Poison Branches

by Cynthia Raleigh

  “I remember you telling me that, but it was years ago and I wasn’t sure I remembered the story.”

  Perri and Nina passed the two outbuildings on their left. Both were stone, one much larger than the other. The larger building looked like a barn or storage building, having wide double doors in one end, which had a wooden plank set across it, resting in metal brackets. The smaller building was too small for anything other than a garden shed or, as Nina suggested, an outhouse. “You gotta go when you’re working in the fields too, you know?”

  Perri smiled, “Could be. Depending on how long we’re here, we may want to check that out.”

  The path ended at the larger building. “The farmer said when we get to these buildings, to go past them and we should see the cemetery just up on the next hill. There had been a lot of rain in the two weeks prior to their visit, and while the ground wasn’t sodden, it was still a little soft, being at the bottom of a small valley of sorts between the hills. Perri and Nina had to watch their step as they walked past the end of the barn with the doors. There were tracks going through the grassy area and into the barn, and large clumps of mud had been thrown from the tracks and were drying to a concrete consistency along the edges of the tracks.

  Once past the tracks, they struck up the side of the hill. It wasn’t particularly tall, but the sides were steep. Once at the top, they turned to look around. “It’s beautiful countryside,” said Perri. The white steeple on the copper roof of the courthouse was visible in the distance. As Perri started to turn back to the hilltop, she pointed to the area to the right of and further away from the two stone buildings, “Look. There is a semi-circle of flowers, not blooming now, but the greenery looks like irises or daffodils that bloom in spring. I wonder if there might have been a house there at one time and those were in the front yard.”

  Nina looked where Perri was pointing and said, “Yeah. That is what it looks like. I wonder if the farmer knows what was there. He might.”

  “Yes, he might.”

  Perri closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and felt the sunshine on her face for a few moments. “Let’s get looking. I see a few stones, so let’s look at them first. I’m sure the one I want won’t be one of them, but you never know.”

  Chapter 14

  It had been three hours. Perri and Nina were both tired and grubby from crawling around in the grass and soil. Perri had recognized the names on a couple of them. She used her graph paper to plot the locations of the standing stones in the cemetery, and included some of the surrounding features. There was an enormous locust tree at the southeastern corner and a fallen tree across a broken stone in the opposite corner.

  “I think I will try to find the top portion of that broken stone over there,” Perri indicated the narrow stump of a stone near the fallen tree. The top section, the part that contained the name and birth date had broken off and wasn’t visible. Perri wanted to see if it was just below ground level. The stone was no more than twelve inches wide and shouldn’t be too much of a job to dig it out if it was there. “We don’t know exactly when Perlina died, but the stones that are next to this one are from the same era. The probate records that I got last year confirmed she was buried in this cemetery. Fingers crossed.”

  Perri walked over to the duffle bag/cemetery kit and pulled out the slender divining rods she’d been given by Joyce and returned to the grave site. They were L-shaped, the short section was four inches long and the long section twenty-four inches long. They were no larger than the diameter of a wire coat hanger, but were steel and very strong; they reminded Perri of a very thin barbecue spit. Joyce had included a couple of five-inch-long sections of PVC pipe. She said they were to rest the short ends of the rods in so they would turn freely making it less likely that the hands holding them would either inhibit them or turn them purposefully. “I have never used these rods to locate, and I don’t really need to do that now anyway, but I think I’ll use them like a probe and see if I meet any resistance in the area around the stone. Maybe the top half is still here, just buried. It looks like the broken edge angles down from back to front with a crushed area just below the break. I’ll check in front first.”

  “Good idea,” replied Nina. She sat down on a patch of grass to watch. “I want to try locating with those sometime. It would be pretty awesome if it works.”

  Perri slowly pushed one of the rods down through the earth about two inches in front of the stone. It went all the way in the ground, right up to her fingers. She pulled it out again and tried several more times a couple inches away from the previous try, moving away from the stone. On the fifth try, the rod stopped suddenly. “You got something, Perri?”

  “I think so.” Perri tried again an inch away with the same result. “I think we should carefully dig here. I hope it is the missing part of the stone. It doesn’t sound like a tree root. Can you bring the duffle bag over here?”

  Nina got up and retrieved the bag. She set it down next to where Perri was kneeling, unzipped it, took out the hand spade and trowel, and handed them to Perri.

  Perri dug quickly for the first few inches, then slowly as she neared the object. The tip of the hand spade hit something solid. Perri used the trowel to dig around the edges until she could see what was in the ground. It was definitely a stone. “I think this is it. Oh, I hope so.” They both dug around the edges to make enough room to pull out the stone. “The ground is pretty wet. I think we’d better use a rope underneath before we try to lift it; I don’t want to break it. We’ll have to dig out a little further from all sides of the stone to have room for our hands to slip the rope under it and pull it across.

  Nina asked, “Why are we going to use a rope? What will that do?”

  Perri answered, “It will break the suction between the stone and wet earth. If we don’t, we could break it further trying to pull it out.”

