Legacy of Masks

by Sallie Bissell

  “So what have you been up to since Cherokee High?” he asked as he plopped down behind the desk he and Ridge had just lugged up the stairs. “Other than doing in our former sheriff?”

  “Oh, just making a living,” she replied, wishing Deke Keener would get up from her desk and get the hell out of her office. Ignoring his question further, she stood in the center of the room and looked at what they’d accomplished. She’d brought a smallish desk and three worn leather armchairs from Irene’s attic, along with a credenza from her downstairs office. Though none of the pieces matched, they were of good quality, and complemented the room’s turn-of-the-century ambiance.

  “That everything?” Deke asked, finally rising from Mary’s desk as she arranged a small red rug between the two chairs.

  “Almost.” Mary picked up a plastic sack she’d stashed in the corner. Last night she’d gathered a few personal items to bring from home. One had been the spectacular wall hanging that Irene had commissioned her mother to weave; the other was Winona, a funny little statue of a Cherokee earth mother that Mary kept as a talisman. She loved both pieces, and figured that having them in her office would surely bring her good luck.

  She set Winona on her desk and watched as Ridge hung the tapestry on the wall. It looked just as breathtaking here as it had at Irene’s—all the colors of the mountains seemed to glow with a luminosity that had not dimmed over the years.

  “Dunuhdatluhee,” said Ridge, grinning over his shoulder at her.

  “Wahdo,” Mary answered softly. “My mother was a weaver. She thought the mountains were beautiful, too.”

  The boy started to say something else, when they heard a knock on the door.

  They turned. Bethany Daws stood in the doorway. Dressed in her waitress uniform, she carried a plate covered with a blue-checked napkin. For an instant, Mary saw the unreserved brightness of the girl’s smile. Then Bethany’s gaze fell on Deke Keener and all the joy drained from her face as profoundly as if someone had pulled the stopper from a sink.

  “I—I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I thought just you and Ridge would be here.”

  “Come on in, Bethany,” Mary welcomed her. “This is an old classmate of mine, Deke Keener. We just got the last piece of furniture in place.”

  “I brought you some muffins from the café. Orange cranberry. They baked them this morning.”

  “They smell wonderful.” Mary passed the plate to her helpers. “Gentlemen?”

  “Thanks.” Deke stepped forward and grinned at Bethany. “I’ve eaten these things for years. They’re great when they’re hot.”

  Ridge took a muffin, too, but said nothing. An awkward silence sprang up, as if Bethany’s entrance had lowered the temperature of the room about thirty degrees. Mary stole a glance at the girl. She remained in the doorway, as if afraid to step inside the room.

  “Did you two have fun last night?” Mary tried to boot the conversation onto safer ground.

  “Yes,” said Ridge. “We—”

  “I’d better get back to work,” Bethany blurted. “I’ll come back later, Mary, when you aren’t so busy. Enjoy the muffins!”

  Without another word, the girl turned and ran down the stairs, her footsteps resounding sharply. Mary hurried after her, to thank her for the muffins, but by the time she reached the bannister, all that remained of Bethany was the slamming of the street door. Puzzled, Mary returned to her office, wondering why a single glance at goofy Deke Keener would have soured the girl’s mood so.

  “Gosh, was it something we said?” Deke made a joke, his mouth full of muffin.

  “I don’t know.” Mary looked at Ridge. “Have you two had a fight?”

  The boy shrugged. “If we did, I didn’t know it.”

  “That’s the trouble with women, son,” said Deke. “They get mad at things we’ve done, and we’re too dumb to know we’ve done ’em. I have an ex-wife to prove that. Here.” He put the rest of his muffin down on Mary’s desk and extracted a bill from his wallet. “Take this. Buy her a rose. Tell her you love her, and that you’re sorry she’s upset.”

  Ridge frowned at the bill Keener had given him. “But this is fifty dollars. . . .”

  “A small price to pay to calm the waters of young love.” Deke grinned. “Now go on and smooth things over with your girl while I talk to Mary here.”

  Ridge looked at Mary as if asking for some clarification on the crazy ways of white people, but she was silent, equally astonished at Deke’s behavior. “Go ahead, Ridge,” she finally said. “Just don’t forget I need a ride home before you go back to Hugh’s.”

