by Guy Antibes
Sam took a breath. “I’ll pay you for answers.”
“You will?”
He nodded.
The man folded his arms. “A silver fox before I open my mouth to the likes of you.”
Sam found a silver coin in his purse and handed it over. “Why were you running away from me?” Sam asked.
“I thought you might take me away!”
“Why would I do that?”
“I was looking, uh, at your wagon. I know you saw me.”
Sam nodded. “I did. Should you have run away?”
“What kind of a question is that?” the man said. “Of course I should have. You would have taken me to the constable’s house.”
“For doing what?”
The man pressed his lips close together. “I’m done talking to you,” he mumbled through his lips.
“How are you feeling? You know I’m with the visiting healer. I’m contacting those who haven’t made it to Healer Betti’s clinic. Healer Dimple is rather skilled.”
“I got my own medicine,” the man said.
“Were you a miner?”
The man nodded with a furrowed brow.
“What did you mine?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
Sam smiled. “This is my first visit to the mountains. I don’t know much about mining.”
“We mined for coal when we could find a seam and silver and…” The man was going to say more but managed to stop.
As far as Sam could tell, the man currently wasn’t under the influence of an herbal drug. He couldn’t think of any more questions, so he folded his arms. “You can go. I think I’ll relieve myself in the woods here.”
“Suit yourself,” the man said indignantly as he hustled back to his cottage.
Sam took the opportunity to look at the man’s footprint. It matched the one in the herbal plots. He had quickly exhausted his questions, which was a bit disappointing. Snoopers had to ask more penetrating questions, he thought. He had five more houses to visit, so Emmy followed him back to the line of cottages. He tried to ignore the old man peeking out his window as he knocked on the door of the fourth cottage.
None of the others answered their doors, but Emmy barked at the cottage on the end, the home of the other retired miner who hadn’t been seen by the mother. Sam looked inside the window and saw two legs sticking out from behind a couch.
“Hello!” he called and pounded on the door. Sam pulled down on the latch and found the door open. Emmy barked but didn’t run inside, like he expected her to. The smell wasn’t pleasant. He expected that the miner had died.
Sam closed the door and ran to Betti’s clinic. “One of the retired miners is dead and has been for awhile.”
Harrison left Betti to finish up with a patient and accompanied Sam to the miner’s cottage. Sam pulled the latch and opened it.
The healer batted away the smell. “Dead, alright,” he said. He bent over the body. Sam forced himself to stay in the room, breathing through his mouth. “Maybe a week, but not much more. Harrison looked on the kitchen table and found a cloth bag. He sniffed inside. “That’s it. The same concoction.” He picked up the bag. “Time to find the constable. The man in Fussel’s Ford is a part-timer, more of an observer than anything.”
Harrison sealed the cottage and the two of them marched back into the village to the constable’s house. The constable was a tubby man who was in the midst of mixing flour with other ingredients.
“Baking a cake, Seedman?”
“Ah, Harrison. I thought you would ignore me this trip.”
“No such luck. A drug death, if I am right.”
“Drugs?” the rotund man said.
“A hallucinatory potion, if you will. One of the ex-miners is dead. I quickly examined him. Come with us.”
“I can’t do it. I’m in the middle of something,” the constable said.
Harrison paused and stared at the man, face grim. “It’s come with us or say goodbye to your part-time job. It’s your choice.”
“You don’t have the power. You are just an observer.”
“Then try me, Seedman. Just try me.”
The part-time constable took off his apron and threw it to the floor. He was only dressed in his underwear. Sam gaped, but this time Harrison did, too.
“Get some clothes on, man,” the healer said.
Seedman was still buttoning his shirt while he struggled to keep up with Sam and Harrison. They arrived at the miner’s house. All the doors were open, and the body had disappeared.
“Take a good whiff, Seedman,” Harrison said.
The constable did so and gagged. “There was definitely a body here. So you have any more evidence?”
