Where There’s a Will

by Beth Pattillo

  “Well?” Ellen was as eager as Kate to discuss Kate’s meeting with Oliver Coats. “How did it go?” she asked as they settled into a couple of chairs near the front of the classroom.

  “You were right about Oliver.” Kate grimaced. “He certainly thinks well of himself.”

  “Did he show you the painting?” Ellen came straight to the point. The dark circles under her eyes testified to the strain she’d been under in recent days.

  “Yes.” Kate was glad to have some good news for her. “He was surprisingly accommodating. Even had Carol fix iced tea. She seemed to walk on eggshells around him, though.”

  “Poor Carol.” Ellen pushed a lock of hair off her face. “She always was shy and retiring. I can’t imagine what all these years with Oliver have done to her.”

  “I think the strongest person would show signs of wear and tear, if they were always on the receiving end of such overbearing behavior.” Kate reached into her handbag. “But he did allow me to take photographs of the painting.”

  She spread out the glossy prints she’d printed from her computer on top of the desk. “Do you recognize it?”

  Ellen picked up the photo on top of the pile and traced a finger over the image, as if reliving a well-loved memory.

  “The ironworks,” she said, her voice wistful. “Carol and I played there often as children.” She made a sound that was half laugh, half sigh. “Some of our other cousins played there with us. Our mothers didn’t like it. They thought it far too dangerous. But we promised never to go near the blast furnace, so they let us go.”

  “And did you?” Kate asked, intrigued by this glimpse into Ellen’s past. “Go near the old blast furnace, I mean.”

  Ellen chuckled. “Of course we did. It made the best tunnel for playing bandits, and when you stood in the middle and looked up the chimney, you could see right up to the sky.” She paused. “I’d love to see the painting itself.”

  Kate picked up one of the photos. “I took each section of the painting and enlarged the photo. I didn’t see anything obvious that looks like a clue.” The almost childlike style of the paintings would have made it difficult to conceal anything significant.

  “Hmm.” Ellen took a long time to study each enlargement. “I don’t see anything here either. I suppose the clue could have been hidden under the frame or on the edges of the canvas, but Oliver would never agree to having the frame examined. Though I think we’d have found something on my painting if that were the case.”

  Kate nodded in agreement. “So, we have your landscape and now the painting of the ironworks. Both are of the same location. Perhaps that’s the clue?”

  Ellen shrugged. “There’s no way to know unless we can get our hands on the other three paintings. Did Oliver give any indication of where they might be?”

  Kate shook her head. “So what should we do next?” Ellen asked.

  “We’ll have to start contacting the relatives you listed for me and see what they know.”

  Ellen grimaced. “That may prove more difficult than it sounds.”

  “I think my friend Livvy can help us out. She’s an excellent researcher.”

  Ellen’s face brightened. “So you think we really might be able to find all the paintings?”

  “We can certainly try.” Kate felt a pang of worry at the thought of just how time consuming this search might turn out to be.

  Ellen leafed through the photos once again, her eyes wistful. “It’s been a long time since I’ve thought about those times on High Hoot Ridge. I’d like to see it again someday.”

  “Why wait for someday? Why don’t we go see it sometime next week?” Kate wanted to visit the place herself. If she was going to solve this mystery, every piece of information she could gather would help, including a sense of the place in question.

  Ellen frowned. “But I have no claim to the property. We’d be trespassing.”

  “We can’t do that, of course.” Kate frowned, but then an idea occurred to her. “What if I contact Oliver for permission to visit the site? Pictures of the actual location could be a nice addition to my project.” Which was the truth.

  When Kate presented her project, she wanted to have something to show besides the paintings themselves. The more she learned about the old town of Harrington, the more she wanted to know. So much history had been lost in the mists of time. Perhaps a small part of it could be salvaged.

  Ellen gathered up the photos and handed them back to Kate. They rose from their chairs and made their way toward the door.

