TREASURE KILLS (Legends of Tsalagee Book 1)

by Phil Truman

  With the Little Other tucked under his arm, the creature weaved his way slowly toward the woods out beyond the dwelling and its shelters. He stopped at the tree line about a quarter mile from the cave of his feast, looked up at the setting moon, and gave out a long, loud whoop.

  * * *

  Sunny could not believe someone would steal her kimchi. She suspected it was another one of Gale’s stupid pranks. After going to the barn in the morning to feed the chickens and goats, Sunny saw the door to the root cellar flipped open. She went down into the cellar and looked around at the evidence: the shattered and empty earthen jar, the broken wooden shelf along one of the walls. Gale had even left wads of hair on the floor and on the broken shelf to make it look like his stupid Hill Man had been there. Outside, she noticed that her gnome, Frodo, was gone.

  “Damn you, Gale,” she said into the morning air. “I’ve had just about enough.”

  All this had happened about a month after the other incident when Gale and White Oxley had staged their Hill Man visitation out near her barn, and only two weeks since she’d first planted her pot of kimchi in the root cellar.

  An unidentified noise had awakened her at four in the morning. At first it appeared to come from her dream; a nightmare, actually. In it, she’d been running from pursuers, or at least trying to run. Her legs moved as if stuck in mud, and those who chased her were gaining. Looking back for her pursuers, she saw the faces of the two men with whom Goat had worked. Just as they were about to pounce on her, the big one, wearing war paint on his face, let out a loud war whoop. The dream and the sound had startled her awake, and she lay there several minutes, listening. Still in the throes of the dream, she heard the sound again, but from much farther away. It made her shiver.

  Now her kimchi was completely ruined. She’d sampled some of it after it sat for one week in the cellar, but decided to leave it there to ferment for a few more days. There seemed to be no doubts about its medicinal and metaphysical powers. A plantar wart on the ball of her left foot had completely disappeared two days after her sampling, and she’d felt a loosening and dispersion of a malignant spirit sensed in her house, particularly in the bathroom, where she had to spend some extra time after that first small bowl of kimchi. She felt cleansed.

  This vandalism infuriated Sunny. Only Punch knew about the pot of kimchi. Now another batch would have to be made, and the ingredients weren’t all that cheap or easy to come by. This annoyed her to no end.

  Because of everything involved in making another pot full of kimchi, Sunny put off doing it again until the fall. It was an involved process and the ingredients weren’t readily available. So she didn’t get around to it, until early October. But she most definitely got around to blasting Gale. And if his persistent adolescent games with this Hill Man hoax weren’t enough, which he had, of course, adamantly denied, the stupid idiot had also stolen the Ed Reed letter from behind Buck’s old picture of his grandfather. True to form, he’d denied that, too. That had been the last straw. Sunny decided she was done with Gale once and for all. He’d managed to avoid her for several weeks—a good thing for him, because if she ever caught up with him again she would likely pull out her six-shooter and plug him.

  Chapter 19

  Nan Gets a Ticket

  Officer DuFranc sat in his patrol car at the four-way stop where Elm and McKinley Streets crossed, and watched the big green sedan roll past the stop sign to his left and on through the intersection. The car had approached the stop sign at about twenty miles an hour, and neither slowed down nor sped up as it proceeded past him. He sighed, shook his head, flipped on his flashing emergency lights, and wheeled around the corner pulling in behind the sedan. After a half a block, he gave a short “whoop whoop” on the siren when he realized the driver didn’t see him. After another half block of this slow speed chase, without any apparent response from the driver, he gave the siren a full blast. But the large sedan kept rolling at its leisurely pace along McKinley Street. From Officer DuFranc’s vantage point, it didn’t appear the car had a driver, but he knew it did and he knew who it was. If she ever pulled over, this would be the third time this month he had stopped her.

  The car was a 1997, Tourmaline Green Mercury Grand Marquis. It was about as big as a tugboat, and the way Nan Dorn drove it, about as fast. After her husband R. B. passed away in 1986, Nan had traded her 1981 Crown Vic in on a brand new Mercury Grand Marquis. Then in 1997 she traded that one for this one. That shade of green wasn’t her first choice in colors. She much preferred the Light Prairie Tan, but the salesman she had talked to on the phone had crossed her up.

