TREASURE KILLS (Legends of Tsalagee Book 1)

by Phil Truman

  Artie shifted in his recliner. “Oh, big surprise,” he said. Then he held up his right hand moving it left to right as if mimicking a streaming headline in Times Square, and said sarcastically, “Galynn... whatever your last name is now, doesn’t give a rip about Artie Lancaster.” He reached to the side of the recliner and levered the footrest into its down position, wincing as the heel of his cast bumped the floor.

  It was all Galynn needed. Her hands went to her hips, fists balled. Fire shot from her eyes and turned her face a bright red. “You are without a doubt the stupidest, meanest, most self-centered, pity-pottying-est... JERK I have ever known!” she shouted. She knew that wasn’t true, not by a long shot, but she said it anyway.

  Artie grabbed his crutch and made a move to get up. Galynn took a step forward, and pushed him forcefully back into the recliner.

  “Don’t you try running away! I’ve got something I want to say to you, and you’re going to sit there and listen!”

  Her action surprised Artie, but then he sighed in resignation and settled back in the chair.

  “I know you’re hurt,” Galynn began. “I know I’ve hurt you. I know you’ve been through some tough times. I know I made some bad decisions in my life, and it ended up hurting you. That was years ago, Artie, and we’ve both been through a lot since then. Believe me, I truly regret some of the decisions I’ve made, and I’m really, really sorry I hurt you, and yet, no matter what I do or say you still want to stay mad at me and punish me.

  “Why can’t you just let it all go? I can’t do anything about the past. All I can do is tell you I’m sincerely sorry for the bad parts I played in it. I thought we could at least get back to being friends. Lord knows I’ve tried to do that. Now I just don’t know. You’re so full of anger and resentment that it has turned you into a brooding, ill-tempered lout. I don’t even know who you are anymore, and I don’t think I want to.

  “You’re becoming a contemptuous and mean drunk bent on your own self-destruction that nobody, including me, wants to be around. Well, I’m sick of it, and I’m sick of you. You can sit there in your chair wallowing in your self-pity, and rot in your own filth and stench for all I care. I’m leaving and I’m not coming back. If you ever decide to stop feeling so sorry for yourself, you know where to find me and maybe we’ll talk; but until you do, I don’t want to be around you.”

  That’s when she gathered her things and made her exit, slamming the front door behind her.

  Artie sat watching out the window as she sped away down his driveway in a billowing cloud of dust. He sat motionless several more minutes watching the dust settle back onto his driveway, as the blast from Galynn’s butt-chewing still resounded in his ears.

  He struggled out of the recliner onto his one good foot, and hobbled to the TV to retrieve the remote and medicine bottle. He returned to the recliner and fell back into it, clicked the TV back on, and opened the medicine bottle, shaking two Vicodin tablets into his right palm. He reached across his chest with his free hand, and grabbed the bottle of beer sitting on that damn marble coaster.

  On TV Chuck Norris told a bad guy to put the gun down while he still had a chance. While Chuck waited for the guy to make his decision, and the music swelled, Artie looked at the two pills in the palm of his hand, then the bottle of beer he held in the other. The bad guy on TV made the wrong choice, and Chuck plugged him. Artie watched the bad guy’s theatrical croak, then sat the beer down—on the coaster—and deposited the pills back in the bottle. He sat watching a while longer as Chuck and his cohorts wrapped things up. When the credits began to roll, Artie switched off the TV.

  Then he started to cry, and his chest began to buck. Deep in his gut wave upon wave of grief and anger began to break in upon his mind until he finally exploded into long wracking sobs.

  Artie didn’t know how long he’d carried on that way, but the daylight had started to dim when he finally gathered himself. Through the whole episode, he swore loudly and vehemently, cursing his fate, damning himself, pounding the chair arms with his fists, and railing against his God. At the end of it he was completely wrung out. Even though he was alone, he felt a little embarrassed. Despite the splitting headache that shot up the right side of his neck, he also felt... well, not exactly euphoric, but at least considerably lighter... and exhausted. He got to his feet again and teetered off to his bedroom where he fell face down onto the bed, and hardly moved until ten the next morning.

