Legacy of Masks

by Sallie Bissell

  “Hugh—take your medicine. Take it now.”

  The old man obediently handed her the horse’s lead and dug a small blue plastic bottle from his pocket. With shaking hands, he poured some tiny white pills into his palm.

  “That bloody fat fool came into the paddock,” he went on, dropping two of the pills under his tongue. “Walked right up to Ridge. Said he wanted to talk to him about Bethany Daws. When Ridge asked why, the bastard told him she was dead.” Hugh pulled a bandanna from his pocket and wiped his forehead. “Sweet Jesus, the boy had no idea! You could tell that by the look on his face.”

  “What did Ridge do then?” asked Mary, eyeing the cop with the sunglasses.

  “Knocked that bastard down, he did,” the old man said proudly. “Then when he saw he was trapped in the paddock, he ran into the barn. He’s been holed up in there ever since. For the love of God, Mary. Don’t let them kill him!”

  “Okay, okay.” Mary wrapped her arms around the old man, who was trying desperately not to cry. Since the boy in the barn wasn’t going anywhere, her first concern was easing the stress on Hugh’s heart. “Go sit in Deke’s car. I’ll talk to the detective.”

  She felt his body stiffen in her embrace. “It’s my barn and my boy, Mary Crow. If there’s any talkin’ going on, I want to be part of it.”

  She stepped back and spoke softly. “Okay, but I need you to be calm, Hugh. Waving that cane around won’t help a thing.”

  Hugh muttered some Irish thing she couldn’t understand, but he took Cushla’s lead rope and meekly followed Mary back over to the detective, who was now leaning against a police cruiser. By the gold badge on his belt and the bullhorn beside him, she assumed he was the officer in charge. She stepped forward and matched his wooden cop expression with her best lawyerly glare.

  “Detective? Would you apprise me of the situation?”

  The man stared at her for so long that she wondered if he’d heard her. She started to repeat her question, then she realized that she wasn’t in Deckard County anymore; cops no longer had to heave to just because she showed up on the scene. Okay, she thought, biting back her anger. Two can play this game.

  She stared into the man’s sunglasses for another beat, then she gave a tiny shrug of her shoulders and started walking toward the barn. She hadn’t gone two steps before the officer snapped: “You can’t go in there. There’s an armed fugitive from justice in there.”

  “Has this so-called fugitive been charged with anything?” asked Mary.

  The man smirked. “Not yet. But his girlfriend got her head bashed in last night.”

  “Have you questioned him yet, Detective?”

  “No.”

  “Then if you haven’t either questioned or charged him, how can he be a fugitive from justice? Justice implies judgment, and since no charges have been placed against him, judgment could not have been rendered. So that boy’s really not a fugitive from anything, is he?”

  The detective did not move.

  Mary continued. “It looks to me that he’s fleeing from what he perceives to be danger, which, I must say, I would too, if I had been peacefully doing my job and suddenly found myself surrounded by six men aiming rifles at me.”

  The man’s mouth drew down in an even more sullen line. “Who the hell are you?”

  Mary dug her wallet from her purse. None of her old Georgia IDs would cut any ice with this guy, so she handed him one of her homemade business cards. “My name is Mary Crow. I’m Mr. Kavanagh’s attorney.”

  He studied her card with excruciating slowness, then gave her a sneering smile. “You’re the one who whacked Logan, aren’t you?”

  Mary thought of half a dozen snappy comebacks, but decided to save them for another time. Instead, she turned to Hugh. “Have you got any guns in that barn, Hugh?”

  “Aye. A pistol and a varmint gun.”

  “Any ammunition?”

  “A box or two, likely.”

  She turned back to the officer. “Gosh, Detective, it looks like you’ve turned this into a real situation. You rush the barn, some of your men could get hurt. Or the boy could freak and kill himself.” Mary shook her head. “I know you’re not going to believe this, but not only did I whack your old boss Logan, but I went to high school with your new boss Cochran. And I know for a fact that he isn’t going to like an apprehension of a suspect going down like this.”

  The man crossed his arms, now defensive. “I don’t see as how that’s your problem.”