  They continued to dig to expose the full length of the buried stone which turned out to be fifteen inches long. They cleared the loose dirt from the sides of the stone until there was room for the rope to be slipped beneath the fragment. Perri pulled a length of nylon rope from the duffle bag and handed one end to Nina. “Let’s start at the jagged end, the one nearest the standing stone and gently push the rope under the edge.” After getting the rope under the stone, Nina said, “Now, gently pull the rope toward the bottom. We can slide it back and forth if we need to or move one side at a time if it gets too hard to move.”

  It was difficult to make progress at first, and it seemed the rope wasn’t going to move at all. “Maybe it’s stuck on something, something under the stone” said Nina, just as the rope moved forward a bit. They moved the rope back and forth and side to side until it cleared the smooth, rounded end. “Let’s move it back just a bit, about a third of the way, and you lift gently up on the rope while I lift the broken end.”

  Nina slid the rope back a few inches while Perri dug her fingers in the muddy soil under the stone. It moved slightly and stopped. “Let’s run the rope up and down once more, then lift right after the last pass. I think it sucked back onto the mud.”

  “Ok.” They slid the rope back to the top, then down again. When the rope was about two-thirds down the length of the stone, Perri said, “Ok lift.” There was some resistance, then a sucking noise, and the stone fragment came free. “Yes!”

  The stone had fallen face down when it was broken. It had gradually sunk into the earth, further with each passing decade. Perri and Nina very carefully turned the stone over and laid it on the grass. Perri reached in to her duffle bag and got a bottle of water. Perri poured a little water on the stone and used a soft brush to remove the water and mud. The branches of a willow tree, billowing in the wind, could be seen carved at the top. She continued pouring water, a little at a time, and brushing it away. What had hidden the stone from view for countless years also protected it. The writing was much easier to read on this part of the stone.

  Perri took a deep breath and sighed, lightly touching the edge of th
e stone. “It’s her! Oh, thank goodness. I’m glad to have found her resting place.” She read through the epitaph. “She died in 1862, only four years after Francis and his daughter. Life wasn’t easy then, was it?”

  Nina slowly shook her head, “No, it was not. Do you know what happened to her children? They would still have been very young.”

  “I do. Women needed to be married back then, especially if they had children. If their husband died, they usually remarried as quickly as possible. Same with the men really, because the men needed someone to keep house and take care of the children while he worked or farmed, or whatever he did. Today it would raise eyebrows to remarry so fast, but not back then. She married again within a year. When she died, the children she had with Francis stayed with her husband and his children by his former wife. Perlina had been married once before she married Francis too. He was quite a bit older than her and he died not long after they married. Not an unusual story.

  Perri and Nina set the top portion of Perlina’s stone in front of the lower half. “I’m going to take photos and mark it on the map, then I think we can…” Perri’s sentence was interrupted by a click and a man’s voice, “What do you think you’re doing there?” Perri and Nina whirled around like a couple of tops to find a man pointing a shotgun at them.

  “Hey, hold on,” Perri said as she dropped her clipboard, slowly stood, and raised both hands, palms out. “We have permission to be here, to look at the stones. Who are you?” Nina stood still and stared at the man. He looked to be in his mid-sixties and had unkempt graying hair that probably would not recognize a comb. His clothes were a bit ragged, old jeans with the hem so worn it looked like fringe and a yellowed t-shirt with darker yellow stains under the arms.

  The man motioned with his shotgun back toward the path, “You all just get out of here now.”

  Perri persisted, “We have permission to be here, from Mr. Freighley. He owns this land and I have written permission from him to be in this cemetery.”

  “That so? I don’t care what you have in writin’ lady, I lease the pasture from old Freighley and I say you go.”

  “We aren’t in the pasture. We are in the cemetery. Do you lease the cemetery?”

  “Listen, I ain’t havin’ none of your lip. You get out of here. I don’t want you next to my property, and this is my property over here.” He swung his head in an arc indicating the land behind him.

  Perri tried to talk sensibly, “I understand that, and we appreciate that. But this cemetery isn’t your land. We aren’t going to come onto your land. We are only going to be here a little while longer and then we are going.”

  “You’re going now!” The man raised the shotgun and fired a shot into the air.

  “Holy shit, Perri, let’s go. He’s crazy,” cried Nina in alarm. “I’m not down for getting shot.”

  “No, me either.” Perri eyed the man, “Let us gather our stuff first, that alright with you?”

  “Make it snappy.” The shotgun was trained back on Perri and Nina. Perri turned around and bent to pick up her clipboard. Nina was placing items back in the duffle bag. Perri picked up the camera, turned it on, and took a photo of the stone.

  “What are you doing?” shouted the man. “I told you to get out of here.”

  “Alright, alright.” They picked up their belongings and Perri took another look around the cemetery. “I think we have everything. You have a nice day.”

  “It’ll be a nice day when you are gone,” hooted the man.

  Perri and Nina headed back down the hill toward the path. As they passed the outbuildings, Perri said, “I’m calling the police, that whacko fired his gun! I’m going to let Mr. Freighley know what his tenant is doing too.”

