4 Hemmed In

by Marjorie Sorrell Rockwell

  “I think The Black Pirate came first,” said Aggie.

  “When those pirates said, ‘Dead men tell no tales,’ it reminded me of the murder we’re trying to solve.”

  “How so?” asked his cousin. Their grandmother had made them popcorn with lots of butter. AMC was running a day of buccaneer movies.

  “Because the guy that stole the quilt killed that Charlie guy to keep him from telling tales.”

  “You’re pretty smart for a boy,” she complimented him.

  “Thanks. Now all we gotta do is figure out which one is guilty, the man who works at the chair factory or the one who manages the Dairy Queen.”

  “Maybe they’re both guilty.”

  “Naw, I think it’s the frozen custard guy.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “That boy who translated the secret message would have told his dad. I know I would’ve.”

  “You’re pretty fond of your dad, huh?”

  “Don’t remember my real dad. But Bill is about the best-est dad ever. I’d tell him anything. Sure hope he’s okay.”

  “Don’t worry. My daddy’s up there making sure he’s okay. Your mom too.”

  “Dads and moms are great, aren’t they? I didn’t have any for the longest time. Now I’ve got a whole family, including you.”

  “I like my grandmother a lot,” admitted Aggie.

  “And I like my grampy,” N’yen added. “He doesn’t care that I’m adoptated.”

  “Adopted, you mean.”

  “Yeah, that. It’s kinda special when you think about it. Out of all the boys and girls in the world, Bill and Kathy picked me.”

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  It took Cookie all morning to round up the Quilters Club. Lizzie was already at the Garden Club Luncheon. Bootsie was baking a watermelon cake for Jim. And Maddy was working on her latest patchwork quilt while the kids watched movies on AMC.

  In addition, Cookie had to contact Howard Gunnar’s great-granddaughter to arrange for a visit. The old man tired easily, she was told, but would receive them following his afternoon nap.

  “Howard Gunnar, that’s a good idea,” said Maddy. “If anyone remembers the location of that church, it would be him.”

  “Ben suggested it.”

  “You’ve got yourself a good man, Cookie. Going down in that well for you. Giving that land to Haney Bros. Circus to establish a town zoo. Supporting our misadventures.”

  “Don’t I know it! He’s my very own teddy bear.” Although Ben Bentley had had a crush on Cookie since high school, it was only after her first husband died in a tractor accident that they got together.

  “We’re all lucky gals,” said Maddy. “Finding good men to share our lives with.”

  “And we’re lucky to have each other as friends,” Cookie replied – meaning the Quilters Club.

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  Howard Gunnar had celebrated his 100th birthday only last month. Mayor Beauregard Madison had declared the day as “The Howard Gunnar Centennial” and presented the old man with a bronze plaque to that effect. The Burpyville Gazette ran his picture on the front page. His great-granddaughter Roberta had accompanied Howard to the ceremony on the town square.

  The Quilters Club arrived in mass at the Gunnar farm. Surrounded by the expanding town limits, the ten-acre farm was abutted on three sides by residential streets and new housing. No crops had been grown there in forty years, other than a few assorted vegetables in the small garden plot behind the weathered farmhouse.

  “They’re expecting us, right?” asked Maddy Madison. She believed in good manners.

  Cookie nodded vigorously. “Yes, I spoke to Roberta Gunnar. She’s Howard’s caretaker as well as his only living relative.”

  “I brought watermelon cake,” said Bootsie. “Jim told me the old man is fond of it.”

  “I wouldn’t mind a slice myself,” grumbled Lizzie. “I didn’t have any lunch.”

  “Me either,” Bootsie admitted, eyeing the cake platter in her hands.

  “Behave yourself, you’re on a diet,” Maddy reminded her friend.

  “I’m not,” said Lizzie. Still as slender as when she was as a high-school cheerleader.

  “What do you mean you didn’t have lunch?” accused Cookie. “You were at the Garden Club bash.”

  “Nobody ever eats at those things. Rubber chicken and talk-talk-talk.”

  “Come along, girls,” urged Maddy. “Maybe Mr. Gunnar will share a slice or two with you.”