“Am I the constable?” Harrison said before he handed the cloth bag of the herb mixture to Seedman. “Take a whiff.”
The constable smelled the bag. “Herbs. You are right about that.”
They looked through the vacant house. Sam took the bag and let Emmy sniff. She took off through the door and ran into the woods.
“She’s following the dead man’s smell!” Sam said.
Harrison and Sam left Seedman far behind, and then Sam’s ankle began to scream with pain, so he was reduced to a hobble. Sam heard barking and yelling ahead.
The old man Sam had confronted before fought off Harrison with a pollen shovel. Sam could only see someone swinging at his friend. Sam pulled the gold tip off the wand and slammed it into the retired miner’s arm as he was about to strike Harrison. The shovel dropped to the ground. Not far away, a half-finished grave lay open with the body next to it.
Sam looked down at the grizzled face of the dead man. “The miner dragged him here. He doesn’t look too good.”
“Who doesn’t look good?” Seedman said.
“The boy means that he wouldn’t look good if we took him out of the pollen bag. Right, Sam?”
“That is what I meant,” Sam said, nodding. “Now we will have to drag him back for an autopsy, won’t we?”
Harrison smiled. “Yes, we will, and this fine gentleman will help.”
Sam looked at the ex-miner. Harrison had bound his wrist with pollen manacles that he didn’t see.
~
“The miner won’t talk?” Sam asked Harrison who knocked on his door coming back from the autopsy.
“Not at all. I think you got more out of him than I did. Arresting someone does tend to inhibit the conversation. Seedman doesn’t know what to do, but he does have a few birds in his coop. They are trained to return to Mountain View. I sent two. One with our report on the sheep and a summary of the drug trade in Fussel’s Ford.”
“Have you seen drugs before?”
Harrison nodded. “I have, but this particular concoction is stronger than most and can kill, as you witnessed. The ex-miner is addicted and will have a tough time of it in the cell behind Seedman’s house. I’ll be sending a more comprehensive report, including your role in the discovery, via the post.”
“But we haven’t solved anything yet.”
“Did your measurements of the pollen slipper at the herb plots match up?”
“I forgot about that.”
“Let’s do it now.”
Sam pulled out his book and compared the measurements, and they matched. Perhaps that took Betti off his list.
“You can’t convict the man with that, can you?”
“No. Seedman doesn’t have anything on the old man other than his stealing the man’s body out of the house,” Harrison said. “Let’s get some dinner.”
They sat at a table in the common room. The locals looked sideways at them. Their welcome seemed to have cooled in the village.
“We leave tomorrow,” Harrison said.
“But we haven’t caught the drug dealers. The miner didn’t make that ward. We caught him retrieving the drugs in the straw bag.”
“Did we?” Harrison asked. “What if he delivered it? What if the innkeeper is addicted?”
“So we hav
e to stay to find out.”
Harrison shook his head. “Bentwick is sure to send someone to Fussel’s Ford and pick up where we left off. He will be better than either of us directing someone to get to the bottom of this.”
The decision disappointed Sam, but there was little he could do. “We didn’t accomplish anything,” he said.
“More than you think, young man. We wouldn’t have known there was an herb plot in Fussel’s Ford if it wasn’t for you thinking there was something wrong when you first noticed the ex-miner. We will have to see if there is more of this stuff going on in the mountains. Those plots we found would have produced enough of the potion to put everyone in the village under.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
~
T WO VILLAGES LATER, THEY CLIMBED INTO ANOTHER MOUNTAIN REGION, heading to the next stop, Oak Basin. Sam noticed more of the white-barked trees.
“We are close to the mines,” Harrison said.
“What is Oak Basin like?”
“It sits in a bowl. You’ll see these trees along the ridges of the surrounding mountains, but there are oak trees in the bowl, hence the village’s name. It is a market village. It is a little smaller than Riverville; but should be called towns, as far as I’m concerned,” Harrison said. “Since it has a market, there are three inns. My favorite isn’t the nicest one, but the inn with the best food.”
