TREASURE KILLS (Legends of Tsalagee Book 1)

by Phil Truman

  “Hey, Soc,” White said to the elder Cherokee. He and Randy approached the scene at a trot. Ninekiller gave a nod to the two, and looked down at the waterlogged Threebuck.

  White, panting, said, “I’ll swan. Did this boy land this flathead on his own?”

  Ninekiller shook his head. “He was in the water. I think the fish pulled him along. When he appeared out of the rain by my boat, I looped my stringer over his free arm and tied it down. Then I rowed him and his fish to shore. I had to drag them up here.”

  White and Randy looked again at Threebuck. He looked two-thirds drowned, naked except for his white briefs and his Confederate do-rag still in place.

  “Three?” Randy asked, and nudged his partner in the ribs with the toes of one foot.

  Threebuck sputtered and coughed, water shooting from his mouth and nose. He looked up bleary-eyed at the three men. He turned his head to look at the monstrous fish still attached to his right arm. He coughed again, and said, “Sumbitch.”

  “I’m thinking this here’s a record, son,” White said. He moved to pry Threebuck’s right forearm and hand from the wide jaws of the catfish. “He’ll go eighty pounds, if he’s an ounce,” he said. “No one’s never, around here, grabbed a fish this size single-handed.”

  Red Randy Brown looked at Socrates Ninekiller and the two traded nods. “O si yo,” Randy said.

  Soc held his chin high, and looked Randy straight in the eyes. He responded in his native tongue, “Hi tsa-la-gi s.” (Are you Cherokee?). He removed his hat and slapped the water off it with his other hand.

  “Tsi tsa-la-gi,” (I am Cherokee.) Randy answered.

  Soc grunted and nodded again. “Tsa-la-gi s hi-wo-ni,” (Do you speak Cherokee?) he asked.

  Randy nodded and said, “Tsa-la-gi ga-yo: tli tsi-wo-ni.” (I speak a little Cherokee.)

  Soc kept looking at Randy studying the latter’s tattoos. Shirtless, Red Randy’s body art showed its extensive array. Soc furrowed his brow, but said nothing.

  Still in Cherokee, Soc asked Randy, “Who are your people?”

  “My people were in the Ross Clan. All in my family are dead now. I am the last,” Randy answered, also in the native tongue.

  “The Ross Clan is not dead,” Soc said. “There are still many. Most I know have kept the old language well.”

  “Are you Ross?” Randy asked the elder.

  Soc looked at Randy, his chin still high in fierce pride. “No, I am Starr,” he said.

  The two looked at one another in silence for several seconds. All Cherokees knew of the old blood feud between the Starr and Ross Clans. In some parts it still lived.

  “If you’uns are done with your powwow, I could use a little help here,” White said as he struggled to free the fish from Threebuck... or vice versa.

  * * *

  White and Randy had retrieved their drenched clothes and shoes, they’d gathered around the fire that Soc had made. White collected some semi-dry pine needles from the woods and placed them on a spot near the fire. He stretched out on the needles, placed his old straw cowboy hat over his face, and went to sleep. Threebuck, wrapped in a dry blanket Soc had given him, sat close to the fire shivering and staring into it. Soc and Randy sat cross-legged next to each other, opposite the fire from Threebuck. It had turned evening on that rain-cooled July day, and they sat in the shade of the hill behind them.

  Randy spoke again to Soc in Cherokee. “I am looking for a place. It is supposed to be near this Eagle Branch. The white men say it is a place with a bent sycamore tree.”

  Half a minute passed before Soc responded, also in Cherokee, “Why do you seek this place?”

  “I have heard of a treasure in these parts,” Randy said. “A white man hid this treasure somewhere around here. If you help me find this treasure, I will share it with you.”

  Soc continued to look into the fire, but he said nothing. Finally, he spoke. “I have no need for white man’s treasure. I already have much of that. It has not brought me much contentment.”

  More time stretched out. White, beside them, snored softly. Threebuck continued to shiver and stare into the crackling fire.

  “I have heard of this treasure about which you speak,” Soc said softly. He stuck a long stick into the fire, and shifted some of the burning wood, sending a spray of sparks upward.

  Randy looked at him and spoke intently, “What do you know about it?”

