Carolina Girl

by Patricia Rice

  Chapter Four

  “There you go, Jake, the oil filter is replaced.” Lying on the hot pavement beneath the glittering chrome of a Harley, Clay wiped his hands on an oily rag. Life was simpler when all he needed was a wrench and strong hands to make things work.

  Do-gooders with redheaded tempers required tools and talents he didn’t possess.

  “Thanks, good buddy. This bum leg is making things difficult.” Propped against Clay’s bike, Jake leaned over to scratch an itch beneath his purple cast. The sandy color of his ponytail disguised any gray, though his darker beard was flecked with silver.

  Wriggling out from beneath the massive machine, Clay sat up and reached for his bottle of water. “Tip the bike on that leg, and you’ll be lucky to walk again.”

  “A man’s gotta have wheels.” The burly biker lifted his good leg over the motorcycle and bounced up and down on the seat. “It’s not like I’m going far. You found out any more about the state buying up the island?”

  Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Clay shook his head. “Can’t see how you can stop the state from doing what it wants.”

  Jake threw him a look of disgust. “Come on. Get on your bike and let me show you what I’m talking about. Let me introduce you to a few people.”

  Clay resisted. Unlike his brother Jared, he didn’t have a charming bone in his body. He tended to glaze over after a few minutes of small talk.

  Of course, there was always the chance that Jake would merely show him swampland and introduce him to more people like Jake. Not having anything more interesting to do, Clay stood, shrugged on his shirt, and donned his helmet. “Let me drive you. I don’t want to see you break the other leg.”

  He sailed the Harley over the bridge and along the open highway connecting the string of islands Clay currently called home. The low country of South Carolina sat at sea level, with hillocks sporting trees between marshes of long grasses. The road down the center of the islands had been built on a causeway so it wouldn’t wash away in a storm, but much of the land around it was more marsh than solid ground.

  They drove past Cleo’s sandy lane and into a tree-covered territory virtually untouched by mankind—the Bingham swamp. The state park should occupy only the distant acreage near the beach. The live oaks and hardwoods in the center would no doubt be bulldozed for development if the rest of the swamp went on the auction block, destroying the pristine wilderness forever.

  About a mile past Cleo’s drive, Jake signaled and wheeled abruptly down a sandy path almost hidden behind a tumbledown gray shack that must have once been a fruit and vegetable stand. Remnants of an old wooden sign reading PEACHES leaned against decaying crates.

  By the time they reached their destination—a shack almost as weathered and tumbledown as the fruit stand—Clay was covered in sweat and grime and not fit company for anybody.

  An old black woman with silver-white hair and a shawl covering her stooped shoulders appeared on the porch. Beside her stood a frail young woman with the same sandy hair as Jake, sporting a cane, and wearing a disapproving frown. Clay ran the back of his arm over his face, hoping to wipe off a layer of crud, and wishing he’d gone home.

  “Hey, Iris, I brought you company!” Jake remained seated, waiting for Clay to lend a shoulder. “He’s gonna help us keep our fishing.”

  The old woman smiled understandingly, as if she knew Jake’s bluster for what it was and accepted it. The younger woman, on the other hand, regarded Clay with suspicion.

  “Clay, this here is Grandma Iris, the best sweetgrass weaver in the South. She’s lived all her life here. And this is my daughter, Sandra Ann. Everyone calls her Cissy. Ciss, why don’t you show Clay the sea turtle nests?”

  Uh-oh. He hadn’t figured Jake for the matchmaking sort. Freezing up, Clay assessed his chances of escape.

  “Daddy, you’re not supposed to be on that bike. And I can’t walk all the way to the beach like this. We’ll both be crippled up and back in bed.”

  “Where’s your sister, then? Didn’t she drive you out here?”

  Sister? Jake had more than one daughter? He’d never taken the time to learn Jake’s last name or where he lived. Sandra Ann must live elsewhere if she’d been driven over. Where? In the swamp? He’d never been curious about Jake or his motives before, but self-protection might require that he pay closer attention.