  “Okay. Thank you.” Ridge nodded at Deke, then hurried out the door.

  “That was very generous of you, Deke,” Mary said after the boy had gone.

  “Hey, if I can’t donate fifty bucks to young love, then I’d be pretty pathetic,” he replied, perching on the corner of her desk. “Anyway, that poor girl needs all the help she can get.”

  “She seemed to have an odd reaction to your being here,” Mary said. “How do you know her?”

  “She used to play on my softball team—her dad, in fact, is my number-two man at Keener Construction, and still helps me coach. She was a great little girl when she was on the team, but once she hit high school, she went nuts. Sex, drugs, the works. Everybody in town thinks she’s wonderful, but I get the real story from her mom and dad. She’s one conniving little bitch.”

  Mary remembered the girl’s wistful smile. “Has anybody tried to find out why?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve tried to talk with her several times after church, but she just clams up. Her parents think this new boyfriend has made her worse. They wish he’d just go back to where he came from.”

  “Ridge seems okay to me.” Mary defended the boy who’d so good-naturedly trucked her furniture in from the country.

  “You know, he does. I was surprised when I met him. After listening to Glenn Daws, I didn’t know what to expect.” Deke shook his head. “Who knows with kids these days? I just hope she gets herself back on track.”

  “Me, too,” said Mary, sorry to learn that she hadn’t just imagined the sadness that flickered behind Bethany’s eyes.

  Deke checked his watch and stood up. “I’ve got to go. I’m meeting a man who wants me to build him a golf course on top of a mountain.”

  Mary smiled, brightening at the prospect of his imminent departure. Soon she would be able to draw an unchallenged breath peacefully, in her own office. She stuck out her hand. “Thanks for all your help, Deke. It was great seeing you again.”

  “My pleasure.” He smiled. “Look, I wasn’t kidding earlier. I’m working on a terrific new Cherokee project that you would be perfect for. How about I stop by later this afternoon and go over the specs with you?”

  Mary didn’t know what to say. Though her track record in real estate was abysmal and Deke Keener affected her like fingernails scraping a blackboard, she remembered Mr. Turnipseed, and his costly attempts at finding her a new well. Could she really afford to turn down a client who handed out fifty-dollar bills like they were shiny dimes? “Let me get myself a little more ready to do business,” she hedged. “I’ve still got to get a phone line in and my computer hooked up. Why don’t you come by first thing next week?”

  “How about first thing tomorrow morning?” Deke countered. “If I don’t move on this soon, I’m going to lose some favorable financing.”

  “Well, okay.” Mary gave in. Suddenly she was too tired to joust with him any further. “Come on up about nine and I’ll see what you’ve got.”

  “Great!” He grinned, then leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Welcome home. It’s wonderful to see you again.”

  “Thanks, Deke. It’s good to see you, too,” she replied, hoping that her eyes did not reveal the enormity of her lie.

  9

  Mary closed the door. Immediately the tight knot at the back of her neck began to loosen. For the first moment since she’d gotten out of Hugh’s truck, she was sans Keener.
The silence in her office was delicious, and she stood there for a long moment, just breathing in the Deke-less air. When she walked over and looked out her windows, she saw that her one-man welcoming committee had just crossed the street and was now chatting with an overweight cop who was writing someone a parking ticket. Keener gave the cop’s hand a hearty pump, then got back in his Lexus and pulled into the line of traffic heading west. She sighed. Deke Keener had not changed a bit since high school. He was just as annoying today as he had been on Miss Cooke’s debate team, and she knew exactly why Bethany Daws had looked at him like he was Death himself.

  “He probably harangued her into substance abuse,” she said aloud. Though she knew she was making light of the girl’s possibly serious problems, the idea of Deke Keener counseling troubled teenagers was laughable. No wonder the girl did drugs, thought Mary. I would too if I had to talk over my problems with someone who kept track of old forensics tournaments.

  She turned from the windows and walked over to her desk, trying to picture herself meeting with clients. My God, she’d never had a client in her life. Yet tomorrow morning she was supposed to discuss real estate with a man who billed out sixty mil a year? Better get busy, she decided. At least try to look like you know what you’re doing.