  * * *

  Galynn kept her word, as Artie knew she would, and didn’t return. During that five-week period before he would eventually see her again, Artie reached the bottom of his emotional barrel. He had enough sense to recognize that Galynn had spoken the truth about him, and enough character to do something about it. There would be no more self-pity and despair, and the drinking and painkillers had to stop. A bath and shave were long past due. All those decisions proved to be more difficult than he thought, but he fought through them one day at a time.

  After the second week, Artie took White Oxley up on his earlier offer of help, and gave him a call. He asked White to haul him back to the doctor to get his casts and stitches removed. The doctor told him he seemed to be mending well.

  It turned out Artie’s car’s close encounter with the culvert on County 118 hadn’t quite totaled it, and his insurance company paid for most of the repair work. So in the fourth week after the Big Butt Chewing, Artie got his Escort back, which looked almost brand new.

  At the end of the fifth week, Artie decided the time had come to test the waters. He arose early, showered, shaved, and doused himself up with deodorant and Old Spice. He headed out in the re-done Escort to get himself a haircut. After that, he thought maybe he would drop by Arlene’s to have some lunch.

  Galynn didn’t know for sure if Artie would show up some day with his hat in his hand, but she hoped he would. She’d blasted him in full fury with righteous indignation, but during the five weeks since, second-guessing entered her thoughts. Several times she decided to go back out to Artie’s to look in on him. But, no, she reasoned, he deserved that slapping around, and he needed to face his demons to either sink or swim. The risk in having her “Come to Jesus” talk with him was based more on emotion than calculation. Still, it nagged at her that, yes, he was being stupid, but he also seemed very fragile, and maybe she shouldn’t have been so hard on him.

  When he walked through the door at Arlene’s that Saturday morning, she felt relieved... and also pleased, in a smug sort of way. Maybe she hadn’t been wrong after all.

  Artie ordered his breakfast and chatted with her dad and kept looking at her with sheepish eyes. He was so dang adorable and so... little boyish, she just couldn’t stay mad at him. But her own experience with men kept her guarded. It would be okay to re-befriend Artie, but nothing more, she told herself. She knew that men would swear to you they’d changed, but once you forgave them and gave them what they wanted, more times than not, they would sooner or later revert back to their old ways. Still, she remained cautiously optimistic with Artie, more out of hope, than faith.

  This “Pizza Date” was sort of a trial run. Artie had continued to come into the café, on those evenings when Galynn worked, to have his dinner and chat with her. Then one evening he called her. “Hey, thought I’d go out and eat some pizza. Want to come along?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Galynn replied.

  “Great,” he said. “Maybe we could go see a movie afterward.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “We’ll see.”

  Despite her trepidation, the evening had gone well... surprisingly well. At first they talked easily, and laughed at each other’s stories—Galynn about her mother and her dad, her bosses and students; Artie about his acrobatics during his “cast period,” and some of White Oxley’s comments. At one point Artie began telling Galynn how he had started to turn his life around, that the tail chewing she’d given him really impacted him, and that he had deserved it. He was glad she said all the things she did, because
it made him realize what a jerk he was. Then Galynn confessed how she later kind of regretted some of the things she’d said, except for the jerk part.

  Artie laughed and nodded. Then said to her, “Remember that time in the third grade when you charged Jimmy Mack Botts for picking on me, and he shoved you butt first into the mud at the base of the tetherball pole?”

  “I remember several. Which time do you mean?” she asked.

  “The first time,” Artie said.

  “Yeah, I think so,” Galynn said. “What about it.”

  “That’s when I first knew I loved you,” Artie said. He looked quickly away from her, down at the pizza pan, grabbed up the last piece of pizza and started eating it.

  Galynn didn’t say anything, letting him eat the entire piece of pizza, and avoid her gaze.

  “Sorry,” he said at last. “Don’t know why I said that. Just been kind of thinking about it for the last few days.” He looked embarrassed and uncomfortable. “I’m an idiot,” he said. “Just forget I said it.”

  “Okay,” she said. But she didn’t forget it.

