A Mist in the Pines: Jesse's Quest (The McCann Family Saga Book 2)

by Jeanie Freeman-Harper

  Katie stopped, her clear eyes clouding over :

  “Where are mama and papa? Why have they not come ?”

  Jerod smiled reassuringly. “Nothing serious, Little One. All will soon be well. How could it not...now that you have come home?”

  The ride wound leisurely through the streets of Morgans Bluff to the big McCann house on the hill. Jerod's thoughts were filled with one concern: all his granddaughter might now encounter. But the first order of the day was to plan the biggest celebration the town had ever seen.

  VII: The Funeral

  Jesse would forever remember the day he found Leroy Conner burned to a crisp at the Pine Crest Mill. The idea of a man dying so far from family and the comfort of his bed was disturbing. The situation brought thoughts of his own family back home. Annie's welfare was always on his mind, and he envisioned Katie at the depot without him there to greet her. He was in no man's land with a corpse, when all he loved was in Morgans Bluff.

  “What do you know about Conner's death?” he asked Domingo.

  “Only what I was told,” Domingo began. “The crew came running to me this morning... wild eyed and worked up... talking all at once...saying Conner had come to work drunk...went crazy and tried to fight with several of the men...swinging like a wild man. Before they could restrain him, he fell against the boiling kettle of resin which turned over on him. So they say.”

  ”I doubt that's what happened,” Jesse replied. “...and not because Leroy Conner hadn't pulled drunks at the timber operation at Morgans Mill...but you know very well that full cauldrons are almost impossible to overturn . Not only that, his burns are inconsistent with resin burns. This body is burned almost beyond recognition, and it smells of an oak fire rather than pine resin. Didn't you notice his neck? It's been broken in a way that suggests a lynching. Someone's trying to cover up and rather stupidly at that. This was obviously no accident.”

  Domingo shrugged his massive shoulders, as if he had no real opinion and was merely relaying a message; but Jesse had very little faith in the man's credibility after his criminal history. Someone had concocted a lie to hide a murder, and Jesse knew not whether it was Domingo or someone else. But why? Why this poor feeble-minded shell of a man? he asked himself.

  “The coroner will decide...but he'll surely call it murder...just as the telegram said. The person who sent the telegram to the hotel knows what happened. Do you have any idea who sent it ? The telegram listed the sender as merely 'Pine Crest Mill'.”

  “I know nothing about it,” Domingo replied. “...and I had nothing to do with his death. I'm here to help do what needs to be done. I've tried to explain to you I'm a changed man. My unlawful past was tied in with Lorena and her access to Morgan money, and my need for it. I was a desperate man. Good Lord, McCann. You above all people know how she can manipulate.”

  Jesse stared at Domingo, length and breadth, as if trying to figure out a jigsaw puzzle. Domingo shrugged:

  “Any way, that's in the past. I guess you knew Lorena's in the state asylum two miles down the road from here ...locked up tight. I think she went over the edge from old man Morgan disinheriting her.”

  “Enough talk about that woman. Time's running out,” said Jesse. “By the way...I'd rather you didn’t touch the body until I can find the sheriff and he can make a report and investigate. Frankly, I trust you only so far. It galls me to say it, but I guess I'll have to rely on you to be the foreman here. We have to have some kind of order. Only after the sheriff and coroner look everything over should the mortician prepare the body. After that, see that the body is on the train back to Morgans Bluff. Time is critical in this heat. Do you have any idea exactly where the sheriff is hiding out?”

  “If he's still alive, my guess would be you can find him on the other side of the tracks. I've heard that he used to ...um...visit a woman in that little shack by the old train station.”

  “Why would a man of the law... of all people...have a reason to hide ?”

  “This is a rough place for law enforcement, McCann. A tin badge means nothing to some of these men...and maybe he knows some things that put him in harm's way. If you go looking, and you're not back by tomorrow, we'll need to prepare and ship the body to his wife. It's already deteriorating.”

  “Don't be rash,” said Jesse. “The death has to be investigated. Of course, I'll be back ...with the sheriff...and who or what can prevent it?”