  “What colors do you have there,” she’d asked when she called the dealership.

  “I only got two Grand Marquis in stock right now,” the salesman said. “One is your Light Prairie Tan, and the othern is your Tourmaline Green.”

  “Well, I think I’ll take the tan one. Will you hold it for me? I should be able to make it over there sometime this afternoon.”

  “Oh, yes ma’am. We’ll have it ready for you, Miz Dorn. You just come on over.”

  But by the time Nan got there, another salesman had sold the Light Prairie Tan Grand Marquis, which left only the Tourmaline Green one.

  “I just don’t know,” she said to the salesman with obvious disappointment. “It kinda looks a Christmas tree ornament to me.”

  “Well, I think it’s a dang pretty color, Miz Dorn. In fact, that there green is just about the same color as your eyes. Green’s a good color for you.”

  Nan gave the salesman a squinty look. “When do expect to get some more in?”

  “Oh, prolly won’t be for another three weeks, at the outside. Tell you what, let me talk to my sales manager. He’s a hardnosed ol’ peckerwood, but I’m gonna go to bat for you and see if I can’t get you an exter five hunnert on your trade-in. How’s that sound?”

  “Well, okay. I guess that’d be alright,” Nan said without much enthusiasm.

  That had been ten years ago. In the next twenty-eight and two tenths miles, the odometer would turn over sixteen thousand.

  Officer DuFranc finally turned on his P.A. and said, “Miz Dorn, please look in your rearview mirror.”

  When he saw the little eyes in the silver hair framed face looking back at him, he said, “Now pull over to the right and stop your vehicle.” She slammed on her brakes and stopped right in the middle of the road.

  Officer DuFranc swore a little as he quickly applied his own brakes, then keyed the P.A. again. “No, now you need to pull on over to the right side of the street,” he said. And finally she pulled the big cruiser off the road with a few jerks and stops.

  When Officer DuFranc came up to Nan’s window she said, “Charlie, why are you stopping me? I’m in a hurry.”

  “Yes, I can see that, Miz Dorn. But you ran a stop sign back there at Elm.”

  Nan furrowed her brow and looked confused. “I did? Are you sure?” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am. You came through the intersection right in front of me.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Well...”

  “Now, Miz Dorn,” Officer DuFranc said in his stern paternal traffic cop tone, and he boomed his bass voice a little, knowing about her hearing issues. “This is the third time I’ve had to stop you this month. Once for driving down the middle of the street, once for running over those traffic cones around that repair zone, and now for running this stop sign. And on top of all that, you never have on your seatbelt like I’ve told you to.”

  “Oh, Charlie, I don’t like to wear seatbelts,” she said while shaking her head.

  “I know, Miz Dorn, but it’s the law.”

  “Well, it may be the law, but that doesn’t make it right. Just look at this.” She pulled the strap over her front and snapped it in place. The shoulder/torso strap crossed her face at her mouth and chin. She pulled it down and looked up at Officer DuFranc. “If I had a wreck, this thing would break my neck.”

  Looking down at the frail little woman, Officer DuFran
c had to admit she had a point. Despite her inattentive driving, he knew odds favored her not having an accident. She only drove to the grocery store, her church, her hairdresser, and her committee meeting at City Hall, all of which were no more than three-quarters of a mile from her home. And she never drove over twenty-five miles an hour going to and from those places.

  “Miz Dorn I’m going to let you off with a warning on the seatbelt infraction, but I’m going to have to give you a citation for running that stop sign. You’re supposed to wear that seatbelt when you’re driving. Maybe if you got a pillow or something to sit on, the seatbelt would be more comfortable.”

  “Well, okay, Charlie. I’ll see what I can do,” she lied. But she said in all sincerity, “I’m real sorry about that stop sign.”

  Officer DuFranc wrote some more on the citation, then handed Nan the ticket book for her to sign. “You really need to pay better attention to your driving, Miz Dorn. I’m telling you right now, one more moving violation and they’re going to suspend your license.”

  “Okay, Charlie. I’ll be careful.”

