by Jadyn Chase
She let out a broken sigh, but she still didn’t move. She didn’t fidget or flex her fingers in thought. Her arms lay heavy and frozen in her lap.
“Listen,” I murmured. “I’m sorry I laughed at you before. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“No, you’re right,” she rasped. “It’s a stupid story. I shouldn’t have come.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked. “You must have believed in this story to travel all this way. Maybe there’s something to it. Seventy people can’t be wrong.”
Will you shut up, you stupid mutt? What did I have to go saying that for? I have got to learn to keep my mouth shut.
She jerked into action. She seized her handbag and ripped her notepad out of it. “It doesn’t matter. I have to finish the investigation. Once I do that, I’ll go home. I don’t care if I don’t find anything. As long as I show my editor that I researched the reports, it will be up to him to decide whether to print the story. He won’t, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll still have my reputation. No one can say I didn’t do my job.”
She got out of the Jeep and started walking away. I dove out to follow her. “Where are you going? The shoe was found over there.”
“To hell with the shoe!” she barked over her shoulder. “I don’t give a crap about the shoe. The shoe means nothing.”
I raced to keep up with her. She plunged into the forest without bothering to check which direction she was going. In a fraction of a second, all my feelings about her changed. I could relax when I thought she was hopeless and on the verge of defeat. Now she was back and I had to work to stay one step ahead of her.
Now my blood ran cold when I saw where she was going. Why didn’t she care about the shoe? That would have been easy. The shoe didn’t mean a thing. Holy smokes, she was smarter than I thought.
She moved on a beeline through dense undergrowth heading for a rocky outcropping jutting above the wilderness. She climbed up it. When she got to the top, she leaned her hands on her knees to catch her breath. Her cheeks flushed bright red, but she didn’t give up or rest until she made it.
I stopped next to her, but I didn’t dare ask what she was looking for. I already knew, and I didn’t want to talk about it.
“There!” She pointed down the slope to an indentation in the landscape.
I pretended to squint in that direction, but I didn’t have to look very hard to see the blackened ring of devastation. Trees three feet thick lay splayed in an oval around the blast site. They pointed their conical tops away from the center toward the forest.
After all this time, the ground still hadn’t regenerated from the explosion. Why? Because the heat not only destroyed all the seeds in the ground, but it changed the soil chemistry. The sulfur from the fire made the ground barren. It wouldn’t recover for at least two more decades.
I prayed to God in Heaven that Louise didn’t have any chemical expertise. If she thought to take soil samples, we were all in serious trouble. Hell, we were in serious trouble as it was. No other reporter ever searched this site before. She was the first.
Without a moment’s hesitation, she plunged down the hill heading straight for it. She didn’t even bother to check if I accompanied her. The farther she hiked, the faster she walked. Her energy erupted to the surface. When I caught a glimpse of her face, her cheeks radiated light and excitement and passion.
I swallowed hard, but I couldn’t show any sign of disturbance. We lived in this country unseen and undetected for hundreds of years. We should have known someone would come along who would put all the pieces together, who wouldn’t quit until they uncovered all the evidence and constructed it into a coherent story.
We should have known someone like Louise would come along someday. She saw through all the lies and the fabrications and the smoke and mirrors. In a few more miles of hiking, she would stand and stare at the raw evidence that couldn’t be denied.
I couldn’t say anything to deter her, though. For one thing, she knew enough to come here. That meant she already knew most of the story. If I said anything or tried to turn her aside, she would smell a rat. She would know I offered to guide her to throw her off the trail.
She halted at the edge of the blast zone and pulled out her phone. She snapped one picture after another. I hung back on the periphery and did my best to look casual.
She worked her way around to where I stood. “How much do you know about this incident?”
I shrugged and looked away. “I only know what the locals say. I can’t remember ever seeing any story about it in the papers.”
“What do the locals say?”
I held a quick internal debate with myself. How much should I tell her? “They say there was a big mushroom cloud over the wilderness. They say you could hear the concussion all the way in Norton.”
“What about the dragons? What do the locals say about them?”
I squirmed in my boots. “They say dragons were flying around in the blast cloud. They say dragons scorched the ground with their fire breath and that’s why nothing will grow here.”
“What do you think of that theory?” Louise asked.
I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t meet those eyes studying me or she would know I was lying. “I suppose anything is possible.”
“I’m not talking about the dragons. I’m talking about the ground. Why do you think nothing grows here anymore?”
“How should I know?” I replied. “I’m no scientist.”
“You’re a local. What could cause an explosion like that?”
“Anything could cause it,” I hedged. “Dynamite could cause it.”
“But dynamite wouldn’t have left the ground bare like this for so long,” she countered. “If it was only dynamite or only fire or only anything, seedlings would have grown back by now. There would be grass here, or at least thistles and dandelions. Are you telling me dynamite stopped dandelions from growing here? I don’t believe it.”
“Well, what’s your theory, then?”
I rounded on her and our eyes met. I told myself not to, but I couldn’t exactly challenge her without looking into her eyes.