“And the beds?”
“They are good enough,” Harrison said, smiling. They crested a pass and looked down at the deep valley. They would have to negotiate switchbacks to reach the valley floor.
“Why are all the villages in valleys?”
“Water and easier construction, I guess. I’m not a planner,” the healer said. “Keep your eyes open. Oak Basin generally gives me a surprise or two.”
They slowly descended into the basin. The massively-walled village sat by a lake, and uncharacteristically for the mountains, according to Harrison, the valley was fully cultivated. Sam noticed that roads entered the village from four directions, indicating a commercial hub.
“What is the draw, the agriculture?”
“That, plus there are still mines in the mountains. Contracts are traded in the village. The mountains are also filled with game. People like living here, so there are craftsmen of all kinds. I think you’ll enjoy our stay. Oak Basin gets four or five days of our time. I’ll be visiting four healers and won’t need your help, so enjoy yourself.”
Sam worked quite a bit in the last two villages. The healers were older, so Harrison had him help with patients and help make repairs to the clinic portions of the healer’s houses. Sam didn’t mind the work, but he looked forward to wandering around Oak Basin, if it was as varied as Harrison described.
Emmy put her jaw on Sam’s shoulder. He couldn’t help but smile. They were now a pair, and Sam wouldn’t have it any other way. They trundled underneath the gate in the wall. Sam hadn’t appreciated how much space existed between the wall and the village structures.
“Are the walls recent? For growth?”
Harrison nodded. “They don’t even have guards to keep people out. The Gruellians ruled in Oak Basin a few times in history as the border shifted in this area. However, the last time Oak Basin was a Gruellian possession, the town consisted of farmers and a few cottages. That hasn’t been the case for several hundred years, and the Gruellians are no longer united. The walls are in disrepair. It wouldn’t take much to turn them into rubble. That’s the case for most fortifications in the mountains except for Riverville.”
The houses and shops looked newer than most villages, but Harrison drove to an older part of town and stopped at an inn that bordered a very large central square and drew to a stop in the inn’s stableyard.
They made sure the horses and the wagon were secure before heading into the inn. Sam could see the aged beams and how the corners were rounded. It reminded him of many of the older buildings in Cherryton.
Harrison went to the lodging counter on the right side of the bar in the common room. This inn had a dining room as well.
“The boy and myself. I’ll pay four days in advance, but we might extend that a bit,” Harrison said.
“You are lucky to grab my last room. Be thankful it has two beds. The monthly market day is tomorrow, so staying after tomorrow shouldn’t be a problem. That dog is, though. Make sure you keep him on a leash when you go out.”
Harrison nodded. “Thank you for letting us know,” he said, accepting the key to their room. “Can the dog sleep with us?”
“As long as you are responsible. I’d rather you leave a five fox deposit,” the innkeeper said.
“No problem,” Harrison said, placing more money on the counter.
“Your stay includes breakfast and dinner. Lunch is extra. The dining room is open for lunch and dinner.”
Harrison nodded. “I’ve stayed here before.”
“Oh. Please enjoy your visit to Oak Basin.”
“We will.”
They took their bags upstairs. Emmy plodded along with them.
“Her leash is in the wagon,” Sam said. “I’ll go down and fetch it.”
“Go right ahead. I’m going to lie down for a nap. Those switchbacks were a bit grueling.”
Sam told Emmy to stay with Harrison, as he slipped from the room. The dog gave Sam a sorrowful look but ended up on the rug.
He bounced down the stairs. He liked Oak Basin. Tomorrow was a monthly market day. That meant lots of vendors from all over. Cherryton had a few markets, so he expected three times the excitement tomorrow. He grabbed the leash and was about to head back to the room when he noticed two men just inside the gate to the stableyard involved in some kind of intimate transaction. One looked a bit older than Tru and the other appeared to be an ex-miner. No one could see them from the outside, but Sam could.
