In a Dark Season

by Vicki Lane

  “—and that would be where the thing about the silo came from.”

  There was a long, pregnant pause and then the sheriff said, “I won’t say you’ve convinced me, Elizabeth; the whole thing’s seriously sketchy. But I will say I’ll follow up on it. Happy now?”

  There was a definite click on the line, just before Mackenzie hung up. Probably old whatsername in the front office, listening in. Now there’s a woman who undoubtedly knows where all the bodies are buried. What a great job for a blackmailer, if she were so inclined.

  Elizabeth picked up the stack of Nola’s papers she had been working her way through—notes for the novel, copies of old newspaper or magazine articles, and the more prosaic ledger books from the stand, dating back to the end of the 1800s. Prosaic, but fascinating for the picture of an era.

  The words “A Modern Day Circe” caught her attention and she paused at a copy of an old letter to the editor of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine—from Thos. W. Blake, Junior.

  8th January, 1899

  My dear sir,

  Inasmuch as my dispatches from the Carolina Mountains have found favor with your readers, from the earliest in 1858—my sketch of a Melungeon stand-keeping couple—and proceeding through the troubled years of the lamentable War that pitted brother against brother to the Modern Day to the coming of the Railroad to these hidden wilds, I make bold to propose yet another sketch, set in the same bygone day and rustic demesne as my first.

  NOTES ON A MODERN DAY CIRCE

  by Thos. W. Blake, Junior

  As the Turn of the Century approaches and I cast my gaze back two score years to my earliest days in these majestic mountains that will one day receive my bones, I am reminded of a time long distant when I was privy to the ramblings of a convicted murderer and I am struck, once again, by the singular qualities of the woman who, I make no doubt, led him to his ruin.

  How I came to be in the company of young Lydy Goforth is a matter over which I shall draw the kindly veil of Time. His name has become a part of the lore of these mountains, thanks in no small part to the ballad I penned, now popularly considered to be of his own production. As if an illiterate agrestic could have—But I digress. My position in the community, my wife, my children—any of these are sufficient cause for me to avoid the smallest mention of my connexion with Lydy Goforth.

  I shall, therefore, limit my remarks to Belle Caulwell—a woman whose fatal beauty had the power to transform a simple rustic lad into a beast, capable of the last extreme of violence. Pale of face and black of hair and eye, her exotic countenance was oft remarked upon in this land of blue-eyed folk. I have not been able to trace her antecedents—it is said she appeared at Gudger’s Stand as a child of thirteen, unaccompanied and unable (or unwilling) to say from whence she came. I could believe she had ridden on a dragon’s back straight from Aeaea, the island home of the original Circe, were it not for the fact that Belle spoke in the mountain brogue rather than Archaic Greek.

  I have questioned more than one venerable in our community concerning Belle and all are agreed that we shall look upon her like no more. One aged farmer had tears in his eyes as he recounted his memories of Belle at her loom—how the drovers lingered ensorcelled as the sinuous thread of her song rose above the thump and clack of her loom.

  The women-folk have a different tale. They call her pale skin “sallow” and speak of the “heathen” fashion in which she let her black hair fall loose and unconfined. They will allow her to have had a fine figure—a tiny waist, a deep bosom—but that is all they will allow. One ancient crone, lest constrained in her converse than others, whispered that Belle was known as one who could rid a girl of an unwanted child, through use of herbs and potions. “And she had an instrument, a silver rod with a hook on one end—” but at last modesty prevailed and the beldame would go no further.

  The sound of the door opening called her back to the present, and Elizabeth looked up to see Amanda smiling apologetically. “Is it too late to go see that guy—the one who knew my brother?”

  Chapter 40

  Dead End

  Wednesday, December 27

  Thomas W. Blake was leaning on the parapet of the bridge, staring down into the turbulent river that swirled and eddied around the ice-covered rocks. He seemed oblivious to the approach of Elizabeth’s car, continuing his morose study of the churning water without looking up.