  Before striking out, Jesse returned the Model T to Buck and insisted he drive back to Morgans Bluff. He asked him to watch over Annie and reassured him he would, after all, be with the sheriff as soon as he found him. Buck got fighting mad, refused at first and finally relented:

  “Guess I forgot... I'm a no-count cripple... not much good for nothin'. Well, you sure set me in my place.”

  Buck left for home in a huff, without saying goodbye to the man he once described as “the son I wish I had sired.” It was to be a broken link in an enduring friendship. Jesse left straight-away on horseback, riding deep into the woods to the shack by the railroad tracks—the place described by Domingo as the sheriff’s possible hiding place.

  Two days passed, and Jesse did not return. No one sent out a search party. No one notified anyone. Domingo did as he said he would do; and the mortician embalmed Conner's body; but in an odd twist, the coroner was never notified.

  The body, preceded by a telegram explaining Leroy's death as a mill accident, arrived in Morgans Bluff for burial. Employees at the Pine Crest Mill were in an uproar and swore that Jesse had run out on them without addressing their problems—all except one person who knew exactly what had happened.

  Two days after, unaware of Jesse's plight in Pine Crest, Buck , Annie, Katie, Clancy the barber and Beulah Birdwell stood at Leroy Conner's grave-site. The grown children and grand children, and several of Leroy brothers and sisters were there. Myra slumped in a wheel chair managed by a young man from the funeral home, and her change in appearance was shocking since Annie last she saw her. Her skin had turned to something akin to yellow crepe paper, and her already sparse flesh had withered away. It was apparent that she had not taken Doc's advice to seek treatment. The tumor had filled her body.

  Even with Annie's feeling of sadness that a human being could care so little about life, there was something about Myra Conner that did not sit well with her. It now seemed as if the woman preferred the drama that death would bring to her miserable existence. It was as if, in the long process of dying, Myra could extract the love and attention she had never in her lifetime known.

  But at his stage in Annie's pregnancy, with her skewed perception of reality and runaway emotions, she felt toward the miserable woman a revulsion.

  It had begun that night of the blue mist when she had returned from the Conners' shack. It was a night she had blocked from her memory—one in which she had felt unseen forces sapping her strength. What she did remember was Myra's begging her to take her son to raise.

  She and Jesse had tossed the idea about—he wishing to do so and she unsure. But seeing that Myra was soon to die and Leroy was dead, she made up her mind:

  “Myra, I am here to pay my respects but also to tell you that we can take Calvin into our home until he can be adopted...if that is still your wish.”

  Beulah Birdwell, who maintained a tight grip on the boy's shoulders, ruffled at Annie's words: “What are you thinking?Do you really want to be saddled with a delinquent child in your condition?'

  “I know what my husband would want me to do. Besides I've helped take care of all the Conner children through the years, and I see no reason to do otherwise now. The right thing to do is not always the convenient thing. Calvin needs schooling during the week and church on Sundays, decent food and a warm bed.”

  “The urchin also needs a good scrubbing, if you ask me!” sniffed Miss Birdwell.

  “Did you hear anyone ask you?”growled Buck.

  Myra Conner grew suddenly nervous over the discord and gathered the strength to speak her final piece i
n a hollow rasp which sounded like a precursor to a death rattle.

  “Take him Annie...like I told you the other day... if you and Jess don’t take my boy, this prissy old maid Beulah will turn him over to an orphan's home, and he won't have a chance. Surely Mr. Hennessy will help you with him until Jesse gets home.”

  Miss Birdwell drew her self up into a dramatic snit: “My word, Myra! Has the cancer gone to your brain? You’re leaving a nine year old delinquent boy in the care of a one legged octogenarian and a middle aged pregnant woman!”

  Buck spat a wad of tobacco and said his piece: “Make fun of me all you want...Birdy...but don’t you look down your pointy ol' nose at Annie who's got more real charity in her little finger than you... with all your high and mighty ways... have in your entire body. Annie's never backed off from doin' for other folks no matter who it was, and she never asked nothin' in return. Now go organize a temperance march ...or some other so called noble cause. You chose the wrong cause here today.”

