowed. “Hobgoblin?”
I marked my place in the mythology book and set it aside. “Lemme see.”
He tilted the book toward me, and I snuggled up to his side and read the description. Small, helpful, mischievous, and nothing like goblins. I run into the latter a time or two. Nasty critters. Nigh on unstoppable when they ganged up on a body.
Never come across a hobgoblin before, though, possibly ‘cause they was fairly benign, if the encyclopedia could be believed. I weren’t stupid enough to fall for ever thing writ down, but it done me right in the past. No reason not to believe it now.
I glanced at the critter. It was staring at us round-eyed and curious, like it never seen humans before. “Is you a hobgoblin?” I asked, and danged if the thing didn’t curl up right there and go to sleep.
Riley slumped back against the couch, a disappointed frown stretching his beautiful mouth. “I thought for sure that was it.”
“We don’t know it ain’t,” I pointed out. “Dang critter is about the most obstinate thing I ever seen.”
“Not the most obstinate I’ve seen,” Riley muttered.
I smacked his leg playful like, and he tossed down the book and tackled me right there on the couch.
“You’re gonna pay for that,” he said in a mock growl.
I smacked him again for good measure. “Take it back.”
“Not on your life.”
His fingers strayed to my ribs, and the tickle fight was on, with both of us scrabbling to find the other’s weakest, most ticklish spots.
It’s funny how moments like that linger in your mind, silly moments what mean nothing right then, but later take on a whole world of significance.
Riley tickled me ‘til I was breathless, then his laughter faded and them hazel eyes of his warmed, and he lowered his head and kissed me, brushing his mouth across mine ‘til I was nigh on desperate to have him there.
And whilst his weight covered me, pinning me to the couch, and his mouth moved against mine, heating my blood to near boiling, some part of my mind looked down upon us, two lovers entwined, and an epiphany rang bright and true through my bitty heart.
It was always Riley for me, always had been. Looked like it was always gonna be, too.
And in that moment, I wouldn’ta wished it any other way.
Chapter Seventeen
The path I needed to take struck me clear as a bell the minute I woke up the next day. I throwed the covers off and hurried through a shower and getting dressed, then sat down at my desk with a hot cup of coffee and a stack of old phone books covering the western North Carolina area.
Turns out, Squirrel is a right common name among the Cherokee. I called ever one I could find, told ‘em who I was and who I was looking for, and got a whole lotta diddly squat.
Which I shoulda expected. I wouldn’ta told nobody nothing neither, was me answering a stranger looking for kinfolk.
Calls done, I flipped the last phone book closed and stuffed ‘em back on the shelves where they normally rested. This woulda been a whole lot easier with an Internet connection. Even if I could afford a computer, and I might could now with the Greenwood Five’s haul sitting in my coffee can bank, I’d have to go to all the trouble of getting a phone line or some such. Way out here in the boonies, who wanted that hassle?
I could ask Riley to borrow his desktop.
Soon as the thought crossed my mind, I dismissed it. Riley weren’t too keen on me tracking down Libby, or didn’t seem to be nohow. I could wonder why from sunup to sundown and it wouldn’t do me no good ‘less I asked, but I weren’t right ready to broach the subject again.
‘Sides which, he was at church right now, or would be soon.
I sat back in my chair and scrubbed my palms down my thighs. Weren’t nothing for it. I was gonna have to wait ‘til the library opened tomorrow so I could go out and borrow one of their public computers.
An itchy restlessness hummed through
my blood ‘til it boiled and writhed inside my veins. I stood up and yanked on a light jacket, grabbed my 1911 and strapped it around my waist, and out the door I went. Had to be some chore I could fill my time with. The path around Henry’s memorial probably needed work. Hadn’t visited him good in a while nohow, so I shot off up the trail, hoofing it like the very hounds of hell was hot on my tail.
The memorial was quiet, peaceful. Fallen leaves coated the ground, near about covering the little angel I placed there to watch over Henry when I couldn’t. I backtracked to the trailer and dug a rake outta the storage shed, and spent half an hour sweeping the memorial and adjacent trail clear.
The burst of activity did naught to burn off the restlessness crawling under my skin. I sat down on the bench, hands on the rake’s handle, and stared at the endlessly blue sky peeking between barren tree limbs. Nightmare intruded, superimposing Henry’s lifeless, skeletal arms over the trees, and I flinched away from it.
It was just a dream, was all. Just a dream.
But still, it lingered and festered in my mind, and no matter what I tried to concentrate on, dinner with Riley tonight or hunting down cousin Libby, or even the problem with the painters, nothing worked. The hellish images stuck there like a blood stain, dark and rusty and awful.
I stood up and whispered a silent apology to Henry, God rest his innocent soul. No chats today, but soon.
I plodded home a lot slower’n I left, stowed the rake away, and clomped back into the house. Hung up my jacket and tucked the 1911 and its holster away, then plopped back down in the chair behind my desk.
The notification light on my cellphone blinked green.
I opened it up and sighed. Missed call from a number I didn’t recognize, eight two eight area code. My heart flipped over in my chest and my blood jittered and sang. That was western North Carolina. Had somebody I talked to earlier changed his mind?
I dialed the number back and waited through three rings, and about collapsed in my chair when a vaguely familiar female voice answered.