  * * *

  At first Artie didn’t recognize the sound. It came as a dream sound while he floated half in and half out of sleep. Finally, when he became more awake than not, he recognized it as his cell phone’s ring tone. Freeing his arm from underneath Galynn’s shoulders, he spun to a sitting position on the side of the bed. He rubbed his face with both hands. Once more the muffled sound erupted directing his eyes to the pair of jeans lumped on the floor. He pulled the jeans to him by one of the legs, reached in the right front pocket and extracted the phone.

  “Hull...,” he said into it. His voice was still husky with sleep. His temples throbbed a little and his tongue was thick from the remnants of the late-night wine he and Galynn had shared. He cleared his throat and said again, “Hello?”

  “Artie?” came the female voice of the caller.

  “Yuh.”

  “Morning, Artie. It’s Sunny.”

  Artie squinted at the bright sunlight assaulting his eyes through his bedroom window. “No argument there,” Artie responded.

  “What?” the caller said. “No, it’s me... Sunny Griggs. You know, your neighbor. Remember?”

  Once she delivered her sarcasm, he recognized the voice. Same old Sunny. “Hey, Sunny. What’s up?” He tried to sound cordial, if not awake. Though he’d stopped drinking weeks ago, his wine consumption had been a calculated risk.

  “Did I awaken you?” Sunny asked.

  “No, no. I’z... well, yeah.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you’d be up by now.”

  Artie picked his watch up off the night stand. It showed nine-thirty. Galynn began to stir. She grabbed Artie’s Polo shirt off the floor and slipped it on before she headed to the bathroom.

  “No problem. But, hey, I’m awake now,” he said as he watched Galynn walk away from him, the bottom of his shirt barely covered the bottom of her bottom. “Is this just a social call, or is there something I can do for you?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, I do need your help with something. Won’t take but a minute, but I can’t do it myself.”

  “What,” Artie said flatly. It didn’t sound like a question.

  “I’ve got this big jar of kimchi I need to move from my kitchen to the root cellar, and I can’t lift it.”

  “A jar of what?”

  “Kimchi. It’s an old Korean vegetable dish I’ve made for, uh, medicinal purposes. It requires fermentation in a cool dark place, so I need to move it to my root cellar, but I can’t lift it. The jar must weigh seventy or eighty pounds.”

  Artie could hear the shower go on in the bathroom. “Wull, like... right now?”

  “Oh, no. Just whenever. Anytime this morning would be fine.”

  “Um, I’ve got kind of a bum leg... and arm. Why can’t Punch help you with this?”

  “I haven’t seen Gale in weeks.” Artie could hear hard ice in her voice. “We’re not speaking and I don’t even want him over here. But if you’re not able or too busy, I’ll manage it by myself... somehow. I just thought—”

  “Oh, awright,” Artie said. “I’ll come over later this morning.”

  “Great. I’ll have some coffee made.”

  “Okay, later.”

  Artie sat there holding the phone and looking at the floor. He sighed and uttered a single swear word. At that moment, he didn’t really feel like being neighborly... especially to Sunny. The sound of the running shower caught his attention. Maybe a team shower would brighten his attitude.

  Chapter 23

  Sunny Plants a Trap

  Sunny looked at the big-eyed cat clock on the kitchen wall again, seeing it showed two minutes later than the last time she looked at it. It was twenty-seven minutes past noon. She let out an exasperated sigh, and punched in Artie’s number on her cell again. This was her third call after leaving two previous voice mails.

  When he answered, she asked, “Are you still coming?”

  “About fifteen seconds from your drive right now,” he answered.

  “Pull around back when you get here,” Sunny ordered.

  Although you could see the tops of each house while standing in the yard of one or the other, Sunny’s and Artie’s farm houses were still a half mile apart. The fallow eastern forty acre field, where Buck Buchanan once planted soybeans, butted up against the ten acre hay meadow west of Ben and Artie Lancaster’s house.

  Artie had taken his time getting over to Sunny’s. While Galynn whipped up some pancakes, he started the coffee brewing and then went outside to cut an early fall rose to give to Galynn. He walked up behind her as she stood flapping the jacks, kissed her on the back of the neck, and reached around her to present the rose.

