by CJ Lyons
“So the freedmen are Cherokees.”
“That’s the controversy. What Lena was researching.”
“You see,” Paul said, “the cases have been going through both tribal courts and federal ones since the 1980s. But those cases didn’t apply here to the Eastern Band of Cherokees.”
Bearmeat took over. The two men were in sync, even though Bearmeat had spent a lifetime studying this and Paul had only had a few hours. If she was less confident and less impatient, Caitlyn might have been intimidated by their intellectual superiority. As it was, she was struggling not to interrupt and ask them to cut to the chase.
“After the Civil War, the Eastern Band made a pact with their freedmen,” Bearmeat said. “They couldn’t negate the treaty with the federal government, not without risking losing the tenuous status they had gained after siding with the Confederacy, but they realized that their strength, indeed the only way to ensure their continued existence as Cherokees, was to maintain their racial purity. So they formed the pact.”
“Still no idea what the pact is.” Neither man noticed her tone. If they had, they would have hurried up.
“It was an agreement with the freedmen,” Paul explained. “The Eastern Band couldn’t just kick them off the reservation, not without repercussions from the government. So they offered the freedmen land for their own use. They could live on the reservation as members of the Cherokee Nation as recognized by the federal government but they would give up their rights as tribal members.”
“After the Civil War, most around here couldn’t afford to own land. Here inside the Qualla Boundary, the freedmen were given land for free, theirs to use in perpetuity. If they agreed not to seek full tribal membership.”
“Why would Lena think my dad had anything to do with a treaty signed over a hundred years ago?”
Bearmeat didn’t answer. Instead he rose, carefully placed his teacup and napkin beside the coffeemaker, then pulled open one of the thin flat drawers of the steel filing case it sat on. At first Caitlyn had thought the drawers held maps since they were extra wide and deep but thin. Instead of a map, though, Bearmeat withdrew a large sheet of paper: a facsimile of an old parchment or sheepskin.
He walked past her and laid it out on the empty conference table outside his door. She and Paul followed.
“This is just a modern photocopy,” he said, despite the fact that he treated the piece of paper like it was King Tut’s tiara. Caitlyn crowded in between Paul and Bearmeat to take a look. There was a flourish of handwritten English on the top and beautifully drawn characters below, followed by a row of signatures. One of the signatures belonged to an Elijah Hale, one of the Hale family ancestors.
“So that’s Cherokee writing on the bottom?”
“Correct.” He sighed. “We lost the original. Back in 1988.”
“That’s when my dad died.”
Bearmeat shrugged. “No idea about that. Last time I spoke with Lena she was taking a copy of the pact to a Cherokee translator.”
Caitlyn’s shoulders drooped in disappointment. For a moment there she’d thought the archivist might know what connected her father’s death to Lena’s disappearance. Maybe even give her a lead, either to Lena or the truth about her dad.
Then Bearmeat looked up from the text of the old document. “Unless—I don’t suppose your father had anything to do with Tommy Shadwick’s murder? Because he was the last person who checked out the original pact from the archives. Same night he was killed, in fact.”
* * *
Bernie was burning up. Moaning in his sleep. His eyes were turning yellow—that couldn’t be good. Lena checked his arm where the leopard had scratched him. The wounds weren’t bleeding anymore and although they were a little bruised and swollen, there wasn’t any redness or signs of infection. Plus, it’d come on so fast. Maybe he’d been sick before the leopard clawed him?
Didn’t matter. He needed help. Now.
She searched his cabin. Found parts from motorcycles, dirty laundry, canned goods and frozen dinners, economy-sized bags of dog food, and stacks and stacks of comic books and old paperbacks. Portrait of a lonely man.
But she didn’t find what she’d been looking for: a phone or computer. Some way to call for help. She searched Bernie’s pockets. Found a handful of bullets. Checked the gun he’d given her, figured out how to open the wheel that held the bullets and found it empty.
He didn’t trust her with a loaded gun. Was that because he was trying to fool her or because he wasn’t stupid enough to give a loaded gun to a scared girl who’d never held one before?
