After a moment she stepped back, in no hurry now, and pulled her blouse over her head.
“Move aside, sir,” she said. “We have a long hike ahead of us. Before we leave, I’d better visit the bathroom.”
Chapter XIII
When they were finished dressing, Carrie looked both of them over critically. Perhaps she should have asked Henry not to shave this morning, but she hadn’t thought of that. Otherwise, with his faded shirt, overalls, and heavy boots, he looked like many of the older men she saw around Mountain View’s central square. Her own cotton skirt flapped above socks and battered hiking boots, and her blouse and sun hat seemed acceptable. She was almost a younger caricature of the woman she’d seen in the woods—the woman Brigid had called Mad Margaret Culpeper.
Yes, the two of them would do. She picked up her walking stick, then stopped. Henry had his back to her, but she could tell he was sliding his gun under his overalls.
A sudden fizz of fear rippled down her backbone. “I don’t think you’ll need a gun. Surely...”
He smiled down at her. “I know. From what you said, this is just a reclusive family, not used to seeing or welcoming strangers. If I thought they were more than that I wouldn’t be headed there and certainly wouldn’t want you going. Still, we aren’t a hundred percent sure what we’ll meet. We don’t have much information other than your brief encounter with a very peculiar woman and what Brigid said about the Culpeper family. So, it’s best to be cautious... and prepared.”
“But...”
He held up a hand. “I agree this is something we need to investigate. If there’s a possibility the woman you saw knows anything about the kidnapping of Dulcey Mason, we should try and find out what it is. I also agree that calling the sheriff and storming the place could be counterproductive, at least until we know more about what’s really going on and who might be involved. If the Culpepers are kidnappers, an aggressive approach might cause harm to the child. Anyway, your bizarre conversation in the woods wouldn’t provide sufficient reason for a judge or any law enforcement officer to authorize an intrusive approach to the Culpeper homestead. But two supposed relatives should be able to make that approach, especially on foot, without causing suspicion. Your plan is a good one. But I’ll carry the gun anyway. There are too many unknowns.”
Carrie was thinking about Chase’s warning to take someone with a gun when she went to visit Mad Margaret. She hadn’t told Henry about that. Should she? Surely there was no need. Dressed as they were, two innocent looking older people, well, Henry was right, the most suspicious Culpeper couldn’t possibly see any harm in them.
Then she remembered Farel Teal, and the fizz down her backbone turned into a chill, almost shaking loose the calm façade she was preserving for Henry. For the first time she felt real doubt about their venture.
But she had been so positive this was the right thing to do. She mustn’t let fear change that conviction. Nothing would stop them now. They must think only of Dulcey Mason.
She murmured a simple prayer to herself. “Lead me, guide me, keep all of us safe and busy doing Your will.” Then, head up, she marched out of the room.
“We’ll plan what to say while we’re walking,” she said as Henry locked the door, and they headed for the path.
The main trail was easy to follow, and warm sun glittered through the tiny chartreuse tree leaves. Spring breathed innocence and charm, making their discussion about strategy for saving a kidnapped child seem oddly dissonant.
Henry agreed that Carrie should do most of the talking. He would be the silent, alert male. They couldn’t plan much more than that, since neither of them had a clue as to what they’d be facing when they found the Culpeper homestead.
“I guess it’s okay not to know exactly what we’re going to talk about if we can keep our background information straight,” she said. “Remember, our family moved to Oklahoma from somewhere around here at the start of World War II. They went to Tulsa to get jobs at the bomber plant. It was an awful place for people used to being outdoors, a mile-long building with concrete floors and no windows. But the pay was good, and our parents never came back. They couldn’t afford to. No jobs to be had here then. About all they could have done was farm.”
“Is it true? Was your family from the Ozarks?”
“No, they were from Indiana, but that won’t matter. Surely we know enough to make the story work.”
“All right, but what if Margaret remembers those times and knows no relatives left?”