  Beulah Birdwell's silence signaled the white flag of retreat, but her eyes bored holes through Buck and then Annie:

  “Mrs. McCann, if you become unable to supervise Calvin, and he is caught throwing rocks through windows again, I will come knocking on your door.”

  At that moment Katie intervened in a bravely cheerful voice: “You won't have to worry, Miss Birdwell. I always wanted a little brother. I'll help look after him. We'll get along just fine, won't we Cal?” she said, ruffling the boys unruly hair. And from that day forward, Calvin became simply “Cal,” as if he had shed the skin from his old life in Shanty Town along with his name. With the death of his father and the terminal illness of his mother, the boy who had nothing was to begin a new and better life.

  Then all grew quiet as the service began, and the preacher opened his bible to say final words over the pine box that contained Leroy's body. Myra tuned up to bawl, and suddenly a marriage that had been nothing more than a miserable life sentence was described by the preacher as “a match made in heaven”. Buck rolled his eyes and gave few disgusted “humphs” under his breath, until Annie nudged him into silence.

  The Salvation Army Band played a graceless rendition of “Will There Be Any Stars in my Crown?” and afterward, members from the Full Gospel Church began to sing:

  “Just as I am without one plea... but that thy blood was shed for me...and that thou bidd'st me come to thee...O lamb of God I come. I come.”

  As the service ended, Katie led Cal to the Tin Lizzy, and Annie and Buck reassured the frightened boy as best they could. His father had been placed in the ground, and he was leaving his mother. Children have a way of clinging to a parent even when that parent is negligent. To children, it sometimes seems better than the unknown. So it was with Calvin Conner.

  In an attempt to break the uncomfortable silence, Buck chattered most of the way home:

  “That preacher man just loves funerals. Gives him a chance to preach folks right through the pearly gates...like he was God Almighty Himself. When my time comes... Annie girl...don’t let the preacher make me out to be some mealy-mouthed saint!”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about that. No one would believe it any way.” Annie delivered her response with a wry smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

  Buck was quick to respond: “Well...at least I see you're getting your sass back. I suppose I should be relieved ...but it's a mixed blessing for sure!”

  Suddenly a small gasp came from Katie who was riding in the back with Cal: “Mama...I could have sworn I saw a timber wolf out of the corner of my eye...there in the trees...but it must have disappeared....or maybe it was my imagination.”

  With a small intake of her breath, Annie replied evenly, calmly: “ We think we see many things in the shadows of these old pines. Wolves are scarce nowadays. I doubt there was anything there , Katie.”

  When they arrived home, Minna was waiting with their supper on the stove, and when she saw they had brought the Conner boy with them, her dark eyes grew bright and intense. She took Annie aside and whispered urgently in her ear:

  “What have you done? The boy has his mother's unsettled spirits flowing in his veins. What are you bringing into your home?”

  Annie ignored the warning and picked up a letter addressed to her, one which had finally arrived after a week in transit. Mail service was notoriously slow, but at last she was hearing from her husband! The letter was late indeed , having been post marked the day Jesse had arrived in Pine Crest. It was all that she had of him. Although the McCanns were one of the first families in Morgans Bluff to have a telephone, there was a lack in long distance service. She could only read Jesse's words when she longed to hear his voice:

  “My Darling Annie,

  I wish, more than words can say, to be there with you. The workers here are in turmoil and for the sake of your mill, I must stay and take care of a few things. I am sorry that I have left you alone...”

  Granny continued her dire warnings while Annie read her letter: “I'll not have you tainted again by bad spirits, after your father and I have gone to great lengths to have you purified.”

  Preoccupied with Jesse's handwritten words, Annie barely heard her grandmother's warning. Her husband's final words brought tears to her eyes:

  “Send me a telegram in regards to the homecoming party for our sweet Katie, and I promise you I will arrive by train the day of the event if not before. I am lost without you.”

