The Deep Wood (Sunshine Walkingstick Book 2)

by Celia Roman

  The Deep Wood

  A Sunshine Walkingstick Novel

  Celia Roman

  Published by Bone Diggers Press, Clayton, GA.

  © 2017 C.D. Watson. All Rights Reserved.

  Cover © Domi Hlinkova, Inspired Cover Designs.

  ISBN 978-1-943465-2-24

  Description of The Deep Wood:

  When my boy Henry was killed, I tracked a pooka through the deep wood for three days with no food in my gut and only my daddy's hunting knife for comfort. Was what got me into the monster killing business, that pooka, and I ain't regretted a single day of it since.

  The day I stumbled on a four-legged critter with human eyes, the rightness of my revenge begun to unravel, leading me to a clan of two-natured shifters what'd been living under my nose the whole time. And when the two-natured started showing up in odd places, stalking humans in a very unnatural way, weren't nothing I could do but dig to the bottom of it.

  And what I found turned my world and ever thing I knowed upside down.

  The Sunshine Walkingstick Series

  Greenwood Cove

  The Deep Wood

  Cemetery Hill

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  License Notes: This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to your favorite e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of the characters to persons living or dead is purely a coincidence. Actual localities and entities are mentioned solely for the purpose of adding realism to the story.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  About the Author

  Sneak preview: Cemetery Hill

  Chapter One

  paint·er (pānt'-ǝr) n.

  Slang used in the Southern Appalachians

  to describe a panther or mountain lion.

  Wind whipped around me, blocked none a’tall by the man steering the motorcycle I was on. When David Eckstrom invited me out for a ride, I couldn’t hardly turn him down. Me and him was friends of a sort, and my friends was few and far between.

  ‘Course, that weren’t the only reason. I was partly responsible for David’s current emotional slump. A coupla weeks back, we learnt David’s significant other, Gregory Hightower, fell in with a business venture led by Phillip Oliver and Belinda Arrowood, joined by Hal Woodrow and Faith Renault. Together, the Greenwood Five, so called as they all owned homes along the shores of Greenwood Cove on Lake Burton, was now under investigation for dumping industrial waste into the local streams as part of that venture.

  Gregory swore up one side and down t’other he knowed not one speck about them illegal activities. He was a good sort, a right stand up guy, so I believed him. David didn’t, and therein lay the problem.

  Couldn’t argue with a broke heart. I tried cajoling instead, first by pointing out how much Gregory loved David and vice versa, then by simply coaxing him into talking about it, hoping he’d figure out on his own how much they needed each other. Weren’t working, what I could tell, but I kept trying anyhow. I knowed what a broke heart felt like and I sure didn’t want one of my friends falling under the same spell.

  David slowed his Kawasaki KLR 650, a monster of a motorcycle. I peeked around him, sucked in a breath, and tightened my hands on his waist. The road ahead rose sharp and steep, then curved outta sight, and in between, worn ruts deeper’n the bike’s tires pitted the packed dirt.

  I closed my eyes tight. What’d ever possessed me to get on the back of this thing anyhow?

  “Hold on, Sunshine,” David said softly right in my ear, and I flinched. First time I ever wore a helmet. Took a bit of getting used to, ‘specially with a mike system wired into it. Them was too fancy for me and my daddy way back when I was a kid and he used to take me out riding on the back of his old beater, a Yamaha Enduro Daddy bought off a desperate neighbor for fifty dollars and a cord of split firewood.

  I smiled as memory woke. That thing was older’n me when Daddy got it, but man, did he love that bike. He tore the roads up with it, half the time with me on the back and neither of us wearing a helmet or protective gear of no kind. I smiled into the memories, of Daddy’s laughter mingling with the air roaring past my ears, of burying my face in his back when I was scared and wallowing in the scent what was his alone. Laundry detergent, Old Spice, and love. That was my daddy, and about the only thing I had left of him besides his IROC, a stand up LP collection, and the hunting knife I wore strapped to my right ankle under the stiff leather of my boot.

  The motorcycle lurched upward. I leaned forward into David and bit my tongue, holding back the curses popping into my mouth. I done give the church as much cussing money as I intended for a while. The last gallon jar full I give, the quarters, one for each dirty word, was changed to pearls by a minor deity going by the name of Abercio Okeanos, Teus to his friends. He seemed to’ve taken a liking to me, more’s the pity. Last time we met, he left me with a redecorated home, eyes the color of the ocean, and eight marks of service circling my left nipple, each one a multi-colored swirl matching my new eyes.

  My cheeks heated, and for once, I was glad of the helmet’s coverage. Them marks was embarrassing. Thankfully, nobody’d seen ‘em right yet, but with the rate me and Riley Treadwell was stepping out, them being discovered was just a matter of time. Him and me went way back, but it was the here and now what concerned me. What was he gonna do when he discovered them marks?