  “Let me know what Oliver says.” Ellen paused outside the room. “If he gives his permission, we can take a picnic lunch and make a day of it.”

  “I’ll bring the food,” Kate said.

  The two women parted ways at the end of the corridor, Ellen heading for her office and Kate exiting the building toward her car.

  As she drove home, Kate prayed for patience. She hadn’t planned on any further dealings with the obnoxious Oliver Coats, but there was no way around it. If she wanted to visit High Hoot Ridge and the abandoned town of Harrington, she was going to have to beard the lion in his den once more.

  AS IT TURNED OUT, Kate found that securing Oliver’s permission was quite simple. She left a message on his answering machine, and he left a response on hers. She chuckled as she listened to the rather lengthy rambling that not only elevated his own importance but condescended sufficiently to allow her to visit the property. His officiousness made Kate feel as if she needed a shower, but she was delighted to get the go-ahead for her visit. Since Ellen didn’t teach any classes on Thursday, they decided on that day.

  KATE ROSE AT five thirty on Thursday morning and padded to the kitchen to turn on the coffeemaker. When she’d poured herself a steaming cup of her favorite brew, she went to the living room and settled into her rocker. She spent some time in prayer, then she opened her Bible and turned to that day’s reading. She smiled to herself when she saw the passage.

  “I lift up my eyes to the hills—where does my help come from,” she read out loud. “My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” She’d always loved that selection from the Psalms, and it seemed particularly appropriate for their pilgrimage to High Hoot Ridge.

  Later, after she kissed Paul good-bye and sent him off to work, she packed the picnic lunch for her day with Ellen. She’d made her favorite chicken-salad recipe that she always served tucked inside croissants. Fruit salad and sand tarts completed the meal. Kate packed the food in a wicker picnic basket and headed out the door.

  Ellen was waiting on the curb outside her apartment at the college when Kate arrived. She wore an emerald green sweater and dark slacks. As Kate pulled up to the curb, she lifted a hand in greeting.

  “Thank you for driving,” Ellen said after she slid into the car and they exchanged a cheery hello. “It will be nice to look around rather than having to concentrate on the road.” She clipped her seat belt around her waist and adjusted the shoulder strap. “I rarely ever drove when Trevor and I lived in New York.”

  “Well, I’m a Texas girl at heart,” Kate replied with a grin. “I love to drive. Although the winding roads around here aren’t conducive to my lead-footed tendencies.”

  Ellen laughed, then pulled a piece of paper from her handbag. “I printed a map off the Internet in case my memory fails me.”

  They drove east out of Pine Ridge and followed a winding two-lane highway toward the rolling mountains in the distance. The first hint of fall could be seen in the occasional specks of orange and yellow among the trees. In a few weeks, the foliage would be a symphony of reds, browns, and golds, but for now the landscape rested on the cusp of the changing seasons.

  Kate drove carefully along the twisting road as it wound between two steep ridges. Fortunately, the hardwood forests of oak and hickory through this area had not yet been ravaged by the paper industry Oliver Coats was so eager to do business with. Of course, some companies followed the new, more ecologically sensitive practices
that had been developed to preserve the environment. Kate wondered if the future owners of High Hoot Ridge fell into that category. She hoped so. The patchwork of greens contrasted with the jutting brown ridges reminded her that the hands of God had created this beauty, not human hands.

  Beside Kate, Ellen seemed enthralled with the passing scenery. They drove for another fifteen minutes in silence before she spoke.

  “I’d forgotten,” she said in a quiet voice. “It’s breathtaking, isn’t it?”

  Kate knew that the farther east they drove from Copper Mill and Pine Ridge, the more dramatic the scenery would become. But knowing something and seeing it with her own eyes were two very different things.

  “Yes, breathtaking,” she agreed.

  “I think the turn is coming up,” Ellen said after checking the map. “Look for a gas station and a dirt road just beyond it.”

