More Than Magic (Books of the Kindling)

by Donna June Cooper

  That was the reason Mitch hadn’t tried to search him yet, which was a good thing since he still had his gun and his sat phone. But the kid was so scared, Nick was afraid he might get shot by accident before they got wherever they were going.

  Nick’s hands were freezing and his shoulders had cramped by the time he caught a glimpse of the old Victorian through the trees, but every time he attempted to lower his arms or shrug, Mitch made warning noises. The first flakes of snow started falling, wet and heavy, as they approached the clearing.

  “What the hell are you doing, you dumb son of a bitch?” It was Boyd Taggart, stalking toward them from out of the woods to the left.

  “That’s what I keep asking him,” Nick said. “I think this is all a misunderstanding of some kind.”

  “It ain’t. I caught him looking at our trash real close. You said nobody should see it, so I brung him.”

  “Where the hell?” Boyd barked.

  “Your trash? That’s your trash? I thought someone else was dumping it on the property and you were just cleaning up,” Nick hoped Boyd would grab the line that Mitch had missed. Time enough later to determine whose trash it was, when there were no guns being waved at him. “Can I put my hands down now? My shoulders are killing—”

  “SHUT UP!” Boyd yelled at Nick, then he spun on Mitch. “Where the hell’ve you been putting the trash? We told you to put it over in the Pisgah.”

  Mitch looked downcast. “I got tired of going way over there. I’m tired of lugging trash all over the place. I wanna use the GPS and do the stuff Evan gets to do.”

  Nick sighed and flexed his fingers, trying to keep the feeling in them. Well, that tactic didn’t work. He was still trying to figure out who was the brains of this outfit. Maybe it was this Evan Veatch. Mitch was definitely the mule.

  “Where’s the other shotgun?”

  Oh good, another shotgun. Nick tried not to think about what kind of shot they had in those things, if they were bringing down bears.

  “In the house. You brung it down from the lab before Evan—”

  “What else you told him?” Boyd advanced on Mitch, who back-pedaled, the gun swinging away for a moment.

  Nick took a step away from them, lowering his hands a fraction.

  Boyd grabbed the gun from his brother and aimed it very steadily at Nick’s chest.

  “I knew you’d be the one who’d fuck this up, you stupid shit-for-brains retard!” he yelled, keeping his eyes on Nick the whole time.

  “I didn’t fuck up. I brung him,” Mitch said reasonably. “And I’m the one found that notebook in the first place.”

  “You shut up too!” Boyd barked at Mitch. “I gotta think.”

  Even with the snow coming down heavily now, Nick could see the back of the house and he wondered if there was any chance Old Annie might hear or see what was going on. And what she would do if she did? The phones were out. Not much she could do.

  But Jamie and Grace were safe, and hopefully they would bring the cavalry. Till then—

  “This is some kind of joke, right? A practical joke on the city guy who writes about drug dealers? Ha ha, real funny. You guys are a barrel of laughs. If I admit you scared the crap out of me, can I take my hands down now?”

  “I told you to shut the fuck up!” Boyd yelled.

  Nick glanced toward the house.

  “What? You think our Memaw’s gonna come flying down them steps and rescue you or somethin’?” Boyd snarled. “That’s a good un.”

  “She—” Mitch began.

  “I told you to shut up too!” Boyd yelled.

  “Look, if this is a joke, it’s not funny anymore,” Nick said, making his voice sound shaky.

  “Go get that other shotgun and bring it.” Boyd jerked his head toward the house.

  Damn. Boyd wasn’t buying the joke angle either. He poked the gun in Nick’s direction and motioned with it up the slope to his left. “Move.”

  Nick headed back into the woods, almost due north.

  Grace hefted her backpack onto her shoulders and took the loaded shotgun out of its rack, checked again to be sure she had chambered a round, then slung it over her shoulder. She tried hard not to think of anything but the next step. If she did more than that, her brain would create all kinds of worst case scenarios and she would freeze up and forget what she was doing. She had almost forgotten the survival pack and had worn her usual bright colored hat and scarf as well, without even thinking about how visible she would be in them. But the hood of her jacket would cover up the hat, and she could tuck in the scarf.