  “Plus the boy’s an Ani Zaguhi Cherokee. He doesn’t speak English well and he’s lived so far back in the mountains that he doesn’t understand police procedure. You mess this up and you could have both the BIA and the ACLU on your back.” This was utter nonsense, but this guy looked like he might have difficulty keeping up with anything beyond the latest NASCAR standings.

  One corner of his mouth twitched with uncertainty; she knew she had him.

  “And as I’m Mr. Kavanagh’s attorney, and as this is Mr. Kavanagh’s property and you don’t, apparently, have any kind of warrant, how about I go in and talk to this young man? I get the boy to come out, drive downtown to answer your questions. You look good, I look good, nobody goes home wearing any bullet holes.”

  The detective puffed up. “What makes you think you can persuade him better than this?” He touched the butt of the pistol that peeked from his shoulder holster.

  “Ahya Tsalagi,” Mary said curtly. “I speak his language.” Without another glance at the detective, she headed toward the stable, her footsteps the only sound as the eyes and gun barrels of Pisgah County’s finest stayed trained upon her.

  Inside, the stable was a cool and dark refuge from the midday sun, sweetly aromatic with hay and horse feed. With all the horses grazing down by the creek, the structure stood empty, its silence broken only by the meowing of two calico cats. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she realized she should announce herself, lest Ridge mistake her for someone with a badge and a gun.

  “Sheeoh? Ridge? This is Mary Crow. Toe heju?” In Cherokee, she asked how he was.

  No response. Taking two steps forward, she tried again.

  “Ridge?” She looked at the ladder that led up to the hayloft. That was the place he likely would have gone, she decided, though she still heard nothing. Frustrated with her limited Cherokee, and aware that the cops’ patience would not last forever, she switched to English, and directed her words toward the loft above her head.

  “Ridge, you don’t need to be afraid of me. I can help you, but you’ve got to come out so we can talk.”

  Again, she heard nothing. She sighed. Ridge wasn’t going to give up easily. Moving quickly, she walked over to the ladder and began climbing, purposefully making a lot of noise. Just as the top of her head poked through the hayloft door, something flashed inches from her face. Instinctively she blinked. When she opened her eyes again, she saw the glittering prongs of a pitchfork, inches away from the end of her nose. Ridge stood, shirtless and barefoot, holding the pitchfork on her, his eyes wild with fear.

  “Waynuh goee!” he growled, the thick muscles of his arms taut. “Go away!”

  She held up her hands. “I’ve come here to help you, Ridge. We’ve got to talk!”

  “I have nothing to say!” The lethal tines of the pitchfork trembled as he shook the thing at her.

  “Those men outside need to ask you some questions, Ridge.”

  “They think I killed Bethany, don’t they?”

  “I don’t know what they think. But they need to talk to you.”

  “Then why did they come with guns?” he asked bitterly. “Why do they try to scare an old man?”

  “Because they’re bullies,” Mary replied. “But they still need to talk to you.”

  “Yeah. First they talk, then they kill me. For killing Bethany.” The boy’s voice cracked.

  “That’s not how it works, Ridge. Before they kill anybody, they have to bring a case against them in court. They have to have a trial. They hav
e to prove that someone did it.”

  “But I didn’t kill her! I loved her!”

  “That’s what you have to tell them, Ridge. And I’ll go with you when you do it. If you stay here, it’ll only get worse. They’ll bring more cops, more guns. They’ll be like dogs after a rabbit. Only you will be the rabbit.”

  He considered that in silence.

  “And don’t forget Hugh,” she continued. “This is putting him under a terrible stress. If you stay in here much longer, his heart will give out. Already, he’s sick and taking his medicine. Look outside, if you don’t believe me.”

  The boy made no move toward the window. “Is she really dead?” he asked softly, his eyes glistening.

  “I’m so sorry,” Mary answered. “But I think she might be.”

  He stood there, pitchfork in hand, gazing at her but seeing some private thing, totally his own. Though he shed no tears, she watched as his heart broke by inches, his face revealing a sadness so raw that she had to turn her eyes away.