  Sure enough, a few minutes later, they spotted the station, but it was far from what Kate had imagined it would look like. The roof of the abandoned building had collapsed, and weeds had grown up through the cracks in the cement paving. Two rusty, old-fashioned gas pumps leaned drunkenly toward each other as if they were whispering secrets.

  “I don’t think anyone’s filled up their gas tank there in quite a while,” Kate said as she slowed to make the turn.

  Ellen’s eyes were glued to the ramshackle building. “My grandparents used to stop there. And my grandfather would buy us Chocolate Soldiers and MoonPies.”

  Kate was familiar with MoonPies, those gooey Southern treats made with graham crackers and marshmallow fluff, but she’d never heard of the other treat.

  “What’s a Chocolate Soldier?”

  “It was a bottled drink, not like chocolate milk exactly but similar. All the flavoring was at the bottom of the bottle, so you had to shake it up before you opened it to mix it up well.”

  “Sounds delicious. I’ve never met a form of chocolate I didn’t like.”

  Ellen nodded. “Same with me. I’m a hopeless chocoholic.”

  They laughed, and Ellen continued to reminisce as the dirt road wound up the side of the ridge, leading to hairpin curves at each end. Kate gripped the steering wheel as she maneuvered the tighter curves beneath a canopy of trees. Whoever had named High Hoot Ridge hadn’t been joking about the high part. Ellen must have noticed Kate’s death grip on the wheel as they climbed.

  “Sorry, Kate. I forgot to warn you about this road. It’s one of the things that led to the demise of the ironworks.”

  “Oliver mentioned it,” Kate replied. “He said your great-grandfather wouldn’t agree to build a rail line to High Hoot Ridge.”

  “The Harringtons have always been known for their stubbornness. In the end, neither brother got what he wanted.”

  “Too bad there was no one to play King Solomon and resolve the dispute.”

  “Yes, it is. Instead, they lost almost all of their fortunes, and the people of Harrington lost everything.”

  “Where did those folks go?”

  “I have no idea. By the time I came along, the abandoned ironworks and the town were nothing more than a playground for me and my cousins.”

  “Did someone still live up here then?”

  “My grandmother did during the summer, if you can believe it. Our branch of the family built our home here in Harrington, while Carol’s side built in Pine Ridge. The house you visited, in fact. But my grandmother stayed up here every summer until we had to move her to a nursing home.”

  Kate couldn’t imagine living alone on the ridge, even for a few months out of the year.

  They rounded one last curve, and finally Kate saw what they’d been looking for.

  “There’s Harrington,” Ellen said, pointing toward the collection of abandoned buildings that made the gas station look like a palace.

  “Oh.” Kate wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but somehow she’d formed a more romantic image of Harrington than this. Most of the buildings were little more than piles of weather-beaten lumber lost in a sea of weeds. Kudzu, that great equalizer in the South, twined through the remains as if trying to reclaim the abandoned town for Mother Nature.

  “It does look bad, doesn’t it?” Ellen sighed. Her eagerness had dimmed.

  Kate pulled the car to a stop by the edge of the road. Ahead, she could still make out the faint track that had once been the bustling main street of Harrington.

  “C’mon,” Ellen said, “I’ll show you around.”

  Kate stepped gingerly from the car, glad she’d worn sensible shoes. Rocks and pinecones littered the ground among the tall grass. She hoped there weren’t any snakes. Kate loved the outdoors, but she wasn’t fond of anything that slithered on its belly.

  “This was the main street?” she asked as they picked their way between the decaying buildings.

  “The only street,” Ellen said. “On that side was the post office, the company store, and the livery,” she said, gesturing toward the rubble. Then she turned and pointed toward the other side. “That building was the barber shop, and there, at the end, the hotel. And back in those woods was a dormitory for the single men.”

  While all the other buildings had been small one-story affairs, the town hotel looked as if it had consisted of at least two floors, maybe three.

  “A little farther on was the church, which doubled as the schoolhouse. An itinerant Methodist preacher came through every so often to hold services. At least that’s what my grandmother told me.”