“Can’t help it. Besides, we won’t be positive they were from Stone County. I think we just need a basic story ready, and I couldn’t give details that are fact-based any further back than the 1940’s. As you’ve pointed out to me more than once, I don’t mind lying for a good cause, but I’ve learned not to over-extend and get caught in too many details I have to make up. At least I’ve read and heard enough about World War II times in Tulsa to be on firm ground if she asks questions we aren’t prepared for. And, besides, she wasn’t born a Culpeper—at least I assume she wasn’t—so she might not know that much about what her husband’s extended family was doing way back then. If she challenges me, I can always say, ‘Well, my pappy told me that’s what happened.’”
“And I’m retired now,” Henry said. “No need to say from what. In fact—especially if their own family business could be shady in some way—it’s best not to say. They won’t expect me to reveal too many secrets that might get me crosswise of the law.”
Carrie smiled to herself. This was the first time Henry had let the fact she was using a lie as a means to an end go unchallenged. Not only did he avoid lying himself, he didn’t like it when she lied. But now he seemed to be getting into the spirit of their play-acting.
“Another question, Carrie. Why did we come here to Mountain View right now, and why haven’t we, or our parents, been back before? It isn’t that far.”
“Oh, um, I guess we came back to find our roots before all the old folks here were gone,” she said.
“And why didn’t we come back before now?”
“Ah... uh, well...”
“How about this? Our parents had promised to send money back here to help the folks out, but after they learned how much more it costs to live in the city, they couldn’t spare a lot. Accusations flew back and forth, no one here in the Ozarks understood, and eventually someone sent a letter saying our family wasn’t welcome back home. Does that story work?”
“Sounds good to me.” She didn’t say aloud what she was thinking... See, Henry, lying can be okay when it’s for a worthwhile cause.
They stopped talking after they had branched off the main path in the direction Carrie had seen Margaret Culpeper go the evening before. It was rough hiking, and both of them were concentrating on avoiding rocks and fallen branches. They were also aware that ears could be listening anywhere around them.
The path headed downhill at first, and then they were following a stream, listening to its hollow-sounding gurgle as it bounced over rocks and tiny waterfalls. Carrie could only assume this was the direction Mad Margaret had come and that she had been heading toward home. Now she was sorry she hadn’t asked Brigid for more information about the Culpeper homestead.
The creek banks were lush with spring greenery, and there were several places where Carrie wanted to stop and look at wildflowers, but she didn’t. They had more important things to do.
After they had followed the stream for some time, Carrie’s confidence began to waver. The mysterious woman could have turned off anywhere, though there had been no evidence of any foot traffic leaving the path, no disturbed underbrush or flattened leaves.
During the five years she had lived in the woods, Carrie had become adept at reading signs on the forest floor. Her friend JoAnne Harrington had been an expert at it, and after JoAnne’s murder, Carrie inherited her books on the subject. Before JoAnne died, the two women had spent many enjoyable Saturday mornings together, puzzling over marks left in their woods by bot
h animals and humans. Carrie still continued those Saturday hikes when weather permitted—sometimes alone, sometimes with Henry.
And now Henry was evidently trusting Carrie to lead the way. He followed her closely, saying nothing.
Finally she stopped and pointed. There was a faint trail leading up the hill to their right. The path they were on continued ahead of them.
“What next?” Henry asked, speaking softly in her ear.
“Let’s go a bit farther along the main trail and see where it leads,” she said. “We can try this other path if nothing opens up soon. I think we must be near the place where national forest land begins.”
“Carry on then,” he said.
In a short time it was obvious where the valley trail led. They came to another branch of the stream, a fence, a locked gate, and, behind it, a sewage treatment plant.
“Well,” Carrie said, “they sure don’t live here. This must be the treatment plant for the Folk Center. Maybe that fence on the other side is the boundary between the state park and the national forest.”
“I think the fence is just to keep unwanted intruders from coming near the treatment plant,” Henry said. “See, there’s a gravel road over there and another gate.”