  “He better,” muttered Bootsie. “I actually baked it for Jim.”

  “We appreciate his sacrifice,” said Maddy as she stepped onto the farmhouse porch.

  Roberta Gunnar was a thirtysomething brunette with plump hips and generous thunder thighs. However, she had a radiant smile, all the more noticeable with her whitened teeth. “Come inside,” she invited, holding the door wide. “Gramps is in the living room.”

  “We brought him cake,” Bootsie announced, hold it up for all to see.

  “Watermelon cake? That’s his favorite.”

  “So we heard.”

  The old man looked something like a mummy, given his wrinkled gray skin and wispy hair. But his watery brown eyes twinkled with alertness. “Don’t get many visitors anymore,” he nodded his welcome. “Everybody I know is long dead – friends, children, even grandchildren. Nobody left but Roberta here. Guess I’ll be joining them friends and relatives soon enough.”

  “Aw Gramps, you’re gonna live forever,” his great-granddaughter said.

  “Sure looks like it, don’t it. Never expected to see a hundred. They gave me a nice party last month.”

  Cookie broached the subject. “We wanted to ask you about an old landmark.”

  “Landmark? I’ve never traveled farther than Indianapolis.”

  “A local landmark. A church that’s long gone,” explained Maddy.

  “Church, you say? Never was much of a churchgoer. Course I may regret that soon enough.”

  “We’re trying to find out where the Church of Avenging Angels was located,” said Bootsie, handing him a slice of watermelon cake. A bribe as it were.

  “Avenging Angels? That was even before my time. I’m only a hundred years old. That church burned down ’fore I was born.”

  “But did anyone ever show you where it was located?” asked Lizzie, eying his cake with envy.

  “Ever show me? No. But my daddy told me it was on the other side of Never Ending Swamp, over near Gruesome Gorge.”

  “Can you be more specific?” pleaded Cookie.

  “Not really. My daddy didn’t think much of them Avenging Angels. Said they was witch hunters from St. Paul. Told me they killed a local woman for being a witch.”

  “You mean Matilda Wilkins?” Bootsie coached.

  “That’s her, Mad Matilda. My daddy said she flew about on a broomstick. Changed people into frogs. Put curses on her enemies. Guess it didn’t work with them Avenging Angels. They threw her down her own well.”

  “But their church –?”

  “Told you, never seen it. Was burnt down ’fore I was born. I told you that, didn’t I?”

  “Gramps forgets what he says,” Roberta explained in a stage whisper.

  “I can hear you, girl,” he admonished his great-granddaughter. “Lost my smell. But I still got my hearing.”

  “You say it was burnt?” Cookie pressed.

  “To the ground. The posse that was looking for them did it, my daddy said. They was snake handlers. My daddy said rattlers came crawling outta the fire like creatures from hell.”

  “Snakes!” squeaked Lizzie. She had an aversion to snakes, mice, spiders, and bees.

  “Rattlers fat as my forearm,” the old man said. Enjoying having shocked his audience. “The preacher that led the Avenging Angels used to sleep with diamondbacks, according to my daddy. Said them snakes never bit him, like they were akin.”

  “Rev. Billingsley Royce, you mean?” prodded Cookie.

  “Don’t recall his name. Daddy sai
d he had the mark of Cain on him.”

  “About the church –?”

  “This sure is tasty cake,” muttered the old man. “Can I have another slice?”

  “Yes, of course. Now about the church –?”

  “Pretty day, ain’t it?”

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  Another dead end. Cookie Bentley was pretty despondent. Excusing herself, saying she had work to do, she went back to her office. The Historical Society had recently moved into a small building on North Main Street. The town council thought it could become a tourist attraction, so the front room served as a museum with a permanent exhibit about the history of Caruthers Corners.

  A copy of Indiana’s proclamation of statehood.

  A six-foot-tall wooden Indian in native costume.

  A first-rate collection of arrowheads and pottery.

  Bronze busts of the town’s founders – Jacob Caruthers, Ferdinand Jinks, and Col. Beauregard Madison.

  A diorama of the Big Fire of 1899.