  “Aw, isn’t that sweet,” Galynn cooed, brushing the side of her face up against his lips. Thus encouraged, he attacked her with more ardor. “Stop it, now,” she admonished with a giggle. “Or I’m going to burn the pancakes.” She held the spatula up between her face and his lips. “Why don’t you put that rose in a glass of water and set it on the table.”

  They ate a leisurely breakfast, and engaged in relaxed small talk, then languorously sipped their coffee. Twice, Artie’s cell phone rang off in the bedroom, but he ignored it.

  After the second Galynn asked, “Who called this morning?” suddenly remembering the earlier waking call.

  Artie came back to earth at the question. “Oh... hell, I forgot. It was Sunny.”

  “Sunny?” Galynn asked with surprise. “Sunny Griggs?”

  “Only Sunny I know,” he answered. “That’s probably her calling again. She wanted me to help her move something to her root cellar.” Then he laughed and got up to pour himself another cup of coffee. “I told her I’d be right over.”

  “Well, are you going?”

  He settled back in his chair and said, “Yeah, in a minute. You want to come along?”

  “Ew, I don’t know.” Galynn furrowed her brow as she held her coffee mug in front of her face, elbows on the table. “Got some tension there with my dad and my mom and all that. Never did much care for her, even when I was a little girl. She was weird.”

  “Still is, as far as I can tell,” Artie said. “Come on, it’ll be fun. Give us something to laugh about later—all her witchiness and stuff.”

  Sunny stood at the top of the back porch steps leaning against one of the posts when Artie pulled to a stop at the rear of the house. Wearing a flannel shirt and jeans, she had her arms crossed at her chest, frowning as she watched the Escort roll to a stop. When Galynn got out on the passenger side, Sunny’s frown deepened.

  “Hey, Sunny,” Artie said. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “That’s okay,” Sunny replied, as she continued to eye Galynn. “Guess maybe you were pre-occupied.”

  “Hi, Sunny,” Galynn said. She decided to ignore the snide remark.

  Sunny nodded. “Hello, Galynn. It’s been awhile.”

  Artie had gone to the trunk of t
he car and opened it. “I brought my two-wheeler,” he said. “Thought it might come in handy.” He lifted the hand truck out and set it on the ground.

  Sunny turned to go in the back door. “You guys want some coffee? It’s cold, but I can nuke it for you.”

  “Naw, I’m good,” Artie said. He returned to the trunk to fish some more things out of it.

  “I’ll take some,” Galynn said as she followed Sunny into the kitchen.. Then added, “I hear you make terrific coffee.” She immediately cringed inside, wishing she hadn’t said the last.

  “Really?” Sunny replied as she walked over to the counter where the coffee maker sat. “Makes me wonder what else you’ve heard.”

  Galynn couldn’t mistake the animosity in Sunny’s voice, which only added to her discomfort.

  “Well, no... uh,” Galynn pushed some strands of hair behind her right ear, and then coughed into her hand. “It’s just... I mean, one day in the café daddy happened to mention that you made really good coffee and that we should ask you what kind of blend you used.” Galynn grinned nervously and added, “I thought my mom was going to pour the pot of coffee she was holding on his head, but...” she closed her eyes and said in a prayerful whisper, Crap. Sunny continued to look back at her coolly.

  “Look, Sunny, whatever is going on between you and my dad is none of my business. I’m not making any judgments there, or taking any sides.” Galynn knew the last part was a lie, but she had to remove her foot from her mouth somehow, and clear the oppressive air.

  Sunny turned to the microwave and opened it, sliding the mug of coffee onto the turn table.

  “Well...” Sunny punched some numbers on the oven’s panel and pressed the Start button. “Okay. I’m just really mad at your dad right now. He’s such a jerk. Guess I shouldn’t be taking it out on you, though.” She smiled weakly back at Galynn.

  Galynn nodded, but said nothing more, hoping to let the thorny topic drift on downstream.

  Artie rattled the two-wheeler through the back door and said, “What’ve we got here?” He looked at the large earthen jar sitting in the middle of the floor, the obvious focus of their coming work. It stood almost four feet tall and maybe two feet wide at the widest. “I guess this is our bad boy,” he said, parking the two-wheeler next to it.