  Cissy shrugged. “You know Rory. She had a dozen things to do today. She’ll be back in a little while.”

  “There you are, then.” Jake turned around with an air of satisfaction. “Aurora will take you to the nests.”

  Rory...Aurora! Clay experienced a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach at the same time self-destructive interest flared. Could there be two women with that name in one town?

  And if not, did Jake know his daughter was working against him?

  o0o

  Without quite knowing how he’d been roped into this, a short time later Clay found himself accepting a beautifully woven basket with handles from Grandma Iris.

  His first inclination had been to run for his bike and get the hell out of there. But Iris had patted his arm and settled into a wicker chair on the porch as if she trusted him to carry out her request without question. He might be working on a reputation as a surly hermit, but he hated to disappoint an old lady.

  “The grass isn’t far. I can manage.” Wielding her aluminum cane, Cissy limped down to the sandy yard.

  “You don’t have to do this.” Clay offered a helping hand, but she brushed him off. Apparently stubbornness ran in the family.

  Without wasting words, she headed down a well-worn path that disappeared into an unforgiving thicket of shrubbery. “If the state lets developers dry out the wetlands, the sweetgrass will disappear. Basketmaking is an African art that dates back centuries, but the marshes for the grass are almost gone.”

  An undercurrent in her voice showed her reverence for the land and the art, so Clay bit his tongue against any cynical remarks. Striding ahead, he forced a path by holding back branches to let Cissy pass by. He could appreciate people with a passion for what they did.

  Which brought his thoughts around to Aurora again. She was equally passionate about the land, except she wanted to make money out of it.

  “There aren’t many sea turtle nesting grounds left,” Cissy murmured as she struggled over the path he cleared. “They return to the same beaches every year and won’t nest where there are bright lights. Our coast is one of the last remaining places on Earth where loggerheads nest.”

  Clay calculated Jake’s daughter had to be his own age or a little older, but she appeared worn lifeless. He caught hints of prettiness in her drawn features, but none of the animation he’d enjoyed in Aurora. He didn’t see how they could be sisters. Maybe he was barking up the wrong tree.

  Clearing the bushes, he helped her maneuver over a tree root, but she shook him off once they reached the sunny marsh.

  “The grass starts here and runs down to the beach.” Cissy pointed with her cane to the field of knee-high weeds.

  He watched her produce a stout knife and bend over to begin cutting the long, swaying grasses. He could hear the ocean pounding against the shore, but a slight rise on the horizon prevented his seeing it.

  “The turtle nests are in the dune up by the beach. Just follow this path and watch where you step. It’s too early in the season for hatchlings, but sometimes you can see the mother’s trail through the sand. They only come in at night and go right back to sea after they lay their eggs.”

  Leaving Cissy to her work, Clay ambled down the path through the reeds. He knew next to nothing about wildlife, but he’d watched giant turtles on the Discovery channel, and had once considered a trip to the Galápagos. No harm in taking a look around to see what the fuss was all about.

  Of course, if it had been Aurora back there looking stunning and vibrant and bossing him around, he’d have to balk just to show her who was in charge. He was starting to anticipate the flash of temp
er in her eyes and the way her mouth pulled flat when he irked her. Much better to keep a temperamental woman like that at a distance.

  He almost walked through the turtle path before he saw it. He assumed it was a turtle path from the immensity and oddness of the way the grass bent and the sand rippled. He traced it back to a hollow in the dune, but there all traces of the path had been methodically brushed away. Intrigued, he circled the hollow. Maybe he ought to research turtles on the Internet. What kind of creature emerged from the sea to lay and abandon eggs in isolation? How many of them were there? What did they look like?

  And how would they survive with a shopping mall on top of them?

  Grinding more enamel off his molars, Clay stalked back to Cissy. She regarded him without expression, simply waiting for him to pick up the basket of grass before leaning on her cane and heading back the way they’d come. He didn’t see how a nearly invisible woman like this could be related to the firestorm that was Aurora.

  “Whaddayuh think, McCloud? See anything out there?” Jake bellowed as they returned to the clearing and the shack.