  When she looked back up, the pitchfork was pointed no longer at her, but at a spot just beneath his chin. For a terrible instant, she thought he was going to plunge the thing into his neck. But instead, he slowly raked the pitchfork down his bare chest, opening four neat furrows that spurted bright red blood.

  “Ridge!” she cried. “Stop!”

  He said nothing, but threw the pitchfork in the corner of the loft. Then he lifted his hands and face upward, rivulets of blood turning the straw at his feet red. A sudden chill came over the barn. The warm summer breeze that had just jingled the wind chime turned brisk and strangely cold. Ridge lowered his face to gaze at her. Mary gasped. Where moments before he’d looked like a despairing young man, his face now bore the savage angles and hooded eyes of an angry beast, wounded and hurting.

  “Ridge?” Her voice came out in a whisper. Never had she seen anything like this, and though she was a full-grown woman who did not believe in ghosts, she couldn’t help but remember Aunt Little Tom’s dark Ani Zaguhi stories. “Ridge, are you okay?”

  He turned his face away from her and in a high, keening voice, chanted a song so old, she had no idea of its meaning. The words sounded like the weeping of the damned. She stood there on the ladder, the hair on the back of her neck lifting, until Ridge finished. When he looked at her again his features had softened back into their familiar lines. This time, his eyes recognized her, and when he spoke, he used the English she best understood.

  “I have only one thing to say, Mary Crow.”

  “What’s that?” she asked, clinging to the ladder.

  “I did not kill Bethany Daws.” He swept his right hand under his chin.

  Mary recognized his gesture immediately. It meant that Ridge had just said all he was going to say about Bethany Daws, and for all intents and purposes the subject was forever closed.

  “Okay.” Mary nodded. “But the police will still want to talk to you. Will you come down now? For Hugh’s sake?”

  The boy looked around the hayloft as if considering his options, then his dark eyes met hers unflinchingly. “Only because of Hugh,” he replied.

  She backed down the ladder. A moment later he stood beside her, gazing out into the sunlit world beyond the stable door. Deke and Hugh and the lumpish detective huddled next to the police car while half a dozen men with rifles stood posted around the paddock. All stared intently at the stable door.

  “Will they kill me?” Ridge’s coppery skin glistened with sweat and blood.

  “No. They’ll take you downtown, where they’ll ask you questions about Bethany.” Mary told him the truth, but left out the fact that they would probably question him for hours and then throw him in a small windowless cell, only to question him more. She hated that for him, but they had the right to hold him for forty-eight hours. “Don’t worry. I’ll go with you.”

  “If I do as they want, will they leave Hugh alone?”

  Mary nodded. “They have no need of Hugh.”

  Ridge turned, casting a longing glance out the back door, where hazy, violet mountains glimmered in the distance. Up there, in some Appalachian Xanadu, was his home. How he must long to go there now! For an instant she held her breath, wondering if he wasn’t going to leap over the gate and just run like hell for home. But instead he turned and squared his shoulders. “Okay,” he said. “I’m ready.”

  “I’ll go first,” said Mary. “You walk right behind me. Hold your hands up so they can see you don’t have a gun.”

  “Like on TV?” He held his hands up shoulder-high, palms out, fingers spread wide.

  She nodded. “That’ll do.”

  She stepped out into the sunlight. “Detective, have your men shoulder their weapons. The boy’s surrendering, unarmed.”

  The detective hesitated, then gave a nearly imperceptible nod. “Do it her way, boys,” he called.

  The men pointed their rifles into the air. Mary glanced once behind her, then said evenly, “Okay, Ridge. Just follow me. We’re going to walk over to that police car.”

  He made no response, but she started walking anyway. She knew he would follow—it would dishonor Hugh if he didn’t.

  Midway across the paddock she looked back, half wondering whether a man or a beast was following her. To her relief she saw a handsome young man walking about six feet behind her, his hands raised. When they neared the police car, two uniformed cops came out and grabbed his arms.

  “Get over here, you little bastard,” said one, grabbing Ridge’s ponytail and jerking his head back, hard. “Some big bad brave you are, walking out of there behind a woman.”