When I did, I saw her reading me like she did in town. Her eyes scanned me like a lie detector. They picked up the slightest irregularity in inflection or the tiniest quiver of my pupils. She knew. She knew I was hiding something.
My insides twisted in a fist under her scrutiny. I couldn’t bear that look in her eyes, but I couldn’t look away, either. Her face represented such an image of perfection, I never wanted to look at anything else again. The beauty of this sweet old world paled compared to her.
She broke my gaze to scan the surroundings again. “They say dragons’ breath has a lot of sulfur in it. I talked to a botanist in Savannah. He thinks that could have contaminated the soil enough to stop plants growing.”
“Who says dragons’ breath has a lot of sulfur in it?” Was that a tremble in my voice?
“The eyewitnesses,” she replied. “Several of the reports relate a powerful smell of sulfur around the dragons. The eyewitness from Jacks River Fields claims the place stunk of sulfur.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t trust myself to say anything without giving the game away. She trod dangerously close to the truth. A few more steps and I would have no choice but to do something to stop her. I couldn’t think what that would be, but I couldn’t let her get any closer to the truth.
To my horror, right in front of my eyes, she walked to the center of the blast site. She dropped to one knee, took a small plastic sample bottle out of her handbag, and scooped up some of the soil. She smiled at me while she screwed the lid on.
My skin crawled. How could such a beautiful smile on such an enticing face bode so much ill will for me and the people I loved? What could I do? I couldn’t exactly snatch it out of her hand. If I did anything to show how much it disturbed me, she would catch on to the truth.
Her smile lit up her whole face. All the uncertainty and despair I thought I detected in her back a
t the Jeep vaporized in a halo of light. She never looked happier with her investigation.
I inclined my head toward the hill where we left the Jeep. “Are you ready to go?”
“Not yet.” She took her map out of her bag and opened it. “I want to ask you about something.”
She squatted down and spread the map on the ground. She traced her finger along a white line from Buck Creek back toward Smokey Ridge. She moved beyond it and stopped north of the Ridge. “Do you know this place? It’s called Granite Gorge.”
I did my best to keep my face impassive. “Granite Gorge? What’s there?”
She ignored my question. “Do you know it?”
“Sure, I know it. Everybody knows it, but there’s nothing there. It’s just rocky cliffs.”
“According to the report, five bright red dragons attacked a pack horse team camping under Horseshoe Falls. They killed all the horses and three people. Two others got away. One went upstream and the other fled downstream. They made independent reports, one to the Sheriff’s office and one to the Parks Service. Both reports coincide in every detail. It’s one of the most reliable reports we have.” She stood up and folded her map. “We’re going there.” She set off for the Jeep.
I hurried after her with my head in a spin. “There’s no time to go there now. It will be evening by the time we get back to Norton. Besides, there’s nothing….”
“I still have to go there,” she interrupted. “The incident happened last week. I have to investigate while the evidence is still fresh.”
I stopped dead in my tracks. “Last week? That’s impossible.”
She kept walking. “Yeah? Well, the whole story is impossible, but I still have to investigate it. Two completely unrelated reports corroborate each other. If they’re right, they could blow the whole thing wide open.”
I didn’t answer. What could I say? Granite Gorge! Now I knew I had to deflect her somehow. Whatever else I did, I couldn’t let her find out the truth.
5
Louise
The Jeep trundled back down the long, winding roads. Long before we got near Norton, I knew Luka was right. The sun slipped behind the Ridge and left the countryside in shadow. We would never have time to drive all the way to Granite Gorge before dark.
Luka didn’t say anything all the way back to town. For a minute there at the stream at the campground, I thought for sure he was going to try to kiss me. I guess I was wrong. He didn’t like me. He thought my investigation was stupid.
I shouldn’t even have been thinking about him like that. He was supposed to be my employee. I didn’t come out here to hook up with a guy, not even a guy as attractive as Luka.
Why should he like me? Why should he give a hoot about my story or anything else? I barely knew the guy.
He drove through the dust to stop next to my car. He shut off the motor and glanced at me sidelong before looking away. He always did that. He rarely looked me in the eye. That’s how ugly I am.
“Thanks,” I told him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Where will you stay tonight?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I guess I’ll find somewhere. Maybe that bartender can help me out.”
He pointed toward the Watering Hole. “He has rooms above the bar. He rents them out sometimes if he likes the person. His name is Larry, by the way. Tell him I told you to ask.”
“Does that mean he’ll give me a room?” I asked.
“Not necessarily.” He bit back a grin. “It depends on whether he likes you.”
“How will I know if he likes me?”
“I think he will.” He glanced toward the bar and then back to me. “He likes women who stand up for themselves, and you did that. Anyway, he’s a friend of the Kellys. If he knows you’re in my good books after prying into our Clan business, he’ll probably give you a room.”
My ears pricked up when he called the Kellys a Clan. Someone saying that in modern-day America sounded strange, but I should have expected it from the way they kept to themselves.