  Officer DuFranc tore the bottom copy of the citation off the pad and handed it to Nan. “You have a nice day, Miz Dorn,” he said.

  “Why, thank you, Charlie. You have a nice day, too.”

  Once back in his patrol car, Officer DuFranc watched Nan start up the SS Dorn, shift it into reverse, and almost ram him before putting it into a forward gear. She pulled back out onto the street without looking back to see about any on-coming traffic. Once she moved safely into the traffic lane and headed forward at her customary twenty miles an hour, Officer DuFranc switched off his flashing lights. Short of following her everywhere, he didn’t know how else to warn people Nan Dorn and her tourmaline green battleship were back on the road.

  The outside temperature approached ninety that morning in early September with the humidity well into the sixty percent range, but Nan had all her windows down in the Grand Marquis and the air conditioning off. Just like the seatbelt, Nan didn’t much care for the car’s air conditioner. It made her too cold. The twenty mile-an-hour breeze from her open windows kept her plenty cool enough. Carol June, her hairdresser, had put enough hairspray on her hair to keep her little silver-blue “do” from flying apart in the wind. Once she was out ahead of Charlie DuFranc and had kicked it up to twenty-five miles an hour, the air turbulence swirled brisk enough inside the Grand Marquis to pick up several pages of her latest set of Founders Day Committee minutes and blow them into a small tornado.

  Nan always carried her stuff in a large cloth purse when she left the house. It had a greenish brown color, kind of corduroy in texture, with maroon and blue paisleys all over it, and about a quarter the size of Nan when fully loaded. When she’d opened it to look for her billfold, which held her driver’s license, she’d pulled out the leather folder containing her printed minutes of the last Founders Day meeting, and tossed it onto the passenger seat. There, it fell open leaving the loose leaves of the minutes exposed to the wind. She’d reached over to knock down the spinning sheets and closed the folder back on them, but not before one page had made its way into the back seat and out the left rear window.

  The errant page contained some of her fiction loosely based on that part in the last meeting where several members had discussed the potential and advisability of making public the Legend of the Belle Starr Treasure.

  During the meeting, the actual discussion went like this:

  BOBBY JOHN: This thing could be a gold mine. The potential revenue it could generate for the town is immense.

  And Nan wrote:

  ...said he thought it was a gold mine. Then he said the torrential avenue for the town would be intense.

  HAYWARD: Son, you have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re headed down the wrong path with this. I believe that this Belle Starr Treasure story is a horse that shouldn’t be ridden.

  Hayward pointed his finger at Billy John and said quite sternly that he was headed down a strong path. Hayward then said he believed catfish and the Belle Starr treasure, of course, couldn’t be hidden. I guess Hayward was referring to Bobby John’s the catfish noodling contest.

  BOBBY JOHN: I don’t understand why you’re so afraid of this. The legend of the Belle Starr Treasure is as much a part of this town’s history as that stupid Hill Man. People love that kind of stuff, and they’ll spend their mother’s savings if they thought they could find hidden treasure. That would be the same principle casinos work on.

  Bobby John responded that he was afraid of fish, and that the pleasure of Belle Starr is at the heart of the town’s mystery. Then he called Bill Ganns stupid, although I’m not sure why he would say that, as Bill Ganns has been dead for almost thirty years. Then I think he said, ‘People loved that old gruff.’ And he added there’s another engraving in a box that would lead to the hidden treasure. Then he mentioned Woody Cabrino who was the high school principal back in the 50’s. But he’s dead, too.

  SOC: You don’t want to mess with the Hill Man.

  Soc Ninekiller said why don’t we all let Bill Ganns rest. That man doesn’t say much but when he does it’s meaningful.

  PUNCH: Yeah, Soc’s right. That Hill Man ain’t something you want people roaming around in the woods lookin’ for.

  Punch Roundstep said Bill Ganns could paint something you’d look for. I’m not sure what he meant by that. Maybe it has something to do with that engraving.

  BOBBY JOHN: Oh, hell, Punch. What do you know about it. All of you are acting like a bunch of old women.

  Bobby John told Punch he should track an oak lunch wagon. It seems to me Buck Buchanan had an old wooden wagon he used for church hayrides, but I don’t remember him ever serving lunch on it. Maybe that wagon has something to do with the treasure they keep talking about.

