In a Dark Season

by Vicki Lane

  She sounds like someone reciting poetry—or describing a vision, thought Elizabeth as Amanda continued on, her voice low and dreamy.

  “And the sound, the continual low purr of the river and the paddles splashing—it was hypnotic: no one wanted to break the silence. Josh would give directions—you know, ‘Paddle left,’ or ‘Back right,’ just loud enough to be heard. And then we began to hear the rapids, a low, continuous roar almost like surf at the ocean.

  “And it got louder and louder and we were going faster and faster and down the river we could see the molten silver turning to white foam and then the roar was so loud that we could hardly hear Josh’s voice and just when it seemed like we might be going over the edge of the world, Josh pointed to this light on shore and steered for it, yelling, ‘Paddle hard if you don’t want the Dakwa to get you!’”

  Amanda stopped abruptly, breathless with the emotion of reliving the experience. Ben squeezed her knee and said, “You sound like an English major, girl. But you know, Aunt E, there really is something about the river at night—kind of spooky. It’s not too hard to believe that there could be some big monster lurking there.”

  “The Dakwa—is that the fish monster that the Cherokees told stories about—the one that would drag people under?” A memory nibbled at the edge of Elizabeth’s mind, something about a river monster in the museum over in Cherokee? Or was there some mention of the Dakwa in those notes I took from Nola’s house?

  “Correctomundo! And the way the current and the hydraulics are there at Sill’s Slough, you can see how a story like that got started. It’s perfectly safe if you know just which way to go, but it’s tricky, like a slalom course. You have to stay in this narrow little channel, between these honkin’ big rocks and the killer hydraulic.”

  “Between a rock and a hard place—or like, what’s that thing from Greek mythology…Scylla and Charybdis. They didn’t tell us all that when we took our raft trip last summer—of course the water was low then so maybe it wasn’t as dangerous.”

  Phillip watched as Elizabeth’s finger traced the river’s course on the photocopied map from Nola Barrett’s papers. A title at the bottom of the page, surrounded by an embellishment of scrollwork, read, The French Broad River with the Buncombe Turnpike and Drovers’ Road, showing all Stands and Inns together with Fords, Ferries, and Bridges. Thos. W. Blake fecit ~ 1861. Here was Gudger’s Stand, but there had been no bridge in 1858; a spidery Frry marked the site of an old ferry, evidently just downstream from the present-day bridge. And here were the rapids with delicate calligraphy noting Sills Slough.

  “Is that another stand, there at the rapids?” Phillip leaned closer, trying to read the faded lettering. “What’s it say—‘Flores’…and something in parentheses?” His face touched her ear and she turned, her wide smile embracing him.

  “Hey, you, I’m glad you came out for dinner.” Her lips brushed his cheek. “And I’m glad you’re spending the night—in the middle of the week, you wild and crazy guy.”

  I could be here every night if… Phillip brushed aside the perplexed irritation that always surfaced whenever he thought of Elizabeth’s dismayed reaction to his proposal of marriage. He draped an arm around her.

  “Well, my first class tomorrow isn’t till one, and I’m caught up with my paperwork—plus Mac had some mysterious something he wanted to see me about in the morning. So—”

  Elizabeth tossed the photocopied map to the table. “Did Mac mention if they’d found out who burned up that car Monday night?”

  “Nope, just the usual cop line about pursuing promising leads. It’s pretty obvious, though, that it was someone who doesn’t want the RPI folks and their development.”

  He motioned to the pile of papers on the coffee table before them. “So this is what you stole—excuse me, rescued, from your friend’s house? The map’s pretty cool—what else is there?”

  “Lots of great stuff—I told you she was working on a novel about the history of the county and the old house.”

  Elizabeth pulled the stack of handwritten notes and typed pages to her and began to leaf through them. “Here,” she said, offering him several pages paper-clipped together. “This is evidently the beginning of a section on the Drovers’ Road. She’s describing the old house at Gudger’s Stand. It’s like some kind of epic.”

  Phillip stretched lazily and patted at his empty shirt pocket. “My glasses must be in my briefcase. Why don’t you read it to me?”