  “Many men have looked for it,” Soc continued. “But it has never been found. Many say this treasure is cursed. That it will never be found. That it is protected by the Hill Man.”

  “Who is the Hill Man?”

  “He is said to be the spirit of the forest, a demon.”

  Randy snorted, and said in English. “C’mon, old man. That’s just a spook story women like to tell around home fires.” Then he laughed in derision.

  Soc glanced up at Randy then back at the fire without changing expression. “Perhaps,” he continued in Cherokee. “But I think you would do well to forget about looking for this treasure.”

  Randy pressed on, reverting again to Cherokee not wishing the other two to understand the conversation. “I will not stop my hunt. Do you know the whereabouts of this bent sycamore?”

  “Yes, I know of this place,” Soc said. “I used to swim in the stream that ran by it when I was a boy, but it no longer exists.”

  “What do you mean? Where was it?” Randy asked.

  Soc calmly pointed the smoldering stick toward the lake. “The stream fed into the Illinois River; it was known as the Eagle Branch. The place with the bent sycamore was out there before white men made this lake. Now it is under water.”

  “Did you live out here when you were a boy?”

  “No. My brothers and I used to hunt in these woods, and we would swim and fish at that place you spoke of. It was a good swimming hole.”

  “What of the people who lived around here back then; do you remember any of their names?”

  “No one lived in these hills and woods back then. My grandfather had a small farm in a valley about three miles from here. There were a few other farms like his, but none came into the deep woods to live.”

  “More of your...” Randy couldn’t come up with the Cherokee equivalent of the word he had in mind, so he said it in English, “boogey-man fear?”

  The insolence and disrespect in the tone of this rude tattooed young Ross clansman’s voice angered Soc, but he didn’t let it show. Instead he chose to let the man’s arrogance and ignorance teach him a lesson, which most likely would be painful. Young men usually gained more understanding from raw experience than sound advice. If this fellow insisted on continuing to hunt for the Belle Starr treasure, Soc reasoned, then he would deserve the hard reality he would surely learn. But something else troubled Soc.

  “How is it you have come to know about this place with the bent sycamore on the Eagle Branch?” he asked Randy, still speaking in their native tongue.

  Randy answered in English. “I met a white man in Oklahoma City who sold me a map. It started at this bent sycamore.”

  Soc poked the fire some more and said, still in Cherokee, “The white man has sold us many maps, but few have lead to treasures.” Then in English, “Of course, he miscalculated on the casinos.”

  At that, Red Randy broke out in a hearty laugh.

  White started and lifted the hat off his face. He looked around and rubbed his hands over his face. “What time is it?” he asked.

  “It’s getting late,” Soc said. “We’d better get these catfish turned in and weighed.”

  It turned out Threebuck’s catch came in as the largest single catch of the day. At eighty-seven pounds and ten ounces, it weighed a little more than half what Threebuck weighed, even when he wore more than just underpants and a Confederate bandana. The catch won him one hundred dollars in prize money, a small trophy, and the somewhat begrudging respect of the other noodlers. Most generally agreed, after they heard the story, that it’d been beginner’s luck. Despite h
is newfound status, Threebuck assured them all, there would be no rematch.

  Chapter 17

  Punch Calls a Meeting

  Punch had to be careful. He hid in Applegate’s triangular portico and looked up and down the street. One wrong move and he’d come face to face with Sunny, which for sure he didn’t want to do. He knew she was out there somewhere, looking for him. Through stealth, craftiness, and a little bit of luck he’d managed to avoid her for a whole week.

  Near the end of the last Founders Day Committee meeting, he got up and walked out before Euliss whacked her gavel for adjournment. Down the hall, with Sunny coming out of the conference room door and calling to him, he ducked into the men’s room. He stayed there for forty-five more minutes until he was sure the coast was clear. She’d called him on his cell phone but he didn’t answer it. After the second call she left a scorching message.

  “Gale, I know you’re avoiding me and I think we both know why. You’re so stupid. Do you think I don’t know you took that letter from the picture? Why did you do that? You better call me, you big jerk.”