There was no safety she could find, so she decided it was probably the latter. The leopard still paced the tin roof overhead. The sun was up; shouldn’t the animal be in bed?
She gingerly slid four bullets into the little slots on the gun. Then she closed the wheel, snapped it into place so that there were two empty holes lined up for the next shots. That meant she’d have to squeeze the trigger three times before shooting anything. It was the safest way she could think to carry the weapon. And no way she was going outside without it. Not with the leopard still on the prowl.
She arranged a chair between the window and Bernie’s bed, alternating between trying to get him to drink some Gatorade and watching for the leopard. Finally it leapt to the ground and vanished into the trees. If she was going to go for help, this was her chance.
“I’ll be back,” she told Bernie.
He groaned and gripped her hand. Sweat had soaked through his shirt and the sheet. “Don’t go. Not safe.”
“You need help. I’ll be back.” She wiped his face with a damp cloth. “Is there a car?”
He nodded. “Beside your cabin. Take my truck. It’s cold.”
Chills made his teeth chatter and she wasn’t sure if he was talking about the weather or his fever.
“Lena.” He said her name like it was something special. “Be careful.” He slumped back on the pillow, the few words draining him.
She grabbed her coat and glanced once more out the window. No sign of the leopard. Now or never.
The sun was bright enough to have burned away the thick fog that had surrounded the cabin most of the morning. The snow was already melted as well, although clouds building over the mountains to the west promised more to come. She buttoned her coat tight against the wind. The gun felt cold and heavy in her naked hand.
In the light of day, she understood why she’d gotten so disoriented last night. A clearing had been carved out of the forest for the lodge and the surrounding cabins. It was large enough that each cabin had privacy, maybe fifty to sixty feet separating it from its neighbors. Looking toward the center where the lodge stood, its log walls darkened by age, you had the feeling of wide-open spaces. But along the perimeter trees towered over the single-story cabins, swaying in the wind like they were playing Red Rover and daring anyone to leave the cleared space with its illusion of civilization and come over to the wild side.
Past the trees to the south and east was empty sky, only the faintest hint of mountains beyond the valley below. To the north and west, craggy peaks covered in ice and fog, their shadows crowding out the sunlight.
Long way from the Hayti neighborhood Lena had grown up in in Durham. She was totally out of her element.
She bent her head to the wind but tried to keep an eye out for any movement as she hurried across the clearing to the cabin where her little Honda sat beside a big, black pickup truck. As she approached the cars she heard a chattering noise behind her.
“Smokey! You’re okay.” She pocketed the gun and held her arms open, surprised by how relieved she was to see the chimp. Smokey rushed her, pulling back at the last minute so she didn’t bowl Lena over, not hugging her but pressing her nose against Lena’s chest, face, neck as she patted Lena’s body as if checking for injuries.
“I’m fine. Where are your friends?” Lena looked around. No sign of the other chimps. Hopefully the leopard hadn’t gotten them. No. If it had, it wouldn’t
have been hanging around Bernie’s cabin all morning, it would have been feasting.
She took Smokey’s hand, feeling better for having the chimp with her. How crazy was that? But in less than a week her entire world had been toppled, everything she believed cast into doubt. All she had left was her faith in God, and even that had been strained. But look what He’d done to deliver her. Sent her Smokey and her family, sent her Bernie just in time to save Lena’s life, sent her comfort and solace in the midst of her despair.
As she and Smokey crossed the brown grass made mushy by last night’s snow, she sent a quick prayer of thanksgiving aimed at the highest mountaintop above them. A large bird appeared, spiraling upward toward the sun, and she smiled. God was still listening. What more could a flawed human like herself ask?
The answer came faster than she would have liked. Just as they reached the Honda, Lena saw that it had sunk into the mud up to its hubcaps. Tires flat. All of them. The truck’s as well.
Someone had been here, done this. Bernie? No, he wouldn’t prevent his own escape. All he had to do was hide the keys.