“So it looks like we go back to that side trail and up the hill.”
As soon as they turned onto the faint hill path, Carrie wished she had forgotten about dressing like Margaret Culpeper. How did the woman manage this tangle in a skirt? Anything but tough jeans would be a problem.
She tried to sweep branches and brambles out of the way with her walking stick while she held her skirt up with the other hand, but that left the bare skin above her socks to catch loose brambles. Phooey! Had Margaret, wearing a skirt even longer than hers, really come up this path?
When they reached the top of the ridge, they stopped to catch their breath and survey the area.
“There must be a road if anyone really lives around here,” Henry said. “They’d have to own vehicles of some sort.”
They did. Not long after starting down the other side of the ridge, Carrie and Henry came to a rusted out truck body, three old cars without tires, a wrecked delivery van, a lop-sided tractor, and numerous metal parts that had once belonged to deceased internal combustion engines.
“I don’t think this is their main entrance,” she said.
A dog began to bark, then several dogs, and in a moment they came to a clearing—clear, that is, of anything but weeds, stumps, and the most wildly varied assortment of junk that Carrie had ever seen. There were two weathered board and batten houses at opposite sides of the clearing, several sheds in assorted sizes, a wire pen holding four dogs, and two fairly new trucks. An old chicken house stood at the edge of the woods, just to their left. It was almost completely covered in brambles and looked like it was about to fall in on itself.
Carrie stared at the chicken house, which was certainly a picturesque sight. It had heavy plastic over its crumbling roof and seemed to glow from within— probably an odd effect of sun through plastic. Now she wished she’d brought her camera to take “family” pictures, as well as photographs of the old chicken house, which would have made a unique addition to her Ozarks album. And why didn’t they just repair the roof if they wanted to save the ridiculous-looking structure? But then, the whole building looked like it might fall over at any moment. Why cover it in plastic at all?
Henry’s low rumbling voice startled her. “Quit looking at that chicken house. Don’t look around, period,” he said.
She was turning to ask him why on earth not when she heard a hound baying and looked toward the sound instead. A fifth dog was loose and running toward them, teeth first.
“Hello?” Carrie shouted as she watched the dog and wondered if they should turn and run. Oh, why was she always getting into messes like this when Henry was around? She wasn’t even sure now that this was the Culpeper place.
The hound came closer, and his bark changed to a low, threatening rumble. Poised for flight, she looked over at Henry to see if he was ready to run too. In astonishment she saw that he was hunkered down next to a rusty cattle feed container and had his hand out, palm up. The dog slowed, came close, sniffed. After a pause, his tail lifted and wagged. He sniffed again, then ducked his head under Henry’s hand, inviting the scratching fingers.
Suddenly Carrie sensed noise and movement at the far edge of the clearing, and she jerked her head around toward the larger of the two houses. Its entry door was creaking open. A white-haired string bean of a man wearing overalls like Henry’s slid out through the partially opened door, and it creaked shut behind him. The man ambled over to lean against a porch pillar that wobbled when his shoulder touched it. He looked relaxed, but he held a shotgun in his right hand. His facial features were so nearly a masculine copy of Margaret Culpeper’s that Carrie was sure they were, after all, at the right place.
Henry stood and went forward a few steps with the hound at his heels. He stopped between an old swinging easel gasoline sign that read “Ethyl 25¢” and a bottomless laundry tub. “Hello there,” he said.
“Hello,” echoed Carrie, keeping her eyes on the shotgun. “I’m Carrie Culpeper and this is my brother, Herman. We’re from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I think we’re relatives of yours. I met Margaret in the woods yesterday, and now I’ve brought Herman here to meet her, and...the rest of the family.”
The man called the hound, waited until it was sitting by his side, then stared at Carrie and Henry with shrewd eyes that belied any image of hillbilly lassitude. Finally he said, “Kin? From Tulsa? Don’t recall kin there. Ma never mentioned you, nor talked of seeing strangers yesterday.”