  Elizabeth gave him a stern look over the tops of her own reading glasses as he leaned back against the sofa cushions.

  “Okay, then. Pay attention now; there may be a quiz.”

  He closed his eyes and gave himself up to listening, enjoying the soothing cadences of her low voice, the warmth of the fire, the soft embrace of the sofa cushions.

  “The logs have seen it all. Giant chestnuts, virgin timber, dragged by ox teams from the endless forest, they had been heaved into place in the year of eighteen hundred and thirty-one. Great fieldstone chimneys had been laid, rock by careful rock, at either end of the long structure, and the gentle flatlands at the riverside had been cleared for field and pasture. The roaming Cherokee who had camped and hunted there time out of mind were sent west on the Long Walk, the Trail of Tears, and the new inhabitants of the land began to shape it to their own uses and desires.

  “The great road whose coming had called the house into being stretched along the river from Tennessee to South Carolina, rugged as the men who had carved it from the rocky cliffs. Along its narrow trace came travelers of every ilk: on foot, by horse, by wagon or jolting stagecoach, they followed the road, seeking land, trade, adventure, or the healing waters of Warm Springs.”

  “Warm Springs? I thought—”

  “Ahh! You are listening! I was afraid you might have dozed off. No, it’s not a mistake. The town was named Warm Springs, which is really more accurate, and got changed to Hot Springs at some point. A marketing ploy, I expect, for the hotel there. Do you want me to finish?”

  “Sure—I’m enjoying it. It’s just that I can focus on it better with my eyes closed.”

  “Right. Where was I? Oh, here…In the fall of the year, the road was given over to the great livestock drives. Down from the mountains they flowed, bound for the railheads and slaughterhouses of South Carolina, churning the dirt of the road to reeking mire. Fat with corn and the chestnut mast of remote mountain coves, they came in near-endless streams: horses and mules, cattle and hogs, slow-moving ducks, and majestic, strutting turkeys.

  “Turkeys? Ducks? That must have been challenging—about like herding cats, I’d think.”

  “I guess so. I read somewhere that the challenge was to get the turkeys to a stand before nightfall, otherwise they’d fly up in the trees to roost and the drovers would have to camp right there by the side of the road and miss all the comforts of the stand.”

  There was the rustle of paper and he could hear her clearing her throat to resume. “One last page—the most intriguing.

  “The house on the drovers’ road had welcomed them all, offering food for man and beast, stout corrals for the stock, and a place near the hearth for a man to roll up in his blanket. And if some whispered that those who slept too soundly there might never see the morning, the fiery applejack from the landlord’s still and the still-fierier eyes of the landlord’s wife convinced many a drover to risk a night at the house called Gudger’s Stand.”

  “I’d like to hear more about the landlord’s wife.” His eyes still closed, Phillip began to move his hand in the direction of Elizabeth’s breast. She continued reading, seeming to ignore the lazy movement of his fingers on her arm.

  “The house had seen the great drives swell to flood tide and then, with the coming of the railroad, recede to arid memory. But still there had been travelers eager for a meal, a dram, and a place by the fire—and still there had been the whispers.

  “Time passed. The great fireplaces no longer roared; the smooth fields and rolling pastures ga
ve way to multiflora rose, sumac, and locust. A rising tide of kudzu and grapevine began the green inundation of the long quiet porches that once had echoed with the heavy boots of the drovers. No one visited the old house now; only memories lurked in its empty rooms—memories and whispers.”

  Just as his hand reached its destination, her voice fell silent. There was the riffle of pages falling to the floor as Elizabeth turned to him, pressing her lips to his while her hand began an exploration of its own.

  Chapter 9

  Cold Case

  Wednesday, December 13

  There were no defensive wounds; the old guy was probably asleep in his bed when he was hit on the head with a chunk of firewood. The firewood likely came from the stack by the fireplace….”