  “Interesting,” he admitted, assisting Cissy up the stairs and setting the basket on the porch. “But that’s not helping me figure out how to stop the state from buying it all up.”

  “Nah, you’ll have to talk to Aurora about that. She’s got her head in all those bigwig circles, but she didn’t seem to think you were interested.”

  Well, he wasn’t, really. She wanted the state to keep all the land and develop parks and “small businesses.” He thought the state should leave nature alone. He didn’t see any meeting ground in between. Maybe he ought to ask Jake how Aurora’s plans dovetailed with free fishing, but he didn’t want to start a family argument.

  Clay smacked a mosquito nibbling on his forearm, then swiped his forehead with the bandanna he kept in his back pocket when riding the Harley. “Aren’t there zoning meetings or something where you can protest this kind of thing? What about environmental laws? I can’t see where I can help with any of that.”

  Jake swigged from the glass of iced tea Iris had given him earlier. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he shook his shaggy head. “You know how to work them computers. That’s more than anyone else around here. Aurora can tell you what to do.”

  Like that would happen in this century. Deciding it was high time to get out of here before they asked him to walk on water, Clay straddled his bike and kicked back the stand. “I can write the EPA, I suppose. But you can’t stop progress. It’s gonna happen one way or another.” He wouldn’t tell them that he was trying. He’d had enough of public failure.

  Sitting in her porch chair, efficiently weaving dried grass into a tight circle that would create another of the art-quality baskets adorning her porch, Grandma Iris intruded upon their discussion. “My mama was a Bingham ’fore she married. My brother Billy lives just the other side of town. I’m sorry to say, but he’d sell his soul for a bottle of ’shine. Aurora says all the state gotta do is buy Billy’s share, and they can go to court to sell all this. You give the man Billy’s name, and this time next year, this gonna be mud and bulldozers.”

  Oh, yeah, lay the blame on me. Thank you so very much, Aurora Jenkins. There was no doubt left in Clay’s mind that there was only one Aurora in this damned town, and he’d better have a talk with her before she had half the populace out to tar and feather him.

  If this quiet old lady was one of the Bingham heirs he was hunting, the park was a hell of a lot closer to a done deal than he’d thought.

  He hated it when the anonymous names on his computer came attached to real people.

  o0o

  Trailing into the cluttered front room of his beach cottage, Clay wrinkled his nose at the mess and began pulling off his shirt. Maybe it was time to start pulling his act together if he meant to deal with the outside world again.

  The outside world—as in Aurora Jenkins. He must be some kind of masochist to even consider talking to an MBA, but that red-gold hair and those amazing lips beckoned him more surely than his ideas for new video games.

  Antagonizing Aurora would be far more entertaining than rotting on the porch.

  He really didn’t think they were working from the same page. He didn’t see any reason to change the island one iota. She was talking in terms of finding ethical development, as if such a creature existed. She’d be better off looking for a dodo bird.

  The phone rang, and, aiming for the shower, Clay was tempted to ignore it. But he had a few feelers out on his software business, and he didn’t want to write off any opportunity.

  Grabbing the cordless receiver, he started up the stairs. “McCloud here.”

  “This is Ben Little in the State Parks Department. Our attorneys are prepared to move on the purchase of the Bingham property. How is the program developing?”

  Clay halted and leaned against the stair wall. “I’m getting there,” he answered cautiously, crossing his fingers as he pictured a gray-haired old lady rocking on her front porch, creating works of art out of weeds.

  “Do you have names? Can you fax me what you’ve found?”

  The sun-baked memory of giant turtle paths and rippling sea grasses and reclusive old ladies cracked open a door he didn’t want to shut just yet. “Program doesn’t work that way,” Clay answered tersely. “It starts with names and birth certificates. We won’t get to the verification and current address stage until the genealogy is lined up.”

  “Can’t you speed up the process somehow, find addresses on the names you have?” Little asked impatiently. “All I need is one of them to agree to sell. We can have the whole parcel on the auction block in weeks.”

  Whammo. The lawyers were in full wolf mode.