  Upon hearing the news that her father would be soon be home, Katie grabbed Buck's arm and twirled him around, until the old logger laughed to the brink of collapse.

  VIII: A Deep Dark Place

  The rock walls of the abandoned dry well were slick with slime from decades of dormancy. Upon the bottom lay skeletons of drought–driven creatures that had crawled down in search of water. Unable to climb back up the thirty feet of steep, slippery wall, they perished there in a prison of their own making. The only difference between those hopeless animals and Jesse was that he had not chosen his manner of death. Yet his end could come in much the same cruel and pointless manner.

  He had come to consciousness with a hard throb in his head, no memory of how he had gotten there, and no concept of how many days he lay there in the sludge of the that ancient well. He awakened to bound wrists and rope encircled chest. Someone had apparently used that means to lower him, senseless, down into a deep, dark place—Hell without the fire of brimstone to light his way.

  The last thing he could recall was knocking on the door of the bungalow where Domingo had suggested he could find the sheriff. Someone was behind the door as he entered. Then came a blinding flash of light and a searing pain followed by total darkness.

  What a fool I was, he thought. Domingo sent me straight into an ambush. But why? Why was I left alive? For what purpose?

  Jesse ran his tongue over cracked lips that ached for moisture. The irony was that there, where once sprung the life force for a family, no water was to be had—nothing but a putrid puddle of rain water, rife with the stench of decaying animals.

  “I will die from dehydration... inside a well,” was his next thought. He was stunned by his own hysterical laughter and began to doubt his sanity. He had to do something besides lying there in the dark as if he were already in his tomb. His bound hands grappled for the one sharp–edged rock that might free him. Feeling his way along the wall, for hours on end, he found a jutting rock sharp enough to break the cord that bound him. He worked at it slowly, methodically, sawing against the jagged edge until at last his hands were free.

  But what now greenhorn? Show me what you can do now! came the sneering whisper. Had he spoken the words himself or had they come from somewhere inside his head or above in the outside world?

  “Who's there?” he shouted. But only the echo of his words came back to mock him.

  He ran his hands along the inner wall again, searching for a place to pull himself up—a ledge no matter how small, a foothold no matter how slippery. Time and agai
n he tried to climb , and time and again he fell back. His muscles burned, and his head throbbed. At last he slept. In his feverish dreams his mother came to him from the other world with arms outstretched: “ Do not give up. You have much to live for.” Then he felt a touch as soft as a feather against his cheek, and he was jolted awake into absolute darkness.

  Someone above had moved a concrete lid over the mouth of the well, but it was left open enough to allow a small amount of air to descend to him—as if to prolong a slow and agonizing death.

  He knew not how many days he had lain there unconscious or how many days he had struggled afterward. Night and day and time itself had no meaning.

  “Someone will come looking for me very soon!” he shouted, as if to ward away some evil adversary.

  How will they find you greenhorn? came the whispered reply from within his brain.

  Before he slept again he thought of how he had pushed Buck Hennessy aside and trying to take on the situation by himself. To top it off, he had taken the suggestion of Domingo who had never done one honorable, trustworthy thing in his life. The price of his bravado would be paid with the currency of his life blood.

  His jumbled thoughts gathered and flew toward home to Annie, Katie and the unborn baby he would never see. In his dreams he was there, enveloped in loving arms, content to never leave again. And then came the specter of his loved ones waiting, then hopelessly searching for him forever — hearts shattered beyond repair.

  IX: Katie’s Celebration

  Annie was feeling almost like her old self again, especially knowing her Jesse would be home soon. Missing was a piece of her heart that couldn't heal without him. She had sent a telegram to him at the Pine Crest Hotel, just as he had asked, informing him that Katie's party would be in two days. She knew there might not be time for his reply; but when he said he would be home in time, she knew he would keep his promise. So she was unconcerned when confirmation did not arrive. Jesse always kept his word, Besides, she figured he was busy taking care of the problems at the Pine Crest Mill, doing what only he could do and sparing her the turmoil.