  Likely have a conniption, judging by how he reacted ever time he thought another man wanted me. Which was plum ridiculous. Me and him was a-courtin’, and he was as much man as I could handle. About the only one I wanted to handle, truth be told, and he knowed it.

  David revved the motorcycle’s engine, and we crested the hill onto a plateau. “Uh-oh,” he whispered.

  I peeked around his helmet and frowned. A black painter lay partway across the road, a big’un, too. I glanced up. Three turkey buzzards circled overhead, their wings spread. They’d be down here soon, pecking away like the carrion they was. Best take a quick look-see before that happened, in case that painter run afoul of something in my line of work.

  Monsters made just as good food for buzzards as wildlife, and got rid of some bad in the world at the same time. Two birds, one stone. Hard not to admire nature’s efficiency.

  I patted David’s waist and said, “We need to stop.”

  The motorcycle slowed immediately, gearing down in a muted roar as David eased it to a stop in front of the painter. I got off and fumbled with my helmet, and side-stepped out
ta the way while David slung his leg over the bike and dismounted.

  “Here,” he said, then his hands brushed mine away and the helmet’s fastening give way under his nimble fingers.

  I slid the helmet off and muttered a brief thanks, walked toward the painter and sniffed. The air was pure, tinged only by the faint odor of rotting leaves and an even fainter hint of water. A nearby creek, like as not. Water run plentiful amongst the rolling hills. It was the painter what was outta place. The Eastern cougar, locally known as a mountain lion or painter (panther to outlanders), went extinct decades back. Some Western cougars had showed up since, a distinct subspecies if them in the know could be believed, but they was shy critters. Hardly nobody ever spotted one, and when they did, it was the common tan furred’un they seen, not the rare black painter like the one me and David stumbled upon. Far as I knowed, the so called melanin painters was considered to be a product of folklore. Nobody’d ever done more’n spot ‘em outta the corner of their eye or whatnot, let alone examined one up close.

  First time for ever thing.

  I knelt beside this’un and eyed the carcass. No bullet wounds, no claw marks, not on the up side nohow. The fur was unruffled and gleamed blue-black under the sunlight streaming through the autumn touched trees.

  I poked gently at one massive paw with a gloved finger. It was stiff, ungiving. First frost hadn’t hit yet. The nights was cool, but not yet cold. Probably hadn’t died of exposure, ‘less it’d got disoriented and lost its way. How could a creature of the deep wood do that, though, ‘specially one as fit and young as this’un seemed to be?

  David’s feet scuffed across sparse gravel through fallen leaves. He knelt beside me, pulled off a glove, and run a bare palm across the painter’s fur. “Still warm.”

  I sat back on my haunches. Rigor mortis had set in, yet the body was still warm? The hairs on the back of my neck tingled and my shoulders hunched under the armored mesh jacket David forced on me before we set off. I weren’t no mortician, but even I knowed that weren’t right.

  I snagged his elbow and tugged. “Don’t touch it no more, ya hear?”

  David withdrew his hand and rested it on his jean-clad thigh. “Foul play?”

  “I don’t know.”

  But I knowed who might. Riley worked with Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources. Patterson Gap Road cut through national forest, outside of Riley’s jurisdiction, but he probably played nice with the forest rangers and had contact numbers and whatnot for ‘em.

  I fished my cellphone out of a jacket pocket and waggled it at David. “Gimme a minute.”

  David tilted his head toward me and smirked. “Tell Ranger Rick I said hello.”

  I snorted out a laugh, then stood and paced away from him. Riley liked David well enough, ‘cept when I was around. For some reason, he had this notion planted in his head that David wanted me, which was plum crazy. David was gay. I was a woman. He was a big flirt, sure, but that was all there was to it.

  Just to be on the safe side, I put another dozen feet between me and David, then punched the preset call button for Riley. Five rings later, an automated message played and I was dumped into his cellphone’s voicemail. Weren’t a huge surprise. It was Sunday morning. Riley’d be in church with his mama, just like he was ever Sunday morning. He tried talking me into going, but I parted ways with the Christ child when my boy Henry died, God rest him, and ain’t found my way back since.

  I outlined what we found, hesitated a bit. Me and Riley been dating nigh on a month now and it was still a mite awkward, for my part anyhow. I glanced over my shoulder. David had his back to me, so I made a soft kissy noise into the phone and hung up with my cheeks flaming hot.

  This dating thing was tough going sometimes.

  I shoved my phone into my back jeans pocket as I shambled over to David, still crouched beside the fallen painter. “Left a message for him.”

  David glanced up at me, his eyes squinted against the sun hanging in a pure azure sky. “Should we move her out of the road?”

  I shook my head reflexively, paused. Not a lot of traffic out here, what with the road being so bad and all, but if a Jeep or truck topped that hill near dusk, the driver might miss the painter. It was big enough to cause a vehicle to flip or otherwise do real damage.

  I sighed. “Yeah, we better. I got the front paws.”