  Mackenzie Blaine turned over one of the stack of yellowing pages that spilled from the worn file folder on his desk. “Yep, locust splinters found in the wound were consistent with the remaining firewood in the room. Of course, the weapon itself was presumably cold ashes in the grate by the time the body was found—”

  “Hold on, Mac.” Phillip shifted in the uncomfortable metal chair opposite the desk. Hard as an ex-wife’s heart, with one suspiciously wobbly leg, it was the only seating choice offered a visitor. “Wouldn’t it have had to be a reasonably powerful assailant to kill him with a blow like that…not an elderly woman? It just doesn’t—”

  The sheriff looked up with a puzzled gaze. “Elderly woman? Hawk, Miss Barrett was…let me double-check…” He flipped through the pages on his desk, ran a finger down one and paused.

  “Nola Barrett was fifty-four at the time—and not exactly frail. Hell, I wouldn’t call her frail now, ten years later. Besides, it wasn’t the blow that killed him—it was the pillow over his face.”

  Phillip frowned. “Was she ever charged…”

  “No, she wasn’t. Sheriff Frisby evidently did a cursory investigation and then put it down to murder by person or persons unknown. Nola Barrett’s name doesn’t come into it except as the person who discovered the body.”

  “And that’s it? The case was just closed?”

  Marshall County’s newly reelected sheriff was silent for a moment, his shrewd brown eyes studying his friend’s face. Phillip waited.

  Blaine returned the papers to the file, then stood. “You got a little time to waste?” He was pulling on a jacket and reaching for a hat. “Let’s take a ride.”

  Phillip followed his friend down the hallway, past offices where uniformed men frowned at computer screens or bent over paperwork, into the stifling outer office. A small space heater whirred at top speed, producing a tropical heat in the windowless room. Here a stern-looking, white-haired woman presided over the telephone and reception desk. She detained the sheriff briefly with a litany of questions and reminders. Finally Blaine held up his hand.

  “I’ll take care of all that this afternoon, Miss Orinda. If Horner calls, tell him the matter’s been resolved. Back by one.”

  As they climbed into Blaine’s cruiser, Phillip rolled down his window. “I don’t know how you stand it, Mac. A couple of minutes in there and the smell’s all over me. That godawful air freshener’s bad enough but—”

  “You get used to it.” Mackenzie was matter-of-fact as he pulled out of his parking place. “She can’t help it—it’s some kind of chronic condition. She should have retired by now but the job’s her life—she’s worked here since the dawn of time and knows everything there is to know about the day-to-day operation of the office. Be hard to replace her.”

  Blaine put his own window partway down, admitting a crosscurrent of fresh air. “But, yeah, Miss Orinda does fart a lot.”

  The sheriff’s cruiser nosed its way down the unpaved road paralleling the railroad tracks, past three ramshackle buildings and a small rusting trailer, before coming to a halt where the road ended in a brushy meadow. An abandoned school bus, covered with graffiti and resting on concrete blocks, lay ahead, half concealed by the tall, winter-worn scrub.

  “You’re being awful damn mysterious, Mac.” Blaine had evaded his questions during the short drive from the sheriff’s office to this dead-end dirt road by the bridge at Gudger’s Stand.

  Blaine grunted, pulled the cruiser to a stop, and pointed to the derelict vehicle. “Back in the early eighties, a bunch of hippies, river guides and such, used that during the summer. They had it fixed up like a camper—bunks built in and a little galley—pretty slick, from what some of the fellas tell me. This whole field was kind of a campground, tents all over the place during the rafting season.”

  Phillip peered through the windshield at the rusting yellow hulk. “Okay, Mac. I get the picture. Happy hippie days, free love, grass for the growing, blowin’ in the wind, all that Summer of Love crap—what does this have to do with—”

  “Well, your song reference is off by about twenty years, but aside from that—yeah, things were pretty loose down here. The sheriff’s department turned a blind eye to the marijuana back then—some say the cops were actually part of the supply chain—make a bust in one part of the county, then burn a token amount of the stuff and sell the rest at wholesale to the dealers. The late Sheriff Holcombe—”

  Mackenzie Blaine stopped mid-sentence and opened his door. “Let’s stretch our legs for a few minutes.” Without waiting, he swung out of the car and made his way, limping very slightly, toward the abandoned bus. Phillip fumbled in his pocket for his woolen watch cap and pulled it down over his ears. Kind of chilly for a walk—this isn’t like Mac. There’s something’s bugging him.