  “I think I’m shaking a little bit. I’ve never been shot at!” said Nina as she held her hand out.

  “At first I thought maybe the gun was empty and he was just trying to scare us away with it. Nope. No, that guy is a nutjob. What on earth is he doing on his property that he’s this worried about us being here? He draws more attention to himself by waving a gun around and threatening people.”

  “I know,” agreed Nina. “We would never have given a second thought to it.”

  Perri smiled, “I wouldn’t want him to have gone to all that trouble for nothing. I feel compelled to justify his paranoia, don’t you?”

  “Mmm, I like the sound of that. I agree. His efforts were admirable and they should not go unrecognized or unrewarded.”

  “I concur.” They laughed as they picked their way over the clods and dried ridges of mud by the stone barn. They still threw the occasional glance over their shoulder though, just to be sure.

  The duffle stowed back in the trunk, Perri and Nina settled into the Cooper with relief. Perri leaned her head back on the headrest and exhaled loudly, “Well, that was a lot of fun until Pa Kettle showed up with this gun.”

  “Who?”

  Perri chuckled, “Never mind, old show. Used to watch it with my Dad. Truthfully, that comparison isn’t fair to Pa Kettle.”

  “Oh, ok. You going to call the police?”

  “I think I’ll stop by the police station and report it in person. We didn’t have lunch and I figured we’d be going back to the Arrogant Rogue. The police station is practically next door.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Perri carefully eased the Cooper off the rocky soft shoulder, which appeared prone to crumble into the ditch, maneuvered the car around to face the way they had come, and drove away.

  Chapter 15

  Perri parked in a spot on the far side of the police station. Inside, there was a counter running most of the width of the narrow building. The front was paneled in the light grayish paneling popular in the sixties and the top was covered with beige and white Formica. There was a handful of chairs, square chrome legs and black vinyl, lined up against the plate glass window. An officer appeared around the corner of the narrow doorway that led to the rear of the building. “What can I help you ladies with?” he smiled and slapped his hand onto the counter, sliding onto a stool.

  “I’d like to report someone who fired a gun.”

  The officer’s smile vanished. “Fired a gun? Alright, let’s get the whole story here. Why don’t you start…”

  “At the beginning,” Perri finished the sentence. “Yes, no problem.” Officer Wilcox, as the nametag indicated, listened and made notes about the incident as Perri told her story. She began with an explanation of the purpose of their visit and their presence on Mr. Freighley’s land, and ended with their departure from the cemetery.

  Officer Wilcox heaved a voluminous sigh and thrust his hand through his thinning hair, “That’s Milton Sauer, the guy with the shotgun. Not the first time we’ve crossed paths with Milton, or the rest of his family for that matter.”

  “Not a new thing, huh?” asked Nina.

  “Yes and no. Not new that a Sauer is causing trouble, but yes, it is new because Milton has never fired a gun at someone before. You say he shot up into the air?”

  “Yes, yes, he definitely pointed it up, at about a 90-degree angle, and fired. But the threat felt pretty real.”

  Nina asked, “You say you’ve had trouble with the Sauers before, how many of them are there?”

  “Not as many as there were, used to be a dozen of them. Now it’s down to Milton and his two sons, Howard and Rodney. Not Howard anymore though, because he moved away.”

  “Rodney?” asked Perri and Nina in unison.

  Perri continued, “Is that the guy who works at the filling station?”

  Officer Wilcox laughed, “So you’ve met Rodney.”

  “They should rename that place ‘Cuckoo’s Filling Station.’ He’s a pig.”

  “Ma’am, I have heard your opinion expressed before, I’ll say that.” He tore the piece of paper off the pad, pulled out a form, and said, “If you don’t mind having a seat over there for a few minutes, I’ll write this report up and have you sign it. We’ll go out and talk to Mil
ton, see what’s stuck in his craw this week.”

  “Thank you.” As they turned to have a seat, the door opened and the detective they had seen in the cemetery walked through.

  “Hey there, George.”

  “How you doing, Sarah? Finished out at the cemetery?”

  “Yes, the car is being brought in now. I called ahead and let Martin know it was coming.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Getting to wear your Detective hat today? How’s it feel?” asked George.

  Sarah chuckled, “It’s a nice change of scenery, George. Thankfully, I don’t have too much opportunity to switch gears.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Sarah ran her eyes over the waiting area, “Everything ok here?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Just a complaint about Milton Sauer.” George nodded at Perri and Nina, “These two were up at Freighley’s old cemetery looking at stones, had his permission, Milton decided to threaten them and fired his gun to run ‘em off.”

  “Really. He fired a gun? What kind?”

  “Shotgun, that old thing he’s been pointing at people for years.”

  Sarah stepped over to Perri and Nina and briskly shook their hands, “Hi, I’m Detective Sarah Vines. I’m concerned about Mr. Sauer’s behavior. He’s been a bit of a loose cannon, so to speak, over the years but he’s never gone as far as shooting. You both alright?”