  She got out her cell phone and made arrangements to have two landlines installed. After she chose new numbers with lots of lucky fours and sevens, a nasal-voiced operator promised the installer would be there tomorrow, between eight A.M. and noon.

  She switched off her phone and gazed at the blank plane of her desktop. It looked so dismal with just Winona squatting on it that she took two pens from her purse and dropped them into a Styrofoam cup, and made a mental note to bring some photos from home. After that, she had nothing more to do. She’d forgotten to pack any of Irene’s texts, so her bookcase stood empty. She wouldn’t be able to start reading up on property law until she got home.

  Anxious to get going, she rose and returned to the windows. Across the street, the Mercado Hispaño’s red-and-yellow awning looked festive as a piñata. One bright-faced young Mexican man wearing a red bandanna was crossing the street, heading directly for her office. So were two older painters in white coveralls, and an overweight woman leading a tiny Yorkshire terrier on a rhinestone-studded leash. At first she wondered if word had gotten out that a new lawyer had opened up shop and these people needed legal advice, then she realized that they weren’t coming to her office, they were going to the hardware store just below her.

  “Maybe I should put a sign in Mr. Sutton’s window,” she told herself. “Legal help upstairs. Reasonable rates and se habla español.” Chuckling at the idea of her taking on Mexican clients with her rudimentary knowledge of Peruvian Spanish, she leaned against the windowsill and kept watching for Ridge. As the same young bandannaed Mexican scurried back across the street, she saw a heavyset man with wild gray hair come barreling out of the newspaper office. He chugged across the street like a small locomotive, a smaller, brown-skinned man bobbing along in his wake.

  “Oh, lord,” she whispered. Sam Ravenel, her new next-door office neighbor, was coming to work.

  Sighing, she opened her door. She’d at least try to get off on a better foot with him. Ravenel thundered up the stairs, apparently not caring if Dana was in the middle of a therapy session. When he reached the top of the steps, Mary thought he looked as if he’d been rolling around the Great Smoky Mountains instead of defending them. Bits of leaves and twigs clung to his wild gray locks and he was covered in mud, from the collar of his blue work shirt to the frayed hem of his jeans. He was whistling a jaunty little tune, and until he caught sight of her, he looked almost happy. His diminutive friend followed four steps behind him, wearing cream-colored pointy-toed cowboy boots and a shy grin on his obviously Cherokee face.

  “Oh.” Ravenel stopped his whistle when he caught sight of her. “You moved in.”

  “That generally follows when one signs a lease.” Mary crossed her arms, her hopes for rapprochement fading. What was with this man? Did he hate her in particular, or just everyone in general?

  Ravenel dug in his pocket for his keys. “One can always hope otherwise. I guess Dana needed the money. I understand she needs professional help with her tennis game.”

  Mary tried again. “Look, I’m sorry about yesterday. What kind of plans did you have for this space?”

  He shrugged. “None in particular. But if I’d known Dana was going to rent it to you, I’d have paid her twice the price.”

  Mary’s eyes narrowed as she noted Ravenel’s barrel chest and ponderous belly. There was something more here, something beyond just losing a hundred square feet of office space and three nice windows on Main Street. “You’re a Logan man, aren’t you?”

  “A what?” Ravenel scowled at her.

  “A Logan man. You hate me because I killed the old sheriff, Stump Logan.”

  Ravenel opened his office door wide enough for Mary to see a stuffed raccoon perched on a desk and an old Cherokee fish basket overturned on the floor. “Ms. Crow, I don’t know how many sheriffs you may have killed, but that is not the reason for my antipathy.”

  “Then what is?”

  Ravenel swelled up like a bullfrog. “Because you are among the most despicable lot of vermin God ever put on the earth.”

  Mary was dumbfounded. She’d never seen this man before yesterday afternoon. What lot of vermin could he possibly be casting her in? “You mean because I’m Cherokee?”

  “Because you’re an attorney!” Ravenel looked as if someone had just fed him a spoonful of dog shit. “Now that perfectly nice little office will be turned into just another den of shystery. There are far too many lawyers in this town already, Ms. Crow. We do not need another one!”

