by Karen Harper
“Jess, Jess, I’m so sorry. About what we’ve found, and that it took this long to find her. Yes, I’ll guard her. Still, in case someone’s hanging around here, I don’t want you walking out alone. But I don’t see another way.”
“I’m not scared,” she vowed as she stepped back from him. She glanced again at her mother’s hiding place while Drew took out the handgun and his car keys. “I’m just,” she told him, struggling for thoughts and words, “desolate but determined. If you can’t find who’s behind this, Drew, somehow, I will.”
Cassie met Tyler just beyond her front porch, where he’d driven his car around while she’d checked on Pearl. “I’d go back toward Bear Creek with you,” she told him, “but Pearl’s really tuckered out and says she has a stomachache. Got to get some mint tea in her.”
“It’s all right. Can I leave my camera gear with you, though? If I’m not weighed down, I can retrace our steps up toward Sunrise faster. I’ll feel naked without it, but if I see the place where that thing was again, I’ll just mark the site and return later. It’s going to be too dark soon for taking more shots of the site anyway. I’d rather not leave things in the car.”
“Sure. ’Course, I can keep your stuff,” she promised, realizing that her anger at him was gone with the wind. She took the camera and bag of equipment he handed her, pulling the strap of the heavy bag up over her shoulder. But she worried about him going back into the woods without her. “You sure you remember the way?” she asked as she went out toward his car with him. “It’s easy to get lost if you’re not used to the area. Now, if you don’t see the sheriff’s SUV or Jessie’s car—a blue Miata—don’t you go traipsing into that forest, you hear?” she demanded, realizing she was starting to sound as if she was talking to Pearl. “The sheriff’s armed, I’ll bet, so—oh, what’s all this?” she asked as she bent down to poke her head in the passenger side of the front seat of his car and saw a pile of dark clothes on the floor.
“I didn’t mean to leave that there. A couple of costumes I thought someone could wear for a photo.”
“Like who? Me and Pearl? Old-fashioned outfits, right?” she asked, touching a black bonnet and stroking the big, furry coonskin cap.
“I thought a sort of Daniel and Rebecca Boone photo in one of the little graveyards around here might be good. I gotta go, Cassie. I just hope the sheriff doesn’t think I’m nuts. I guess the photo could be of some strange-looking tree or even a black bear standing on a stump to reach something, which made it look taller. Maybe, if I can find the exact spot, we can figure it out, Sheriff Webb and me.”
“I didn’t mean it, about not working for you anymore. I guess Appalachia is fading away.”
“But with you,” he said, bending forward to glance out at her as she moved away from the car, “it’s never seemed so real and vital to me. Don’t worry about me. I think I remember the path and, if I don’t see their vehicle, I won’t hike in.”
He pulled out so fast his wheels spit dirt. She watched his rental car bounce down the bumpy lane and disappear. It had touched her heart how concerned he’d seemed about her friends, how anxious he was to tell them something strange might be in the woods. Besides, Mr. Tyler Finch of New York City had called Miss Cassandra Keenan of Deep Down, Kentucky, real and vital. Somehow, those were the two prettiest, sexiest, soft-soap words she’d ever heard.
Left alone with Mariah’s corpse, Drew said an awkward prayer for Jess’s safety and for his own strength to solve this case. It was only since he’d felt so alone, in the midst of his old hometown, that he had started to pray again like his mother had taught her sons. Then, taking advantage of the sinking sunlight, he carefully examined the area for any clues they might have missed.
Considering the position of the body, he figured it was pretty much in the center of the three sites with the sang berries pointing like arrows this way. He had to face it, the evidence so far suggested Seth Bearclaws. But he couldn’t fathom the man doing this, not unless he’d snapped. Seth had always seemed odd but nonviolent, and Drew was certain he had admired Mariah. But then, she was one who took living things from the forest, and Seth deeply resented that. If that was a motive, could Cassie be in danger, too?