  Architectural drawings of the Town Hall.

  A 3-D model of the E-Z Chair factory.

  A video showing highlights from the annual Watermelon Days festival.

  A horticultural poster on growing watermelons.

  A display of prizewinning patchwork quilts.

  That rare copy of A Personal History of Caruthers Corners and Surrounding Environs by Martin Caruthers.

  Photos of local buildings.

  An antique bottle collection.

  A circus poster showing the Haney Bros. on each side of Happy the Elephant.

  Edwin the Enchanted Doll, basis of a local ghost story.

  A collection of carnival glass.

  An aerial photograph of Caruthers Corners.

  The backroom was officially designated as the secretary’s office, but it was more of a storeroom with a wooden desk in the center. File cabinets and stacks of newspapers lined the walls. Boxes of uncatalogued artifacts took one corner. Shelves of donated antiques occupied another corner. An ancient cuckoo ticked over the doorway.

  Cookie was putting away the newspaper clippings about the death of Matilda Wilkins when she spotted the albumin photograph of Rev. Billingsley Royce. She paused to study the faded image. His slightly crossed eyes had a crazed look. That wine-stain could certainly be interpreted as a mark of Cain. He was frowning, a sign of his disapproval of the ungodly world around him.

  Idly turning the photograph over, she discovered an inked notation on its backside: Taken on the 12 August 1897 at the church at Steppin Rock.

  Hmm, where had she heard that name before? Wasn’t Steppin’ Rock an oddly shaped limestone formation out near Gruesome Gorge? Could that have been the location of the Church of Avenging Angels?

  This called for another field trip for the Quilters Club. But they would have to call it a “picnic” for the benefit of their unsympathetic spouses. The boys considered the case closed. But Cookie knew better.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Steppin’ Rock

  Nobody seemed to recall where Steppin’ Rock was located. Wasn’t like it was a big tourist attraction. Just a colorful name given to a natural rock formation that didn’t even appear on area maps.

  Maddy used the picnic excuse to ask her husband. Beau didn’t have a clue about it, though he’d lived all his life in Caruthers Corners. So had she. In fact, so had all the members of the Quilters Club and their husbands.

  At Maddy’s prodding, Beau checked with the Planning and Zoning Department, Public Works, and the Tax Assessor’s Office … but none of them knew where to find Steppin’ Rock.

  The Quilters Club may as well have been asking how to find the Church of Avenging Angels. Or maybe they were, in so many words.

  Despite Ben Bentley’s watermelon-allotment surveying, Edgar Ridenour’s fishing excursions, or Chief Jim Purdue’s patrols, no one had ever been to Steppin’ Rock. Yet they all had heard the name, a local rock formation.

  Young N’yen came through with the solution. He’d seen a movie where Osama ben Laden’s hideout had been observed from satellite photos. Zero Dark Thirty, it was called. Maddy was aghast that the child had been allowed to see such a violent film. But Bill and Kathy were very liberal in their childrearing, as with most things.

  “Satellite photos,” laughed Lizzie. “Where would we get those?”

  Maddy had the answer. “Not satellite images, but aerial plat maps for the entire county are stored in the Town Hall’s basement.”

  “How would we ever find Steppin’ Rock among all those rolls of aerial photographs. There must be a zillion of them down there,” frowned Bootsie.

  Cookie solved that one. “We don’t have to look at all of them. Just the photos around Gruesome Gorge on the far side of Never Ending Swamp. That’s where Howard Gunnar said it was located.”

  “That narrows it down some,” Bootsie acquiesced.

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  After two dusty hours in the Town Hall basement, they found it, Aerial Photo R-790-3. There it was – a rectangular rock slab. Even so, they would have likely missed it if someone hadn’t written STEPPINGSTONE ROCK next to it with a red grease pencil.

  “Steppingstone?” said Lizzie doubtfully. “That’s not right.”

  Maddy squinted at the oversized photo. “That’s got to be it.”

  “Um, I dunno.”