“Don’t know you either,” Carrie said, “but we heard a long time ago that we had kin here. S’posed that would be you. Margaret might know where the family tie-in is.”
The man didn’t move.
“Does she live over there?” She pointed to the smaller house. “Is she home? Could we go knock?”
His eyes, as sharp as his mother’s, were still assessing, alert. “Walk all the way here? By yerself? No one came along to show the way?” Now he was looking around the clearing, obviously checking the entire area.
She shook her head.
“Where’d you walk from?”
“Folk Center. We’re staying there. Margaret came this way along the path yesterday,” she waved her arm toward the valley behind them, “and I thought probably that path would lead to her house. Guess I should have phoned first...”
No reply.
He’s evaluating us as if we were federal agents and he was a moonshiner, she thought. Surely they didn’t make moonshine here. Were people still doing that? Without thinking, she began to look around the clearing again and was stopped by Henry’s low warning rumble, “Hunh-uh.”
“No matter about the phone,” the man was saying. “Ma’s usually at home. I’ll go see if she wants to meet you. Sometimes she naps this time o’ day.” He came down the porch steps and headed toward the other house, leaving Carrie and Henry waiting among the junk.
But he never turned his back on them. And he hadn’t put down the shotgun.
Chapter XIV
Carrie took a step toward Margaret Culpeper’s house, planning to follow the man who was just now reaching the front porch, but Henry’s hand closed tightly on her arm. “Let’s stay here until someone invites us to come,” he murmured.
“Ouch,” she said, then hated the comment, which had been spoken more in impatience than pain. Still, she thought his hold on her arm had been firmer than necessary.
Oh, dear, this was bizarre, like being inside an unpleasant dream. Henry was acting bossy, which meant that he was worried, and of course his worry was now worrying her.
But why was he so worried? True, the Culpepers hadn’t exactly welcomed them, but she and Henry weren’t expecting hugs and an invitation to dinner. They expected people who were reclusive and strange. She already knew Mad Margaret was strange.
And,
after all, Henry had easily charmed that dog, and the man hadn’t ordered it to attack them when it ended up being friendly. They were getting along fine. They would be fine.
She looked up at Henry and said, “Sorry. It didn’t really hurt.” He nodded briefly but kept his eyes on the front door of Margaret’s house.
Now Carrie’s spine was fizzing again. Henry looked absolutely rigid, and he was being so fussy about not looking around. Was it because they were exposed and vulnerable in this open clearing? Why hadn’t she noticed that before?
Anyone could shoot...oh, stop, stop it! Her imagination was running wild, her thoughts churning back and forth in a good-bad bounce.
No! This might be an unusual family, but there was absolutely no reason she and Henry would be seen as a threat. They were just what they looked like, harmless senior citizens, come to call.
She stared at Margaret’s house and concentrated on seeing the details there; since it was in her line of sight and she couldn’t be accused of looking around. Both this house and the larger one were typical Ozarks cabins. Each had a roofed porch extending clear across the front and a central entry door opening off the porch. Margaret’s porch displayed two rockers and a small table. There was an enormous brass doorbell on the wall by the front door. Or was it a dinner bell?
Like all the buildings in the clearing, the cabin’s vertical board and batten walls had weathered to a soft grey. Carrie would have found it impossible to guess the age of the buildings or of anything else she had seen in the clearing so far, but all of it looked old—and that included Margaret’s son, who had now been out of sight in his mother’s house for a very long time.
Carrie began an attempt to see what she could of the clearing without turning her head, swiveling only her eyes back and forth. The frames of her glasses were in the way, and trying to see beyond their edge made her feel dizzy, so she stopped.
What on earth was wrong with looking around? There were such interesting things here, and much of the junk could be of real value. The copper wash boiler right in front of her was like one she’d seen in an antique shop with a high-dollar price tag attached.
Music to Die For Page 12