Although Sam was his number one person of interest, that didn’t clear Vern. Besides, Vern evidently liked the old Cherokee just a little less than he liked the new sheriff, and was clever enough to set something up to shift the blame. All that aside, it was still possible that Mariah’d had a heart attack or seizure. She could have left signposts so someone would find her, then crawled into this huge tree trunk for shelter where she died. Without moving the ginseng plants, he couldn’t be sure, but he thought there was blood on her skin. He was tempted to uncover the corpse, but he’d need corroboration from others—damn, he hoped Sheriff Akers brought a camera—before any of the evidence was moved. Then he’d have to wait for the coroner’s report.
“Sorry I didn’t find you sooner, Mariah,” he whispered. “I’ll try to help Jess, but she’s probably going back to the other life you gave her.”
For once, the woods kind of spooked him. He kept his hands on the shotgun as he paced the perimeter of the area, unsure what he was looking for, especially since rain and blowing leaves had evidently obliterated any footprints from the day Mariah disappeared.
His foot snagged something on the ground; he jumped back, thinking it might be a snake. Damn, Junior Semple’s varmint sticks had made him edgy. But it was a short belt or piece of black leather, lost or hidden under the leaves about fifty feet from the hollow tree that had been Mariah’s forest coffin these last four days.
He lifted it with the shotgun muzzle. Had it come from a weapon or even a camera? Some kind of a restraint? A dog’s collar? The kind with a computer chip or homing device embedded in it? Maybe one like Vern told him Peter Sung’s special hunt hounds wore, so he could follow them when they chased bears.
Jessie alternated between fast walking and loping, at least until she got a stitch in her side and had to slow down. Light bled away under the heavy canopy of trees. By the time she got Sheriff Akers and some others out here, they would need lanterns. But she’d still find the way to lead them to the scene. She would not leave Drew or her mother out in the black depths of the forest all night.
Though she kept putting one foot before the other, she was shaking all over. If she had to shoot Drew’s gun, which she carried out rather than in her backpack, she’d never hit her target. But surely, whoever had hurt—murdered—her mother must have fled long ago. Fled, like her thoughts…Her mind wandered, taunting her with longing and regrets.
“Please never forget or doubt how much I love you, honey,” her mother had said when it was time for her to leave with Elinor that first time, the morning after she’d been caught with Drew. It had been coitus interruptus, she’d heard Elinor whisper to a friend later and then had to look that up in a dictionary. Actually, Jessie realized now, as her thoughts came all jumbled and jagged, it was lifus interruptus. Her entire early life had been shattered when she was forced to become someone else. After that, even on visits to Deep Down, whether with Elinor or alone, nothing was quite the same. Nothing was right here ever again, maybe because, once she was through the rough patches with Elinor, she felt guilty about loving her new life.
And now this. This final, brutal, horrible parting. Why hadn’t she told her mother how much she loved her, too?
Suddenly exhausted, thinking she might become sick, Jessie stopped and leaned against a tree. She could hear Bear Falls rushing over rocks, rushing on, like her life. She got hold of herself and pushed on.
Deeper, darker, the forest closed in around her. Childhood fears came back to her. She was Little Red Riding Hood hoping no wolf was stalking her, and the setting reminded her of the Grimm Brothers’ tales of giants and ogres and beasts. But now the stories seemed real.
She saw she’d wandered slightly off the path, but got back on, checking for the tenth time to be sure she had the key to Dre
w’s Cherokee. Drew. Drew Webb was back in her life. Was that only because they were forced to work together on this? When they found how her mother had died, who was at fault, would they be parted again? Her childhood home and the land in Slate Creek Hollow was hers now, but her life was in Lexington and in her lab. All those wilting ginseng leaves and plants heaped over her mother, as if for a funeral pyre. She had been wondering for weeks if she should test sang leaves to see if they could produce ginsenosides, just like the roots did. Leaves would be easier…cheaper and—
She heard the loud crack of a limb. Where? What did that? It took something with great weight.
She glanced quickly behind, around. Shifting shadows, shuddering limbs and leaves. Quickening her pace again, she pressed her hand with Drew’s key against her side and put her finger gingerly on the trigger of the gun. He’d given her hurried directions, though she still hadn’t told him she’d never shot a gun. He’d said a round was in the chamber and that it wouldn’t misfire. That she wouldn’t have to cock it—just pull the trigger. That she had fifteen shots. What else had he said?