  HAYWARD: We don’t need to stoop to name calling, Bobby John. All I’m saying is that the kind of riffraff any publicity or advertising you put out about that treasure or the Hill Man will bring about disorder in this town that will more than offset any revenue it brings in. You can’t go off just blaring like a French horn on all this.

  ...and then Hayward called Bobby John stupid and said he thought we should measure Bill Ganns by the duplicity of the big rat’s singing out down on Border avenue. Then he said what Bobby John was wearing made him look like a French whore. I thought that was kind of a strange way of putting it, but it is true Bill Ganns sang in the First Baptist choir. And I don’t think Bobby John dresses like a French whore, but he certainly does smell like one.

  BOBBY JOHN: Your argument is absurd, Hayward. Look at the casino. It attracts a lot of idiots, oddball flakes, and weirdos, and our authorities seem to handle them pretty well.

  JORGE: I don’tink jew should characterize all my clientele as hodbols, eedios, an’ wheirdos.

  Jorge said something about jews capitalizing on the whereabouts of the mine, but I’m not sure that’s true either. More likely it was some Indians.

  PUNCH: Jorge’s right. I go to the casino, and I ain’t any of them things. I ain’t no old woman neither. You call me one more name, Bobby John, and I’m coming over there to punch your lights out.

  SUNNY: There’s no need to threaten each other with harm. We have plenty of opportunities to choose from. This Belle Starr treasure doesn’t need to be the focus of our agenda. I know the Hill Man is part of the town’s lore and stuff, and that the casino has been the town’s saving grace, but I also agree that the use of the Hill Man legend to lure tourists would do more harm than good. I doubt there’s any truth there.

  Sunny Griggs said there were plenty of clues for the Belle Starr treasure in her barn. She must have been talking about that wagon of Buck’s. She said the engraving from Bill Ganns and Cabrino was in her barn also, and could cure any doubters.

  * * *

  Soc Ninekiller liked to bring Wahaya U s di to the old Veterans Park and let him roam. He did this almost every morning. Charlie DuFranc had chided Soc for that, saying Soc
wasn’t supposed to let his dog run free, even in the park. He’d given Soc a warning ticket a time or two, but he’d never done anything beyond that.

  The first time, Charlie had gotten out of his patrol car and walked over to the park bench where Soc sat. “Morning, Soc,” he said. Soc nodded. “You know,” Charlie said, hooking his thumbs in his belt. “You’re not supposed to let your dog off its leash. I could give you a ticket for that.”

  Soc nodded again, and then called out to the miniature Alaskan Huskie who was running about on a vigorous sniffing tour some thirty yards away. The little dog looked up at Soc and DuFranc, then gave the base of the sweet gum tree one last sniff before romping back to his master. Once there, he gave Officer DuFranc a tongue lolling, dog-grinning greeting by putting his front paws on DuFranc’s left knee and then giving him one “woof.”

  Charlie bent down to rub the dog’s furry head, and said, “Hey, girl. How you doing? Huh? How you doing?”

  “Woof,” the dog answered.

  Soc smiled and said, “Little Wolf likes you.”

  “She’s a cute dog,” DuFranc said. He scratched the side of the dog’s face and behind its ear. “Yeah, you’re a cute girl, aren’t you?” Little Wolf continued to grin back at DuFranc and wagged his tail enthusiastically.

  “He’s a son of a bitch,” Soc said.

  “What?”

  “Little Wolf ain’t a she.”

  “Oh,” DuFranc said. “Well, you need to keep him on a leash when you’re out here. If he bit a kid or someone, it would cause a whole lot of trouble.”

  Soc snapped the leash he held onto the loop in the dog’s collar, and nodded to DuFranc again.

  “Hope you enjoy the rest of the day,” DuFranc said, and returned to his cop car.

  After that, DuFranc stopped a time or two to say something about the leash law and all, and Soc would clip the leash back onto Little Wolf’s collar, but Soc didn’t take him serious. He believed all Charlie really wanted to do was scruff and pet Little Wolf. The two—the small Huskie and the policeman—had become great friends.