  Zipping his jacket, he hurried to catch up with his friend, who was striding past the old bus and along a faintly defined footpath paralleling the river.

  “So this must be where the Drovers’ Road was.” Phillip gestured down the trail. “Lizabeth’s been—”

  Sheriff Blaine’s rapid pace slowed and he turned to fix Phillip with a look of utter seriousness. “Hawk, I wanted us out of the car for a reason. I was starting to run my mouth—do you know how easy it would be to bug the cruiser? And I can’t sweep the car every day without letting whoever it is know I’m onto them.”

  Phillip stared. Okay, in a minute he’s gonna crack a big grin and say “Gotcha” and we’ll have a laugh and get back in the car out of this friggin’ wind.

  But there was no grin, no relaxation of the tension. “Mac? I think I missed something. What’s the punch line?”

  “This is no joke. There’s something strange going on in the department…maybe in the county too.” The sheriff continued along the trail, hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets, shoulders hunched against the wind. “I don’t know which of my deputies I can trust—one reason I didn’t want to talk about this back at the office.”

  His strong fingers dug into the heavy sleeve of Phillip’s jacket.

  “Listen, Hawk, I need another investigator—someone I know isn’t part of this…whatever it is. We’ve talked before about you coming to work for me on a permanent basis. I’ve been kind of waiting, thinking that whenever you and Miz Goodweather got around to—”

  Phillip held up a hand. “Don’t go there, Mac. Just tell me what’s happening and what you need me to do. God knows, I owe you.”

  Blaine’s hand fell away and he closed his eyes briefly. “Thanks, Hawk. I was afraid you’d think I was crazy. Hell, for a while, I thought maybe I was. It started with the letter…”

  An anonymous letter, Mackenzie explained, purporting to be from the victim of a brutal gang rape. “She said that they’d kept her tied up and blindfolded for several days and she couldn’t be sure but that she thought it was probably in that bus back there. She said she’d been with a crowd that was partying. She admitted that she’d been drinking pretty heavily and must have passed out—anyway, she said when she came to, she was blindfolded and tied spread-eagle on a mattress with a group of men taking turns with her.”

  “I don’t believe this shit—the victim wrote a letter? I thought by now everyone knew that coming in and get
ting the whole rape-kit procedure right away is the best chance for making a case. Hell, with the DNA—but maybe there’s still a chance—when did this happen?”

  Mackenzie Blaine didn’t answer, but turned and began to retrace his steps back along the frozen ground. Bewildered, Phillip turned to follow.

  “Mac, does this…girl…woman want to prosecute? Maybe she’s just testing the water before she gives her name and files charges. Did she say she knew who the men were?”

  “Said she’s almost positive of two of them. She also wrote that they were responsible for a death, possibly several deaths, and that she wanted justice and was prepared to name names if I would assure her that there was a chance of success. There was a number I was supposed to call at a certain time so I could answer her questions before she decided whether or not to come in and make it formal. If she didn’t hear from me at that time, she said, she’d assume the case was hopeless.”

  The sheriff slowed to study the blue heron on his accustomed rock across the river. The bird stood motionless on the partially submerged footing, his long, cruel beak poised above the frigid, rushing water. In a sudden blur the curved neck straightened, the beak plunged into the rapids and emerged, a silver fish wriggling in its inexorable hold. Another flash of silver, the fish disappeared, the neck resumed its graceful curve, and the heron returned to his silent vigil.

  “Jesus, Mac, it’s too damn cold for bird-watching. So, when you called did you convince her to come in and file charges?”

  “I didn’t call her. The time she set for the call was the next day. I left the letter with the phone number she gave on my desk when I went to lunch. When I came back, the letter was gone. I asked the various people on duty and no one had any idea what I was talking about. All I could remember about the phone number was that it was somewhere in Asheville.”

  “You think someone in the office took the letter? That doesn’t make sense…what would—”