The wind picked up as if the woods were breathing; the breeze lifted her hair and dried her tears. The once familiar forest seemed to close in around her; the tree trunks rushing at her. Her footsteps through the leaves sounded incredibly loud.
Did she hear footsteps besides her own? Surely, nothing echoed in here like that. Footfalls, only in her fears. Folks said that certain places were haunted. She’d never heard tales of ghosts in these woods, but Seth had said many of his people had died marching through here on their brutal Trail of Tears. Had Sam chosen the place his people had faced death to kill a white person in revenge? No, too far-fetched. Too—demented. But was he? If someone had harmed her mother, he had to be deranged.
Dusk suddenly descended as if a lid had been closed on a box. Now, maybe she heard a deer shuffling through the leaves. She glanced back and gasped. In the last shreds of thin, setting sun through a pass in the mountains, dark, demon eyes glowed at her. A shrill cry escaped her, and she saw a raccoon skitter away. Like cat’s eyes in the dark, those of coons and deer reflected light, that was all, that was all.
She broke into a run, but skidded on acorns down a slanted part of the path. That sent six feeding grouse into the air with flapping wings. Trying to break her fall with both hands, she went down hard. Her trigger finger jerked; the pistol discharged, a sharp sound that shook her arm and soul.
She prayed Drew hadn’t heard that gunshot, or he’d be panicked. But he was surely too far away. Too far away…Her mother was so far away and never coming back and…
Scrambling to her feet, she retrieved the gun and hurried on. Limping slightly, she checked again to be sure she hadn’t lost the key. It was still here. She was doing well, she tried to tell herself. She must be almost to the place they’d left Drew’s Cherokee. Yet the woods seemed endless.
Then she was sure she heard someone, something, panting, running hard in this direction, coming closer, faster.
Should she make a stand and get ready to fire the gun again? As if her life depended on it, Jessie ran.
Chapter 12
12
F renzied…out of breath…trying to hold the pistol, Jessie sprinted for the edge of the trees where she’d find the road back to safety, to sanity. Except…except…if someone had killed her mother, would they want to kill her daughter, thinking she knew something, thinking she would just take over the sang counts? Precious sang. She needed it for her cancer work, so maybe she should stay here and fight for it, fight whoever did this…
Footsteps somewhere in the trees, coming closer, chasing her. Should she hide behind a tree? Had her mother hidden in that tree?
She stepped partly behind a tree trunk, turned and raised the gun, holding it with both hands to steady it. Her finger trembled on the trigger as she tried to stiffen her arms, and—
Tyler Finch ran out into the clearing. Had he been stalking her? Why hadn’t she seen him on the path? She’d almost fired at him, but lowered the gun and hid it behind her hip as she stepped out in view.
“Ms. Lockwood,” he said, out of breath. “I was trying to find you and the sheriff when I heard a shot. I think I got off the path—I must have passed you. I wanted to warn you that I got a shot—you know, a photo—of something strange in the woods today. I think it was watching Cassie, Pearl and me.”
She was still so terrified that she had trouble grasping his words. “The sheriff and I found my mother’s body,” she blurted. “I’m going for help.”
Saying that, especially to a stranger, made it suddenly real. It was as if the whole forest, all of shadow-shrouded Snow Knob and Sunrise, fell on her.
“I can go for help,” he said, but it seemed his words came from a great distance. She locked her knees to stand.
“No. I’ll need to lead them to the sheriff and to—to her.”
She started walking again and motioned for him to come along. As he fell in beside her, they were both sweating and panting. “What about the photo?” she asked him. “Who’s in it? We’ll need every clue we can get about who was in the woods.”
“Not sure about the who, because it’s more like a what,” he explained, gesturing as if something were tall with a large head. “It may be nothing. I’m not sure, but it looks like a big bear. Cassie’s got the camera for safekeeping.”