  Elizabeth pulled to one side and, leaving the vehicle running and Amanda inside, she got out and went to stand beside the strange figure. “Good afternoon, Mr. Blake. I was just reading a copy of one of your grandfather’s letters—about a modern-day Circe. I found it in some of Miss Barrett’s papers.”

  “Good afternoon, Miz Goodweather. Yes, Miss Barrett and I have, at times, combined forces in research. And, to be strickly accurate, tha’s great-gran’father.”

  The courtly bow was somewhat clumsy and the words were slightly slurred, but Blake seemed happy enough to see her, so she persevered.

  “I wondered if my friend and I could ask you some questions.”

  A lordly wave of his gloved hand, the gracious gesture only slightly impaired by the holes in the gloves’ fingertips. “Ask what you will; I am yours to command. At leisure, one might say.”

  “Do you think…that is, would you mind if we talked in your house? It’s a little cold out here for me. And I’d love to see how the cat and her babies are getting along.”

  Mother and children seemed to be thriving. Still in the same box, but with a clean towel for bedding; still in the big cupboard, the little family was a picture of domestic contentment. Amanda crouched over them, crooning with delight and stroking the kittens’ tiny heads with a careful finger.

  “They’re precious—do you think Ben would like a kitten? Or would it be a problem with your dogs?”

  “Probably not.” Elizabeth ventured a cautious caress of the mother cat’s thin side and was rewarded with a buzz of pleasure. “The dogs are pretty laid-back.”

  Thomas Blake stood watching, swaying gently. He had put a kettle to boil, unearthed three clean mugs, and bestowed a tea bag in each, as well as a generous tot of vodka in his own. His eyes did not leave Amanda.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Blake, I haven’t introduced you all. This is my friend, Amanda Lucas. Amanda, Thomas Blake.”

  Elizabeth was struck suddenly by the absurdity of the formal introduction: the grizzled, slightly drunken man in his ancient, begrimed clothing and thick-lensed glasses bowing over the hand of the tall, exquisitely clean, exquisitely beautiful woman in the midst of this tumbledown, cat-crowded abode. It could be a scene from Beauty and the Beast or maybe Phantom of the Opera.

  But the two played their parts solemnly, and when the kettle boiled and the mugs were filled, Blake ushered them to the living area of his warrenlike dwelling.

  “You say your name is Lucas? And your home is…?”

  “I live on Elizabeth’s farm. But I’m originally from Florida.”

  Amanda’s impatience overcame her manners and she set her mug down on the table at her elbow, sloshing hot tea on a sleeping tabby’s tail. With a yowl and a sideways twist of its lithe gray body, the cat jumped to the floor, where it began at once to groom itself. “Mr. Blake, Elizabeth thought that you could tell me something about my brother. His name is Sp—”

  “Spinner Greer. Yes, the resemblance is extremely strong. I was confused by the different surnames.” The thick glasses glittered at her appraisingly. “Yes, my dear, you’re very like.”

  “Mr. Blake, I haven’t seen Spinner since 1993. My parents told me he was dead. But recently I found letters from him, written in ’94 and ’95. And the last ones were from Ransom.” Amanda’s eyes were imploring. “Please, do you know where he is? I know he bought property here…up on Bear Tree Creek. He said he was going to build a cabin.”

  The man nodded. “Spinner had great plans. Your brother was enraptured with this county and its history. He used to stop in to visit and read through some of the document
s and historical material I’ve held on to—and I grew quite fond of him. The poor boy seemed eager for a confidant and I was happy to give such advice and moral support as were within my poor powers.

  “But no.” Blake shook his head. “I’m so sorry. I can’t help you. I haven’t seen your brother in years. Nor have I had any communication from him since our last meeting in…” He paused to consider. “…yes, in 1995.”

  Amanda’s lips parted, then without speaking she slumped back in her chair, bitter disappointment in every line of her body.

  “Mr. Blake”—Elizabeth gently stroked the calico cat which had just jumped onto her lap and was happily kneading her denim-covered thighs—“Amanda’s been advertising in the Guardian for months, looking for information about her brother. And there were similar ads before that, going back for years. Why didn’t you ever respond?”