Glancing over her shoulder, she walked around the two vehicles. Bernie’s truck keys were in the ignition. So, definitely not Bernie who’d slashed the tires. And not a leopard or bunch of chimps.
She stopped at the passenger side of the Honda on the opposite side from Bernie’s truck and the cabin where she’d been imprisoned. Hairs on her neck prickled and she whirled around, expecting to see a man wielding a knife. Nothing. Just wind blowing dead leaves across the lawn.
The feeling of being watched didn’t go away. She turned back to the cabin, about to go inside to search for her belongings, when Smokey began making a low, throaty noise and tug at her arm.
Lena looked up. The leopard was on the cabin roof, back legs bent as it prepared to pounce.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Caitlyn whirled on Bearmeat. “You think Tommy Shadwick was killed because of a piece of paper?”
Bearmeat shrugged. “Do you know almost no one talks about Tommy anymore? Much less the reasons why he died. He was the only council member who opposed the VistaView, thought the casino would corrupt our people. No one remembers that or how he fought to protect our language and culture. Without him we wouldn’t be teaching Cherokee in our schools, much less preserving our oral traditions.”
All fine and well but it didn’t get her closer to understanding why Shadwick was killed or what that had to do with Lena or her dad.
Paul chimed in, “Eli Hale said he killed Tommy because Tommy opposed giving the freedmen tribal membership. Maybe Eli thought destroying the pact as well as eliminating Tommy’s opposition would help the freedmen?”
“Destroying the original pact wouldn’t help,” Bearmeat said. “There are copies here and in Raleigh. In fact, the only reason the original was here was because the tribal council had organized a display of important Eastern Band land grants and deeds for the general meeting where the vote on the casino development would take place. Its value lay in the fact that it was a historical document, not that it was irreplaceable.”
More jibber-jabber, still nothing concrete for Caitlyn to follow up. “You said Lena took a copy to an interpreter?”
“Yes, Sharleen LittleJohn. My own Cherokee is rudimentary at best,” Bearmeat confessed. “I was raised in Bryson City, didn’t return here until after I graduated with my Ph.D.” He drew Caitlyn a map on a piece of paper and added directions in careful block print.
“Paul, could you keep working with Mr. Bearmeat?” Caitlyn asked. “I think we’re on to something here, I’m just not sure what.”
“Sure, okay.” He was distracted by a bound selection of old maps lying on the conference table. “Meet back here?”
“Call me if you find anything.” She thanked Bearmeat and ducked out before either of the men noticed.
She’d just reached the Impreza when her phone rang. “Is this the fed looking for that black girl?” a woman’s voice asked.
“Who is this?”
“Never you mind. You want to find that girl before it’s too late, you’d better hurry. She’s at her dad’s place on McSwain Mountain.”
The woman hung up before Caitlyn could ask anything else. Number blocked. Of course.
She sat in the driver’s seat waiting for the car to warm up. Using a woman to make the call was smart—they’d think she’d be less wary. Too bad they didn’t know Caitlyn’s motto—Trust no one, assume nothing—had been drilled into her at a young age.
Abandonment issues the bureau shrinks would have diagnosed if she ever gave them a chance. Idiots. A nine-year-old girl finding her father’s body, realizing her hero had betrayed her, left her? And then growing up with a mother who treated her more like a roommate than a daughter? No shit she had issues.
But it was those issues, trust, abandonment, whatever you called them, that had kept her alive this far. She wasn’t about to change now.
The question wasn’t if the phone call was a trap, it was how to use it to her advantage.
* * *
The plan was for Weasel to wait for Tierney at the old Hale house. One of his girls back at the clubhouse would call Tierney and send her there while Goose trailed behind to make sure she came alone and to block her escape.
That was the plan. Goose had no intention of carrying it out. As he idled on his Softail on Route 19, waiting for Caitlyn to leave Cherokee, he called Wilson. “How’s it going?”