  Ticked that Aurora’s wild theory had been confirmed, Clay set his mouth in a grim line and thought furiously. If he refused to turn over the names, the state would simply seek another source—it wouldn’t take them long to learn about Iris and Billy. He had to stall.

  “I can’t guarantee the accuracy,” he answered slowly. “I’ll have to buy another computer and second phone line to work the current findings while this one is on-line processing the genealogy.” As if that had anything to do with the price of eggs, but Little didn’t know that.

  “Check your budget to see if an extra computer can be funded. We’re going nowhere until this is done. I’ll get back to you next week.” As if he’d just checked off one more item from his agenda, Little hung up with a click.

  Well, shit.

  Clay clicked off his receiver. With resignation, he realized his little odyssey into obscurity was about to end.

  When actually faced with the Slugs from Slime, he simply couldn’t hang up his sword and let them destroy the world. Too much time in the gaming world apparently had warped his thinking into believing justice ought to prevail.

  Maybe if he confronted the prim MBA first, she’d rid him of his hero complex, and he could return to munching fries on the porch and pretending the rest of the planet didn’t matter.

  Chapter Five

  After taking a quick shower and donning a clean black T-shirt and jeans, Clay hit the Harley in search of Jake’s daughter. Roaring down the island highway, letting the hot wind pump up his warrior mode, he drove past the peach stand marking the road to Iris’s. A half mile past the swamp road, he located the wooden cross scrawled in fading red paint with JESUS SAVES that Jake had described in his directions. Sweat dripped down Clay’s forehead from beneath his helmet as he navigated the left turn and chugged down a blacktopped lane of aging cottages.

  Peeling white paint on clapboards and mildewed siding on trailers depicted rural poverty, but every yard cheerfully sprouted bouquets of color. Tires painted white brimmed over with red petunias and begonias. Trellises loaded with roses and morning glories and jasmine climbed up to porch roofs. Mailboxes propped by old plows, adorned with painted pictures of daisies, sprang up all along the roadside.

  Clay slowed as he spotted three
deer crossing one yard. Realizing they were some kind of lawn ornament, he roared on, discovering more anomalies the farther he drove. Brightly colored glass balls atop preposterous concrete structures reflected the blinding Carolina sun. Blue concrete birdbaths decorated with red concrete cardinals stood tall in the midst of flower gardens, and nestled among the flowers he began to notice colorful gnomes, or were they elves? He didn’t know the difference.

  A concrete Madonna held out her hands in supplication inside a cast- iron bathtub cut in two and turned on edge to form a shrine. Concrete rabbits and squirrels posed beside vegetable gardens. He almost fell off his bike swiveling to stare at a tree dangling colored bottles and Easter eggs.

  He’d lived in L.A., cruised the beaches of southern California, and had seen eccentricities of every shape and color. He’d just never seen an entire neighborhood dedicated to cheerful bad taste.

  He finally spotted a mailbox painted with a row of purple pansies and JENKINS neatly printed above them in red. The mailbox post grew out of the middle of an enormous vine sporting a riot of yellow flowers. He turned his bike up the narrow drive hedged by sprawling shoulder-high azaleas. A tunnel of moss-draped oaks overhung the azaleas, blocking all view of the house. He felt as if he had exited the real world into a fantasy one.

  Rounding the bend past the oaks, he knew he’d fallen through a space warp into another universe. An entire yard—more like several acres—of concrete lawn ornaments stretched out as far as his eyes could see. Unpainted statues and birdbaths marched in neat rows toward a long aluminum-sided building in the distance. Along the drive, beneath the bushes, painted gnomes beamed playfully at him. Or in some cases, scowled.

  A neat double-wide trailer with white siding, black shutters, and rampant azaleas at its base sat in the midst of a yard full of painted concrete figures. A towering robed statue of a pagan goddess dominated a vegetable garden on one side. Gnomes, elves, and fairies frolicked between gardenias and camellias. Glittering witch balls rested in concrete hands or on pedestals wrapped in concrete vines. Birds splashed in fountains taller than he was.