I surveyed the town with a not very complimentary eye. “Do you…. uh….do you want to get something to eat?”
Don’t ask me what made me ask that. I only knew I didn’t want to face spending the night in this town alone. I mean, I was going to spend the night alone. I wouldn’t spend it with him or anyone else. I just didn’t want to go off alone just yet.
He scrutinized my face with an intensity I hadn’t noticed in him all day. This was the first time he really stared at me without flinching. He didn’t look away. He looked all the way down to the bottom of my soul.
That gaze didn’t make me feel ugly. I understood at last why he kept averting his gaze all day. I made him uncomfortable because he shared the attraction. That was why he avoided looking at me at all.
A slight smile touched his lips. I could have sworn he would accept my invitation, but my heart plummeted into my shoes when he said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
I tried to shrug my disappointment away. “All right. See you tomorrow.”
“I’d love to get something to eat,” he told me, “but I have to go home. I have to meet someone.”
“Uh-huh.” I turned away. I couldn’t stand in front of him after he rejected me like that. “See you later.”
I grabbed my handbag out of the Jeep and stormed off to the Watering Hole. When the door banged shut behind me, Luka was still sitting there in the driver’s seat of his Jeep. He hadn’t moved.
I approached the bar. A lot more guys crowded the place now. They made raucous noise around the pool tables, and a few played cards at the tables.
Larry barely looked up when I parked myself in the same stool. “What can I get you, Ma’am?” That must have been his standard line for women.
I took a deep breath. “Luka Kelly tells me you rent out rooms upstairs. Could I rent one from you?”
His head snapped up, and his whiskers quivered. “He said that?”
I nodded. “He told me to come in here and ask you.”
He bent over his sink. “Then I suppose I could rent you one. How long do you want it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe three weeks.”
He gawked at me with his mouth open.
“Is there a problem?”
He swallowed and humphed. “No problem. Three weeks it is. That’ll be six hundred dollars.”
Now my mouth fell open. “Six…..”
“You won’t find another place to stay in this town,” he told me. “Take it or leave it. Cash up front.”
I burrowed into my handbag and brought out my wallet. I counted out the money and handed it over. He passed me a key and pointed toward the door. “Go outside and around the back through the alley, up the stairs, and you’re there. It’s all yours.”
Now that we got that out of the way, I started to relax. “Luka got a sandwich from you earlier. Could I get one?”
He took out a notepad and scribbled something on it. “Roast beef or ham?”
“Roast beef, please.”
“Cheese?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Fries?”
“No, thank you.”
“Anything to drink?”
“Another Jailhouse, please.”
He ripped off the page and walked away without a word. Now that I was on my own in this town, I studied the people around me. I was the only female in the bar. In fact, now that I thought about it, I was the only female I had seen in the whole town so far. I couldn’t be. A town couldn’t survive without women.
The bar patrons consisted of construction workers in high-visibility vests, a few professional men in suits, and a random collection of others I couldn’t decide what they were—not that I cared much.
Of everyone in the place, though, none struck me as interesting as Luka. They made eye contact with me, but their eyes didn’t speak to me of the hidden volumes Luka kept concealed under that casual exterior of his.
Was it only that I knew he belonge
d to the Kellys that made him so elusive to me? Whatever secrets they hid up there on the Ridge, he knew them all. He must have volunteered to show me around to hide them from me. He probably thought he could lead me around by the nose so I wouldn’t find out anything incriminating about his family—his Clan, as he called it.
Why would he do that if there was nothing to find out? Why would he thwart my investigation if the dragons didn’t really exist?
Now don’t go jumping to conclusions, Louise. He could have any number of reasons to hide his family’s activities. They could be into organized crime. They could be traffickers for all I knew. Any number of explanations made more sense than that joke of a dragon legend.
A few minutes later, Larry came back with my sandwich. He set the plate in front of me. “Seven-fifty.”
I paid him, and he gave me another Jailhouse and a glass to pour it into. I took the first bite, and the sensation of solid food filling my stomach settled my nerves from the day. I looked straight in front of me and found myself watching Larry put away the clean glasses. “Luka says you’re a friend of the Kellys.”
Larry cracked a crooked grin. “I am, so don’t think you can come in here and twist my arm for information about them.”
I had to smile back. I should have expected that. “I won’t. I just want to talk. You don’t have to tell me anything about them.”
“I won’t tell you anything about them that everyone else in this town doesn’t already know.”
I chose my first question with care. “Do they stay up on the Ridge all the time? Don’t they ever come down?”
He waved his arm at me. “You met Luka in this bar. Of course they come down.”
“You know what I mean. Do the children attend the local school?”
“No.” He bowed his head over his glasses. “The Kellys homeschool their children.”
“Doesn’t the local truant officer have something to say about that?”
Larry arched his brow at me. “When you consider that more than half of the Kelly children go to college, I would say no, he doesn’t have anything to say about it. They do a damn sight better job educating their kids than the local school ever could. Everybody knows that.”