“Weasel isn’t going anywhere anytime soon,” Wilson said. “I filled his gas tank with water.” Better than sugar and less obvious. “He won’t know what’s going on. I’m headed back to cover Caruso now.”
“Did Karlee call the cops?”
“She tried. Talked to a dispatcher, told her about the girl and Bernie. Wasn’t sure if they believed her or not.”
“They’re safe enough with Weasel out of the way,” Goose decided. “I’ll talk to Tierney, send her after them.”
“You sure about this? It could backfire big-time.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll get the money. Without getting blood on our hands.”
“It’s not the money I’m worried about,” Wilson snapped. “It’s what the Reapers will do to you if they ever find out.”
“It’s all cool. Just find that money, I’ll take care of the rest.” Caitlyn’s blue Impreza turned onto 19 from Acquoni Road. “Gotta go. Showtime.”
“Be careful.”
“Yes, Mother.” Goose hung up and put the bike into gear, falling in behind Caitlyn.
Once they were past the VistaView there was little traffic on the road. The bikers on the poker run would be halfway to Gatlinburg or on their way back, and they’d left the tourists behind in Cherokee or at the casino. The road curved up the side of the mountain. He made his move, speeding up to come even with her. She spotted him in her driver’s-side mirror and pulled ahead.
Damn it. They were almost to McSwain Mountain Road. He had to stop her before she turned onto it, otherwise Weasel would know he was involved and everything would be ruined. A car coming the other way kept him behind her, riding her bumper, but once it passed, he shot forward once more, motioning to her to pull over.
She surprised him, the Subaru showing some nice gidd-up-and-go as she swept past him and tore around a sharp curve, out of sight.
He leaned over and geared down even as he sped up and took the curve almost horizontally. Couldn’t risk losing her now. There was one last road between here and McSwain Mountain, a dirt road that corkscrewed over the mountain and headed back onto the res, ending up near the trail at Mingo Falls.
He had to get her to either stop and listen to him or take that road. He came out of the curve and spotted her Impreza, a bright blue dot against the brown of the trees and black pavement. He shot ahead, passing her, then spun to a stop, leaving rubber on the asphalt, blocking both lanes. No room to pass on the right without going off the side of the mountain; the only place to maneuver was onto the Mingo Falls
road. Unless she ran him over. Which, given that she’d be coming out of a curve and might not see him right away, all depended on her reaction time and the Impreza’s braking power.
His bike vibrated beneath him, tempting him to abandon his plan and take off, when she came around the corner heading right for him.
Stupid, stupid idea, he thought. But he stood his ground.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Caitlyn had no idea what games Goose was playing, trying to run her off the road, but she was about ready to pull her service weapon and take him into custody herself. She’d tried calling the sheriff’s office for backup but this stretch of road between Evergreen and Maggie Valley had spotty cell reception and she couldn’t get through. Leaving just her and the Reapers’ enforcer playing chicken with a sheer drop-off on one side and the mountain on the other.
Thank goodness the Impreza WRX was up to the challenge. It didn’t look fancy, but in addition to the all-wheel drive, it had an engine similar to a Porsche. Goose’s Harley roared past her as he sped ahead and vanished around a hairpin curve, the last switchback before the turnoff to McSwain Mountain Road. Maybe he was setting up an ambush on the single-lane road up to Hale’s house?
She steered out of the curve. There stood Goose, his bike blocking both lanes. Adrenaline fired her synapses as she stomped on the brakes and clutch while throwing the gearshift from fourth to second. He hadn’t waited for the turnoff to stop her—but did the idiot have a death wish?
She pulled on the emergency brake, the stink of burning rubber filling her nostrils. Both hands fought the steering wheel as the car skidded out of control. Instead of trying to keep it straight, she steered into the curve, angling toward the mountainside and a small gap between the trees: a dirt road.
Yanking the wheel viciously, she turned the skid into a J-turn, coming so close to Goose and his bike that he filled the side window as the Subaru twisted across the wrong side of the road, finally facing the opposite direction, half on the pavement, half on the dirt.