Safekeeping, Jessie thought with a sigh of relief as Drew’s Cherokee and Tyler’s car came in view. But would these woods and mountains ever feel safe to her again?
Jessie was running on pure adrenaline as she led Sheriff Akers, a two-man paramedic team with a stretcher and the county coroner back into the woods after dark. As in many small towns or rural areas, Lowe County’s elected coroner was not a pathologist or even a medical man, but, in this case, the owner of the largest funeral home in Highboro. Tyler Finch was permitted to accompany them, too, with his camera this time, because the Highboro Police Department photographer was not in town. High-powered flashlights and battery-powered lanterns lit their way into the forest. Only once did Jessie get them off the trail, but then right back on.
“You’re amazing,” Tyler told her. The gear in his backpack bounced rhythmically as he walked fast to keep up with them. “I wandered off this path right away, even in the light.”
Tyler dropped back to tell the sheriff about the strange “creature” in his photo. While he was waiting for the search party to form, he’d downloaded it to his laptop in Highboro and had cleared his camera, so he didn’t have it here. The sheriff kept shaking his head, whether in disbelief or amazement, she wasn’t sure.
All they needed to bring more chaos to little Deep Down, Jessie thought, was a bunch of thrill seekers trampling the woods, not only looking at a possible murder site but searching for some sort of monster, Appalachia’s answer to Bigfoot or the Abominable Snowman. The media could get hold of it and turn this entire area into a believe-it-or-not circus. Once Tyler got his photo enlarged, she was certain it would turn out to be just some strange juxtaposition of tree limbs. Or a large bear had wandered down from the heights for food. When they stretched to claw a tree, establishing territory, they could look much taller than they were. But in a crazy world where a potato chip that looked like the Virgin Mary could go for hundreds of dollars on eBay, who knows what Tyler would do with that photo.
“I’ll take a look-see of that when you get it blown up,” Sheriff Akers told Tyler.
Blown up—that’s how she felt. Her mother’s life had been obliterated, along with her own chance to say how much she had loved her. She wanted to thank her for giving her the best of Deep Down and of the outside world.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t loved her early days here—she had. Long wildcrafting walks with her mother, impromptu picnics in the woods. Lots of fun times running around with Cassie, too, church socials and school dances and hayrides when the harvest moon was full and her heart was, too. It wasn’t a wide world like Elinor had given her outs
ide Deep Down, but it was a precious one to treasure always.
“I hear the creek,” she turned around to tell the men. “We’ll cross at a spot where there are some big rocks to walk. It won’t be far then.”
She prayed that Drew would be safe. Would he have lit a fire for warmth and to mark the site? What if whatever Tyler claimed was in that photo sneaked up on Drew in the dark?
Jessie was pleased she seemed to be thinking straight, recalling things, reasoning this out. If the coroner ruled it was a homicide, she had to convince Drew that she was stable enough to help him find whoever had murdered her mother. Of course, these men must look into the possibility that Mariah had hurt herself, but Jessie knew better. Her mother was sure-footed, and her health had always been good. So that meant someone—some human monster—had robbed her of the rest of her life and robbed Jessie of so much, too.
They carefully illuminated the rocks across the creek with all their lights, and everyone made it over the water. Talking was harder now because of the distant roar of the falls. With her big flashlight beam probing the night, Jessie strode a bit ahead, past the first sang site they’d found.
“Drew?” she called. “Drew! We’re here!”
He materialized from the night. Her light caught his rugged features from below, making it seem he wore a Halloween fright mask. Everything seemed unreal now, different in the darkness. She didn’t care what anyone thought, she ran to him and hugged him hard.
“Thank God, you’re safe,” he said, then set her back slightly to shake Sheriff Akers’s hand.
“Got us a paramedic team and the coroner, Drew.”
“Thanks for coming, men, and Mr. Merriman,” Drew said, nodding at each in turn. The coroner, Clayton Merriman, had a trimmed beard and mustache. Jessie had not met him before this evening, but he looked the part of an old-time undertaker, solemn, stiff and stern, as if he’d stepped out of an old Civil War tintype.