  Blake drew himself up and replied. “In the first instance, dear lady, I never read that provincial rag. In the second, had the advertisement somehow been brought to my attention, what could I have had to say? I had no information. One day the young man was here. He had come to bring me a Christmas libation and had stayed to help me drink it. The liquor loosened his tongue and soon he was pouring out his heart and soul—the next day he was gone, never to return. When weeks and months passed, I realized that he had repented his decision and, embarrassed by the confidences he had shared, had decided simply to move on. So many of them do.”

  “And you have no idea where he might have gone?”

  Amanda’s hopeful question hung in the air as Thomas Blake considered it.

  “He had spent time in New York and in San Francisco as well. He claimed to regard both with loathing. But like the dog that returns to its vomit, he may have capitulated to the siren call of the lifestyle. And, of course, the medical options in those cities would have been far more extensive.”

  “I don’t understand.” Amanda crossed her slender arms and hugged herself as if struck by a sudden chill. “Spinner wasn’t sick.”

  Thomas Blake drained the last of his vodka-laced tea. “My dear, but of course he was—the last time I saw him, he’d just learned that he had AIDS. And after all this time with no word, I’ve come to believe he must have lost the battle.”

  The Drovers’ Road XIV

  The Iron Chain

  I ran and climbed through the thickety woods like a wild thing with hounds all a-slaver on its trail. They was a little light from the setting moon and afore long signs of dawn begun to show in the sky. I regretted my heavy coat and my blanket layin back in my room, for hit was bitter cold. At least, thinks I, with only this light snow, by the time the sun comes up, could be hit’ll melt away my tracks. For a time there, I made out that I could get plumb away.

  But when the sun had cleared the mountains and I found myself at the top of a long ridge with a choice of ways to go, something come over me and I couldn’t run no more. Hit was like that fine thread had turned to an iron chain and hit was draggin at me ever step. And instead of slippin into the cover of the woods and lightin out for a far place, I stood there and looked all around me.

  The broom sedge was waving brown on the hill and the birds that had been making such a racket, not a minute past, was still, like as if a great hawk had glided over. I fell to my knees, wore out with runnin and knowin that it weren’t no use. The hue and cry at the stand had begun as soon as they’d seen the body, and though I had a start on them and knowed the land well, I was afoot and they had horses and mules.

  But surely, a man afoot could elude a rider in these steep and precipitous hills. Surely a man like yourself—

  Hit might have been a man could, Professor, but I had lost heart. For as I’d run, hit had come to me that hit must be Belle had done this thing so as to be free for me. And the recollection of Ol’ Luce layin in his blood, his eyes starin, had plumb taken the heart out of me. They’ll not rest till they find someone to answer for that, thought I.

  I lay watchin the sky, like I had done that last day at my uncle’s farm, and I wondered how come I to be in such bad case; hit was like they was a spell on me and I couldn’t run no more. The clouds chased one another acrost the sky till they was plumb out of sight and I thought of all the places I hadn’t yet seen and so fell asleep there in the broom sedge.

  The sun was high overhead when they found me there with the dry, brown blood on my hand, and I stood to meet them.

  Boys, I said, holdin my hands high, I’ll go with you. I ask pardon for leadin you such a long, hard ways.

  Chapter 41

  J’y Suis; J’y Reste

  Wednesday, December 27

  Amanda’s stunned expression and her indrawn gasp of surprise were immediately followed by the slam of car doors and heavy footfalls approaching the door.

  Thomas Blake stood and bent to place a consoling hand on Amanda’s shoulder. “I’m truly sorry, my dear. I had thought you must have known.”

  Ignoring the nearing footsteps, he moved back to the kitchen and Elizabeth heard the glug-glug of the vodka bottle. “Mrs. Goodweather, you said you’re interested in the history of the stand. I have some items you might find of interest.”

  Blake emerged from the kitchen and started to pull down one of several shoe boxes on the top shelf of his tall bookcase. “Some copies Nola shared with me in happier times and some odds and ends I found at the bottom of the very box the little mother in there chose for her accouchement. I’ve not had leisure—”

  The knock at the door interrupted his explanations and he returned the shoe box to its place. “Unwelcome visitors, I’m afraid, but I beg that you ladies will stay. I don’t believe they will linger.”