  The combination church and schoolhouse had fared the best of any of the buildings in the little town. Its basic structure and steeple remained intact.

  “Look,” Kate said, raising her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. “Is that the church bell? Could it have survived all these years?”

  They made their way closer to discover that, sure enough, the old bell still hung in the belfry below the steeple.

  “I guess it was too much trouble to take down. Or maybe too heavy to move.” Ellen looked at it thoughtfully. “I wonder if it still works.”

  Before Kate could say anything, Ellen clambered up the three short steps and ducked through the doorway into the old building.

  “Wait!” Kate called, but it was too late.

  She prayed the aging structure wouldn’t crumple with Ellen trapped inside. A moment later, she heard the clear, rich pealing of the bell. The sound rang out over the ridge, echoing through the treetops. How many times had it summoned worshippers to Sunday services or children to their lessons? Had they rung it to summon help in times of distress? Hearing the sound, Kate could almost picture the little main street at the turn of the century, bustling with dozens of the former residents of Harrington. Strange to think that a good number of people had lived full and often difficult lives in this now-abandoned place.

  Kate was so caught up visualizing the scene that she almost didn’t hear the snapping of wood and the small cry that came from the abandoned church.

  Chapter Seven

  Ellen?” Kate moved toward the steps, concern in her voice. Most likely it had just been the building settling or some small animal scrabbling around inside. Kate mounted the steps until she reached the top and could peer into the gloomy interior.

  “Ellen?” she called again, but there was no answer. The hairs on the back of Kate’s neck stood up. She took a tentative step into the dark building, worried now that the sound she’d heard might have been a floorboard giving way beneath Ellen’s weight.

  If only she had a flashlight. She paused another moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimness. “Ellen, are you okay?” Her pulse fluttered in her throat. They were so isolated up here on the ridge. What if Ellen was hurt? How would she—

  “Kate!”

  Kate’s heart swelled with relief at the sound of Ellen’s voice. “I’m here. Keep talking, and I’ll follow your voice.”

  “Okay. But hurry, please. I need your help.”

  Kate picked her way cautiously across what must have once been the
church foyer.

  “I’m coming,” she reassured Ellen. She feared that the floor might collapse beneath her at any moment, but she kept going. Just past the foyer, she entered the larger room that had served as both classroom and sanctuary.

  “Over here,” Ellen called. “Can you see me?”

  Kate followed the sound of her voice and spied her seated on a low platform at the front of the room that must have once held both the pulpit and the teacher’s desk.

  “I’m stuck,” Ellen said. The panic receded from her voice at Kate’s arrival.

  Kate hustled across the room. “What happened?”

  “I must have stepped on a rotten board. I think I’m okay, but my ankle’s stuck.” She gestured toward her right leg. Her foot had disappeared through the hole in the floorboard. “Can you help me get it out?”

  “Let me see if I can find something to use as a crowbar,” she said.

  A few minutes’ search finally turned up a long piece of metal that had probably been a brace of some kind. Kate used it to pry up the boards around Ellen’s foot.

  “Okay, pull,” Kate instructed as she put all her weight on the end of the bar.

  The floorboards squeaked in protest, but Ellen worked her foot free of the hole.

  “It’s out,” she said, scooting to the side and rubbing her ankle. She gave a shaky laugh. “I can’t believe that happened.”

  With that crisis averted, Kate could breathe again. “Thank goodness it wasn’t worse,” she said, collapsing on the platform beside Ellen. “Does it hurt?”

  Ellen flexed her foot. “No. I think it’s okay. I’m just glad I didn’t come up here alone. I don’t think anyone would have ever found me.”

  “It’s definitely not a place to get stuck,” Kate agreed. “I can’t believe your grandmother lived up here alone all those summers.”

  “Well, she probably had enough sense not to go tramping around in dilapidated buildings,” Ellen said with a weak smile. “Let’s get out of here, shall we?”