  David nodded and stood, and I bent over. On the way down, the painter’s eyes, permanently open in death, caught my gaze and I stopped in mid-stoop. Human eyes stared back at me, deep brown, round of pupil. Eyes about like I had before that no good scoundrel Teus changed ‘em blue.

  Well, crap. This weren’t no painter after all, not a natural one nohow, and I had no idea what to do about it.

  I didn’t tell David about the painter’s eyes. No sense worrying him. He been through enough here of late and didn’t react well to monsters nohow. This’un was deader’n a doorknob, but I couldn’t afford to have David flip his lid, seeing as how I had no idea how to run that bike of his and didn’t particularly wanna be stranded miles from the nearest house.

  We ended up heaving the recently deceased off the road and up the slope into a bed of aster and goldenrod, outta the way of any vehicles passing by. I marked the spot with a rough stacked pyramid of creek rock pulled from the ditch so I could find the location again.

  Meanwhile, a million questions tumbled around in my noggin, the biggest one being, who’d this painter been when she was human?

  Right behind that trotted a more concerning thought. I never encountered a shifter before, though I read the myths and caught plenty of rumor. Folks was fascinated by the idea of transforming into something more powerful and vicious and nigh on unstoppable. No doubt that’s why werewolf and other such lore persisted. But nobody I knowed, including me, believed it was actually possible for a human to morph into an animal and back again.

  I knuckled the ache taking shape behind my forehead. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I seen something what weren’t there. Wouldn’t be the first time. Probably wouldn’t be the last neither.

  Them eyes bore into my mind, human as my own, and a dark foreboding tightened my spine. No, I weren’t mistaken. Pretty sure someday soon I’d wish I was. Weren’t that the way it always followed?

  Me and David geared up not long after and finished our ride across Patterson Gap Road into the Betty’s Creek area of the county. When we stopped to eat in Dillard at Moon Pie Pizzeria, the new Italian place, neither one of us had much to say, a rarity if ever there was one.

  We finished the ride without much passing between us. David dropped me off at my trailer, pecked an absent-minded kiss to my cheek, and left looking glum as ever.

  I rubbed the back of my neck as I watched his motorcycle disappear down the newly graveled driveway. This cajoling thing better start working soon, else I was gonna have to figure out another way to prod him outta the blues. A few weeks ago, right about the time me and him first met, he mentioned throwing a shindig to celebrate autumn. Maybe that’d be the very thing to take his mind off his troubles.

  I trudged up the steps onto the porch, my mind whirling with possibilities. Beer and rock ‘n roll, he’d said, and a big ol’ gumbo stew. We’d need something pumpkin, too. Some kinda dessert maybe. He’d be the one to think that up, but weren’t no reason I couldn’t do a little thinking on my own, nor cooking neither. I was handy enough in the kitchen. Riley liked the results anyhow, and a man’s stomach was often the best judge of a woman’s cooking.

  And vice versa, too.

  I grinned as I opened the door and stepped into the living room. Riley had a fair hand at the grill, a skill he was planning on demonstrating later when I drove over to his apartment for our weekly movie date.

  A little thrill run down my spine and I shivered. Chances was good we’d have more’n a meal and a movie. Why, if them steaks was tasty as they usually was, I might even gift the cook with a kiss, maybe two if he brung out a big chunk of cheesecake.

  I plugged
my phone in to charge and stripped outta my clothes whilst walking down the hallway to the bathroom, headache forgotten. Cleaning first, in the oldest clothes I owned, then a shower, and then flirting with Riley. These things had their own pace, as we was both learning firsthand.

  Darned if I weren’t beginning to enjoy it.

  Later that evening, I pulled into the parking lot adjacent Riley’s apartment complex and parked Daddy’s IROC in a guest spot. The rich scent of grilling meat floated to me on a light breeze. I knocked on the door, waited a polite minute, then turned the doorknob and went in.

  Riley’s apartment was a Spartan testament to bachelorhood decorated a scant step and a half above a college dorm room. The furniture was leather and wood, serviceable and sturdy and in good shape, but there weren’t much of it. A long, black couch dominated the room, offset by a matching recliner. They was arranged around a solid wood coffee table and a simple floor lamp. A hand-pieced monkey’s wrench quilt hung over the back of the black leather couch, its cheery reds and greens the only real color in the room aside from framed pictures of Riley’s folks set atop the faux mantle.

  The real eye catcher was the entertainment center situated on one wall across from the couch. It held about the biggest TV I ever seen along with a Blu-Ray/DVD player, an Xbox and enough movies and games to keep a man busy for a month straight. A football game played out across the TV’s screen. The sound was turned too low for me to hear. Wouldn’ta mattered none nohow. Football was one of them sports I could take or leave. I only watched it now if Riley wanted to, and that was pretty much ever time a game was on.

  Once a football player, always a football player.

  I leaned over and untied my boots, toed ‘em off and set ‘em to one side behind the front door. Through the bay window in the living room, I spotted steam coming off the covered grill and frowned. I was right on time, just like always, and here he done started without me.