  With that, Ravenel opened his door wide enough for his copper-skinned friend to scamper through, then he stepped inside and slammed it shut so hard, the walls shuddered. Mary stood there stunned, wondering if the man wasn’t one of Dana’s ex-clients, on some kind of work-release program from the loony bin. Then she decided that Ravenel must be one of those men who’d gotten the short end of a divorce decree and now blamed the entire legal establishment for their loss. “Boy, I don’t know how much Mrs. Ravenel came out with,” she murmured. “But she deserved every penny she got.”

  She was about to go back in her own office when she heard the door from the street open. This time soft footsteps approached. Ridge appeared.

  “Sorry I took so long,” he said, out of breath. “I wanted to stop in the hardware store and see if they’d sold any of my masks. Are you ready to go?”

  “More than ready,” said Mary, glaring at Ravenel’s door. She stepped into her office and scooped up her purse, happy to be leaving the confines of her new space, however charming it was. “How did it go with Bethany?”

  Ridge shrugged. “I did what that man told me, but she’s still upset.”

  “Did you ask her why?”

  “She wouldn’t talk about it. Said it was a secret.”

  “Then don’t worry about it,” Mary said, locking her door. “Just give her some time. She’ll tell you if she wants to.”

  “I don’t know.” Ridge’s voice was full of doubt. “She doesn’t want to tell me a lot of things these days.”

  Mary paid Ridge twenty-five dollars, then bought him lunch at Hardee’s. They drove home through land that looked like a page torn from a calendar—red barns dotting green fields; black and white cows grazing under a benevolent blue sky. Though much of it had remained as she remembered, she noticed a number of new housing developments sprawling over the mountainsides. Judaculla Close, Quallah Downs, Sequoia Ridge—all resembled the upscale, gated developments that surrounded Atlanta, but these bore the names of ancient, highly revered Cherokees. She winced when she passed a sign advertising “Tsali Trail,” hoping it wasn’t one of Deke’s developments. It would be hard to work for someone who was so shamelessly cashing in on the names of her ancestors.

 
Before she got home, she took one further advantage of having Ridge Standingdeer and Hugh’s truck. She had the boy stop at the grocery, where she bought a week’s worth of water in ten-gallon jugs. Together they lugged it into the kitchen, then Ridge bade her good-bye.

  “I should probably get back to Hugh’s,” the boy said, looking at her with that same frank, but not unfriendly, gaze. “Unless you need me for something else.”

  “No, Ridge. You’ve been more than helpful. Thank you so much. I hope I’ll be seeing you soon.”

  He nodded and hurried back to the truck. Enjoying the embrace of the little house that still bore the stamp of its past owner, she leaned against the back door and watched as he drove down the drive. No ancestral names here, nor gates to keep visitors away. Irene’s house was a haven of warm repose. Pale yellow rooms were decorated with brightly colored rugs, and books spilled from their shelves as profusely as Hugh’s racing trophies did from his mahogany armoires. It’s a satisfied house, Mary decided, smiling as a little glass vase above the sink refracted a small rainbow on the floor. A comfortable house. If only it had water! Ever hopeful, she stepped over to the sink and turned on the faucets, but nothing emerged from the pipes except a hacking choke that sounded like someone enduring the Heimlich maneuver.

  Well, at least you’ve got a client coming, she reminded herself. Even if it meant putting up with Deke Keener, clients meant money. And money, in this case, translated directly into functional plumbing.

  She grabbed a Coke from the refrigerator and padded into Irene’s study, pulling Corbin’s text on contracts from the bookshelf. It was just too pretty a day to read indoors, so she took an orange highlighter and went out on the porch, setting up shop in Irene’s big wicker chair. Mr. Turnipseed had some kind of machine flailing away in one corner of the front pasture, but otherwise, all lay still. Monarch butterflies worked the orange daylilies that bloomed in the garden, and the blackberry bushes that grew along the creek bank were already drooping with the weight of dark, sweet berries that would ripen next month. The day, which for her had begun before dawn, had grown into a perfect example of summer in the Carolina mountains. The sun was warm, the breeze cool, the sky as blue as a bird’s egg. This was what had drawn her back from Peru. This, and Jonathan Walkingstick.