  “Well –”

  “One way to find out,” suggested precocious Aggie. “Let’s go look.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Digging for the Viking Silver

  The outcropping known locally as Steppin’ Rock was located just inside the boundaries of Gruesome Gorge State Park. It was a flat sandstone boulder that looked like the foundation of a house. Supposedly, the rock had been the site of a Potawatomi sweat lodge.

  A Personal History of Caruthers Corners and Surrounding Environs told how the Potawatomi had been members of the Council of Three Fires, along with the Ojibwe and the Ottawa. Although their tribal name translated as “keepers of the fire,” they were considered younger brothers of the Council.

  The leader of these Wabash Potawatomi was known as Winamac (meaning “Catfish”). He and his Fish Clan had sided with the British during the war of 1812. They were the ones who had attacked the wagon train led by Col.Beauregard Madison, Jacob Caruthers, and Ferdinand Jinks – the battle that led to the founding of Caruthers Corners.

  Actually, there had been two Chief Winamacs, one an opponent of the US, the other an ally. The “bad” Winamac had made his camp at Gruesome Gorge.

  Maddy Madison walked across the sandstone surface of Steppin’ Rock, Aggie and N’yen following two steps behind. “So the Indians built a sweat lodge atop this outcropping?” she mused aloud.

  “What’s a sweat lodge?” asked Aggie.

  “Kind of like a sauna.”

  “You mean this was an Indian health spa?”

  “Not exactly.” Maddy didn’t want to tell her granddaughter how this settlement near Gruesome Gorge had proven quite unhealthy for the Native Americans who had died here in an ambush.

  “Martin J. Caruthers wrote about the Potawatomi sweat lodge in his history book,” Cookie noted. “But he didn’t mention Steppin’ Rock.” She was standing on the sidelines, watching as Bootsie and Liz measured the boulder’s squarish surface with a tape measure. Members of the Quilters Club always carried tape measures for checking out fabrics and quilting squares.

  “Eighteen by twenty feet,” Bootsie called out. “Plenty big for a sweat lodge.”

  “Eighteen and a half,” Lizzie corrected.

  “Eighteen and a half,” Bootsie repeated to acknowledge the adjusted figure.

  Maddy ran her hand across the reddish-brown surface, as smooth as if it had been planed and leveled. “This makes a natural foundation,” she noted. “A perfect place to build a sweat lodge.”

  “What if Rev. Billingsley Royce and his followers built their church here too? Any remnants of a sweat lodge would have been long gone by the 1890s
,” Cookie posed the question. “After all, it said Steppin’ Rock on the back of that photograph.”

  Maddy’s gaze swept the outcropping. “If this were the site of a country church, where would the front door have been?”

  “Over here, most likely,” pointed Cookie. “The ground slopes. That makes the far side too high off the ground, I’d guess.”

  “Didn’t the story say they buried the treasure under the church steps?” asked Lizzie, always an eye on the money.

  “The steps would’ve been right here,” said Bootsie, “if Cookie’s right about the door.” The ground looked undisturbed, the rock’s shadow forming a triangle on the grass.

  “That looks about right,” nodded Maddy.

  “Should we dig?” Bootsie asked. She sounded uneasy.

  “Why wouldn’t we?”

  “Well, this is state park land.”

  “We’re on a picnic,” reasoned Maddy. “Wouldn’t it be proper camping etiquette to dig a fire pit for our weenie roast? You know, to prevent forest fires and such.”

  “Oh boy,” exclaimed little N’yen. “We’re gonna have hot dogs!”

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  Two hours later there was a pile of dirt the size of a Volkswagen next to the hole they’d dug, but no silver bars had been found.

  “Guess we got this one wrong,” sighed Cookie. In her enthusiasm, she’d done much of the digging. Tomorrow her back would be the devil to pay.

  “Not necessarily,” said Maddy. She’d been reassessing the situation. “Maybe the story got garbled. Instead of the treasure being buried under the church’s steps, maybe it was buried under Steppin’ Rock.”

  Bootsie laughed. “You mean under this giant slab of sandstone? No way.”

  “Maybe not under the entire rock, but under a corner of it,” suggested Maddy. She studied the reddish-brown sandstone platform, looking for a likely entry point.