  A thought seemed to occur to Blake as he wobbled toward the entrance. “But perhaps their visit, destined though it is to failure, will serve another purpose.” He pulled open the door.

  “Gentlemen, punctual to the minute. Please, step in.”

  Elizabeth recognized them at once: Pritchard Morton, brother of the deceased Payne, who had been at Nola’s bedside on her first visit; Vance Holcombe she remembered from the dais at the meeting at the high school; as well as Hollis Noonan, moving force of Ransom Properties and Investments, he of the annoying boyish grin and tossing hair, god, he’s doing it now, who was coming toward her with outstretched hand.

  Blake spoke up. “Mrs. Goodweather, may I present…”

  For a drunk and a recluse who looks like a homeless person, old Thos does have nice manners, she thought, trying to mind her own as the sheaf of golden hair was flipped back into place.

  “And this is Mrs. Goodweather’s friend, Miss Amanda Lucas.”

  Elizabeth was forgotten as the newcomers turned to Amanda. They appeared to find her extremely interesting and she saw the glances the trio exchanged. Well, she is pretty gorgeous; hardly surprising they can’t keep their eyes off her.

  “Gentlemen, I have my answer.”

  All three men turned to look at Blake, who was standing very straight, bolstered, Elizabeth noticed, by the bookshelf at his back.

  “Your offer—RPI’s offer—was generous, nay, even munificent. But I do not choose to sell and abandon my family heritage.”

  “Your family heritage?” Noonan’s boyish face was suffused instantly with anger. “I don’t fucking believe this! You live in a derelict, flea-infested dump and we offered you—”

  “Hollis!” Pritchard Morton barked out the word.

  The effect was immediate. Noonan’s furious expression changed to one of mild concern adorned with a self-deprecating smile. “My horrible Irish temper. Ladies, please forgive me. Blake, my associates are prepared to sweeten the offer to the tune of—”

  But Blake was shaking his head. “I’ve made my decision. Double, triple, quadruple the sum—my answer remains. I do not choose to sell.”

  Noonan’s face reddened and he opened his mouth but shut it again as Vance Holcombe began to speak.

  “Tom, you’ve known me and my family and Pritchard’s family
all your life, right? We all go back a long ways and we all want what’s best for the county, wouldn’t you say?”

  Blake swayed, took another sip from his mug, and nodded. “That’s right. But do we agree on what’s best? Ay, there’s the rub.”

  The three exchanged glances again. “Maybe it would be better if we came back another time, when you don’t have guests,” Morton ventured. “I feel that you haven’t really considered what the offer could mean to you.”

  “Gentlemen, you have my final word.” Blake’s eyes were half-shut. “In the immortal words of the Comte de Mac-Mahon at Sevastopol: ‘J’y suis; j’y reste’—here I am and here I stay.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Noonan’s voice was under control but his hands, Elizabeth noticed, clenched into white-knuckled fists, betraying his emotion. “The county commissioners are drooling over the thought of turning this whole area into the centerpiece of the new, revived Marshall County. They’re willing to authorize a taking for the stand property; when we tell them how this dump will blight the whole project, I think they’ll go along with us on condemning this eyesore. They’re not going to let one pathetic old drunk stand in the way of a plan that has so much to offer the county.”

  Noonan looked at his watch. “You can have another twenty-four hours to come to your senses. Then we’ll be back with a revised and considerably sweeter deal. If you don’t see fit to accept it,” a shrug was accompanied by the toss of the head, “then we’ll go to the commissioners.”

  Motioning toward the door, Noonan summoned his friends with a glance, then flipped the boyish charm back on. “Ladies—Mrs. Goodweather, Amanda—I apologize again.”

  His eyes slid to Amanda, who was sitting quietly, stroking a purring ginger cat. “Have we met somewhere? Your face is so familiar. Chapel Hill? Or maybe—”