  Well, she had him. He did take the Ed Reed letter from Buck’s picture, although he didn’t necessarily agree with her on the big jerk part. Thinking back on it, he didn’t really have a good explanation on why he took the thing. When he first saw Sunny holding the picture that night, he remembered tales he’d heard about it from Hayward and Buck. Something just came over him. If he had that letter it would be the key to him finding the legendary Belle Starr treasure. But when he got home and read the thing, it made about as much sense as reading an IRS form. By then he was afraid to take it back to Sunny and admit his thievery. He didn’t want the aggravation from the browbeating and name-calling she’d give him, plus the banishment from her hearth, home, and gourmet morning coffee.

  His first plan was to not bring it up at all, and possibly sneak the letter back into its place in the frame behind the picture. That might’ve worked, even with the picture in the hands of the committee and Euliss Purinton, but it caught him totally off guard when Hayward brought up the letter in front of the whole committee, and then discovered it missing. So he had to go to Plan B, which initially only had him making a quick exit from the meeting and hiding in the men’s room. The rest of the plan he kind of made up as he went along.

  Now a week later he’d avoided one thing but unwittingly accomplished the other, that is, he’d avoided Sunny’s inevitable bullying and chastisement for the time being, but lost the pleasure of her company and coffee. He knew, with every hour that passed, the level of her rebuke would increase, and that his day of reckoning would come down on him like a bolt of lightning from Sunny’s dang Mother Oprah Goddess.

  Short of him leaving town, this cat and mouse game couldn’t go on forever. But by the intensity and volume of her cell phone campaign, he was too afraid of her, and too proud, to turn himself in and beg her mercy. Irrational and moronic behavior often accompany a man’s fear of a woman’s wrath, and Punch’s dealings with the women in his life made that especially true. Now, whenever he went out in public, he could only employ the duck-and-cover strategy.

  He planned to work his way down towards Arlene’s at the far end of Main Street. He’d set up a meeting there with Hayward to see if his old friend could somehow help him work this out. Figuring if he turned the Ed Reed letter over to Yost, maybe Hayward could mediate some kind of cease-fire for him.

  Punch hadn’t parked in front of Arlene’s, because that would be the first place Sunny would look. His only safe haven would be the café, believing Sunny wouldn’t want to risk a confrontation with Jo Lynn by coming in after him. Still, given the likely degree of Sunny’s anger, he didn’t want to tempt her by making his location obvious. So, for relative concealment, parking his pickup in the lot behind the City Hall/Police Station, and skulking his way the quarter mile to the eatery seemed prudent.

  “Looking for something?”

  The hag voice of Maxine Applegate made Punch jump. She stood holding the door to the store open a foot looking at him like a craggy-faced and angry bulldog.

  “Damn, Maxine. You scared the crap out of me,” Punch said with some irritation.

  “Who you waiting for?” she asked without apology.

  “I ain’t waiting for nobody,” he said as he peeked cautiously around the corner, and then looked back to his right and across the street, scanning the traffic. “Why?”

  “Well, this isn’t a homeless shelter. You want something in the store, come in. Otherwise, move along.”

  Punch looked at her, and opened his mouth to say something, but decided he didn’t have time to pick a fight with Maxine Applegate. Besides, he wasn’t so sure Maxine wouldn’t go get her broom and start smacking him with it. Or worse yet, turn him into a toad or something.

  He took another quick scan of Main Street, then took off quickly down the sidewalk towards Diz Taylor’s Antiques and Used Furniture, ducking inside when he got to the north door.

  “Why, Punch Roundstep,” the proprietor greeted him. Diz was an ex-high school shop teacher who’d gotten fed up with teenagers and opened this antiques and furniture re-furbishing business.

  “Hey, Diz,” Punch said back to him. He walked along the front window still looking out for Sunny. The store had two entrances, one at either end of the front window, and Punch was headed for the other.

  “You buying or selling?” Diz asked.

  “No thank ya. Just looking,” he answered.

  Diz noticed Punch’s “looking” centered more on the outside, than the inside of the store. He checked a tag on a dining table, and wrote something on a clipboard. “Lookin’ for who?” he asked, as if he didn’t know. The latest Punch/Sunny dust-up had been a hot topic at Arlene’s of late.

  “I’m working my way down to Arlene’s,” Punch said. “Trying to stay low. There’s someone I don’t want to run into.”