Sam leaned against the wall and tried to look casual, playing with the handle end of the leash while he watched the exchange. A pollen bag filled with chopped-up herbs was exchanged for money. He didn’t see the bag, but the herb mixture looked like any other chopped-up herbs to him. Sam decided to follow the seller, not the buyer, as he walked past the front of the inn.
The man walked across the square and ran up the steps of the village council building. He never looked back, so Sam didn’t think the man would suspect him of spying. He didn’t want to follow the seller inside the building, so he returned to the inn. Harrison snored away, so he documented the encounter, writing detailed descriptions of the two men and the transaction; then he napped, too.
Sam woke as Harrison stretched and yawned.
“You didn’t wake me up!” Harrison said grinning. “That was a great nap. Was it for you, too?”
“Yes. I had an even more interesting time when I fetched the leash. Did you know the inn’s stableyard is an ideal place for a drug transaction?”
“But not from the stable, right?” Harrison said.
Sam nodded. “Close to the gate. A man who might be in the village council sold a packet of herbs to another man. I followed the seller to the council building across the square.”
“That is quite a coincidence,” Harrison said.
“Unless it happens on a regular basis. I’m going to the market tomorrow, but then I’ll stick around playing with Emma, observing the stable.”
Harrison laughed. “Just like a snoop?”
Sam smiled. “If that is what snoops do, then yes.”
“A word about your unique talent,” Harrison said. “I think we have been too free with letting people know that you can’t see pollen. Unless you feel right about telling someone, keep your talent to yourself.”
“Talent? I don’t consider it a talent,” Sam said.
“Then think of it as a precious bit of information, not for everybody. I have regretted telling Lenny about you ever since we left Mountain View,” Harrison said.
“I know how to be discreet about my pollen blindness. I’ve been able to see through veils and pollen clothes for mos
t of my life. I will do as you say.”
Harrison rubbed Sam’s hair. “It’s not a command, but a suggestion.”
“But a good one,” Sam said, and he meant it.
~
Early in the morning, Sam woke from sounds in the stableyard as it filled up with carts and horses. He looked out the window to see animals tied to hitching posts that ran around the yard. Men and women laughed in the dim light of the promise of dawn. He returned to his bed and looked up at the ceiling, waiting for the sun to hit the window.
The clatter aroused Harrison before that happened. “I don’t think we will get much sleep. Time for breakfast. Let’s wash up and head downstairs.”
The common room was jammed with people. Harrison asked a man and a woman if they would mind sharing their table. The healer was so smooth with people, and he asked it in such a charming way, that the couple looked pleased to be sitting with the healer.
After perfunctory introductions, Harrison regaled them with stories about his annual grand tour of the mountain villages.
The woman narrowed her eyes until they brightened. “You have treated me before in Shovel Vale.”
Harrison dissembled. “I am sorry. I see hundreds of patients during my tours. Was it long ago?”
“Three years ago. I had shingles. You prescribed a salve that worked as well as anything does,” she sighed.
“No recurrences?”
“It ran its course and hasn’t returned. Our healer has treated me with the same salve for dry skin. It is marvelous for that.”
“It should. A dab of sheep’s fat, and there is an oil that can be washed out of sheep’s hair that is added in called lanolin. The concoction smells awful, so aromatic herbs are added, like lavender, to make it smell better,” Harrison said. He put his hand to his mouth. “That should be a secret. Don’t tell your healer what I told you, or she won’t let me visit in a week or two.”
“You’ll be returning this year?” she asked.
“Every year I try to make it to every village. Shovel Vale is just before my last three stops.”
“Shovel Vale is no longer a village,” the husband said. “It has grown, even since last year. There was talk of a large gold discovery in the mountains. It attracted riff-raff to the place like flies to carrion and now the would be miners strut around Shovel Vale as if they own the place.”