  Ridged stiffened his legs and balked, but it was too late. The officers hauled him over to the waiting squad car, throwing him in the back and slamming the door.

  Before Mary could utter a word, the car started to pull away. Quickly she ran toward it. Ridge sat pressed against the window, his eyes pleading, reminding her of a dog she’d once seen being hauled to the pound.

  “Don’t say anything until I get there,” she called, amazed at the words coming out of her mouth. What was she thinking? She was a prosecutor, not a defense attorney. “I’ll be five minutes behind you!”

  With that, Ridge’s car sped off, followed by the rest of the policemen. White dust billowed behind them as they tore down Hugh’s driveway.

  She hurried over to the Deke’s Lexus. He stood there, one hand supporting Hugh while he held the young mare by her lead rope. Though Keener looked bright-eyed as a squirrel, Hugh’s face was ashen pale.

  “Hugh, are you okay?” Mary asked.

  “I think so,” he said, breathing heavily. “At least they aren’t going to kill the lad before my eyes.”

  “Come on.” She grabbed the lead rope from Deke and tugged the horse toward the open fields. “Let’s turn Cushla out to graze with her friends. We’ve got to get going.”

  “Where to?” Deke asked, trotting along beside her.

  “Downtown to the Justice Center,” said Mary, marveling both at the strange boy who changed at will from man to monster and the equally strange words issuing from her mouth. “It looks like I’ve just gotten my first client.”

  16

  Deke sped them back to town. Mary had told him to hurry—she knew from her Atlanta days that suspects often arrived at the jail in considerably worse condition than when they’d been picked up, and she didn’t trust that loutish detective not to pull off into some little mountain cove and give Ridge a taste of Pisgah County justice.

  “What will they do to him?” Perched in the middle of the backseat, his gnarled fingers worrying the head of his cane, Hugh seemed to read her thoughts.

  “They’ll interrogate him,” Mary answered bluntly. “To find out what he did last night.”

  “After they beat the shit out of him.” Deke giggled.

  “Not if you get us there in time,” she snapped, irritated that he would laugh about such a thing in front of Hugh.

  “Will they let him come home after they’re
done with him?” The old man’s voice rose with hope.

  “I don’t know, Hugh.” She told him the truth, but gently. “In the States they can hold you for forty-eight hours.”

  “That one won’t stand bein’ locked up,” said Hugh, his tone ominous. “It’ll kill him, as surely as a noose around his neck.”

  Pisgah County had acquired a new jail in her absence. The opening of the Cherokee casino had necessitated larger facilities, so the quaint old building with the potbellied stove had given way to a new low-slung, sprawling structure that reminded her of a bunker. Though the lobby was clean and painted a cheery banana yellow, Mary recognized the familiar stink of jail the instant she walked in the door. All of them smelled alike—a combination of disinfectant and failed deodorant, overlaid with notes of cigarette. Not that anybody was ever allowed to smoke—in jail, all your stored-up nicotine just oozed out your pores.

  She left Hugh and Deke in the waiting area and walked to the desk, where a gum-chewing female officer with hair of indeterminate color sat behind a computer screen.

  “I’m here for Ridge Standingdeer,” said Mary. “I’m afraid I don’t know his case number.”

  “He an inmate?”

  “He was brought in just a few minutes ago.”

  The woman glanced at Mary’s straight, raven hair. “DUI from the reservation?”

  Mary gave the woman a frosty smile. Apparently some staff members here still assumed that Indians had trouble holding their firewater. “Actually, he’s being questioned on a homicide,” she replied, enjoying the little flicker of alarm in the woman’s eyes. “Considerably off the reservation.”

  The clerk pursed her lips. “You the attorney of record?”

  Mary hesitated. In her whole career she’d never defended as much as a jaywalker. Yet here was a young Cherokee, a boy Hugh clearly loved, in very deep trouble. Surely she could at least make sure his rights were protected until a real defense attorney took over.

  “Yes,” she told the woman steadily. “For now, I am.”

  “Are you on our register?”

  Mary shook her head. “I’ve just recently moved back to town.”