  “Ah,” Diz said nodding “Dennis is about to go make a pickup. He could drop you off at Arlene’s, if you’d like.” Dennis was Diz Taylor’s twenty-six year old son, who worked in the store as a driver and custodian in between naps.

  “Believe I’ll take you up on that offer,” Punch said as he backed away from the front window.

  Punch made Dennis circle the block once before he jumped out of the truck and ran into Arlene’s, but once inside it took on the frying pan-to-fire metaphor. Jo Lynn stood at the far end of the counter staring bayonets into him when he came through the door. Ten other pair of eyes looked up, but none as cold and silent as that homicidal gaze from Jo Lynn. All conversation in the place ceased, too.

  “Hey, babe,” Punch said to Jo Lynn with a weak smile. He glanced at the others in the place, all of whom, except Hayward Yost, looked back at Jo Lynn, then to Punch again. Hayward sat on his counter stool placidly drinking his coffee. Punch took the stool next to Yost, keeping his big friend between himself and Jo Lynn.

  “Mornin’ Punch,” Hayward said only slightly looking toward the man.

  “Hey, Hayward,” Punch said. He kept a wary eye on Jo Lynn.

  “Sure a warm stretch of weather we’ve been having,” Hayward said.

  “Not too bad for August,” Punch answered still looking at Jo Lynn.

  “Yeah,” Hayward responded. “Seems kind of chilly in here, though.”

  “Uh huh.”

  Jo Lynn took one of the coffee pots off a burner and started making a round among the tables and booths. Punch turned sideways on his stool, so he could still keep a precautionary eye on her. He didn’t think she would pour that pot of coffee on his head, but you never knew. Better to be safe than sorry.

  Although Jo Lynn was smoldering mad at Punch, she didn’t consider him important enough to assault. In her three-decade relationship with the man, she hadn’t exactly gotten used to the philandering flaw in his character, as much as she had come to expect it. It didn’t make her one bit happy; on the other hand, she’d gone way past the crying, yelling, lamp-throwing hysteria of it all.
It still hurt her, but she’d found different ways to deal with it. Just like he did to his current paramour, Sunny, the man disgusted and infuriated Jo Lynn; but she just couldn’t resist something about him. Unlike Sunny, Jo Lynn had much more experience dealing with Punch, and more or less knew what to expect. He sure wasn’t what you would call a decent man, but he wasn’t a bad man, either; just intolerably flawed. Plus, he was the father of her child.

  “Hi, daddy.”

  Galynn’s voice surprised him. She’d come in from the meeting room after setting it up for the Kiwanis.

  “Well, hey, punkin,” Punch said. “I thought you’d be back teaching.” A childish delight filled his expression when he saw her.

  She shook her head and said, “Another week.” Galynn had gotten a teaching job at the high school when she came back to town, but having virtually grown up in her mother’s café, she took a part time job there, too. Jo Lynn liked having her there, and Galynn liked being there.

  Seeing his daughter genuinely gladdened Punch. Galynn completely owned Punch’s heart, the only female in his life who could make that claim. During her lifetime, under the same roof and apart, he made every effort to indulge her. He knew and she knew that as long as he breathed, he would remain completely wrapped around her pinkie, and both remained happy with that arrangement. Since his latest banishment from Jo Lynn’s home, he saw Galynn rarely, usually only by happenstance.

  “Sure is good to see you, babe,” he said. He stood to put his arms around her in a hug and planted a kiss on her forehead.

  Galynn kissed him back on the cheek, and then asked with a worried look, “What are you doing here?” She, least of all, was no stranger to the situation. She didn’t like the way he treated her mom, and didn’t have much respect for him in that regard. On the other hand, he was sweet and affectionate and had always treated her like a princess. Growing up, she’d always run to her daddy when she and her mother got into it about something. But as an adult, she’d come to realize that all her battling with her mom had come because her mom did her best to raise her to be a responsible, accountable, well mannered, and decent person. Her dad had always bought her anything she desired, but when it really counted he hadn’t been around to do much. So she had love and affection for her dad, but she held her mother in high esteem and respect. If she ever had to take sides, she’d have to stand by her mother.