  Locking the truck usually seemed pretty silly this far up the mountain, but not today. She pocketed the keys, then looked down the road. The snow was starting to stick and, from the look of things, this was going to be one hell of a storm. Jamie would get to the Carters soon and help would be on the way.

  But probably not fast enough.

  Pulling up her hood, she struck out north, parallel to the ridge. She’d wanted to just drive into the hollow and walk up to the house and demand to know what was going on. But she had thought better of it, and decided to approach through the woods on the northwest side, just to see what was what.

  The Taggarts might be drug dealers and creeps, but they weren’t murderers. Just like you told Jamie, Nick will be fine.

  It was a comforting thought. But other things kept trying to crowd into her head.

  How could the Taggarts have hidden a drug lab on their mountain? Pops would have known.

  “There’s something wrong with our mountain, Gracie-girl.”

  Pops had known. He had tried to tell her.

  She had felt it in her bones. Poison. And she had heard it. Off-key and out of tune. It had slithered through her dreams. Filthy blackness boiling along the forest floor, devouring everything in its path.

  Threatening everything, everyone she loved.

  She blinked back tears, pulling her scarf up over her nose and tugging her hood further down against the cold air. If they had touched Pops—

  No. They weren’t murderers. Nick will be fine.

  She’d been so wrapped up in trying to understand her gift scientifically—trying to analyze it—that she hadn’t been listening with her heart, listening with that part of her that could hear what the dreams were telling her. There was poison on the mountain. It was so obvious now. Grace could see the clearing off to her right. There was no activity in front of the house, so she kept her course right along the edge, up in the trees. The heavy clouds had turned the afternoon into a dim dusk and the trees gave her enough cover, especially in her dark gray jacket. Even with the snow, in the shadows no one would see her unless she wanted to be seen.

  When she got close enough to the house, she hunkered down, carefully cradling the shotgun and listened. The whole hollow seemed unnaturally quiet. She could hear the snow hissing down. Then, off to the north, she heard voices. Muffled by the snowfall, but clearly people were arguing up there. Careful not to be seen by anyone who might still be in the house or trailer, she headed in that direction, staying far up in the tree line.

  It was Mitch, walking backward with a cardboard box in front of—Old Annie? She peered through the falling snow in disbelief.

  The tiny figure bundled up in a puffy coat and hood could have been a child, but she wore orthopedic shoes and walked with a cane. Annie hadn’t used a cane in a long while, at least not in Grace’s presence. She’d insisted she couldn’t get two steps without her walker, and staggered around the kitchen to prove how unsteady she was these days.

  Here was the proof of what Grace had sensed back at the house, Annie stalking along in Mitch’s wake, in the snow, with a cane, looking as strong and spry as could be. From this distance, Grace couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Annie was giving Mitch an earful, shaking her cane for emphasis.

  Grace frowned. Before, she might have thought that Annie would be the one to talk sense into the boys, stop all this before it escalated into something they couldn’t cont
rol. But not now. She couldn’t trust Annie or anyone else at this point.

  Except the mountain.

  A noise to her left, deep in the forest further up on the ridge, froze her in her tracks. When she looked around, there was the slightest suggestion of a shape, black-tipped gold against the rime-coated gray of the rocks, tail flicking, then it was gone.

  Grace didn’t move or breathe for a long moment. When she thought the big cat had moved on, she looked back down. There was no more arguing going on. Mitch was walking slowly by his grandmother’s side, thoroughly chastened. And when Old Annie looked back at the house, Grace spotted the shotgun she was carrying cradled in her other arm.

  Taking one last look up where the big cat had appeared, Grace worked her way further up the ridge to get around Old Annie and Mitch without attracting their attention.

  The snow was falling furiously now and there was so much moisture in the air that fog had formed. Nick couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, if he could have, in fact, moved his hands in front of his face. He had managed to lower his arms an inch at a time to keep them from going numb. Now he was clenching and unclenching his hands and fingers, trying to keep them flexible. When he had attempted to move his shoulders and neck around to stop the agony in those muscles, Boyd gave a warning, so he stopped.

  But now he couldn’t see where they were going at all. There could be a damn drop off into oblivion for all he knew. And hell, if that was the way they planned to get rid of him, he intended to take Boyd and his shotgun down with him.

  Staggering to a halt, he waited for the barrel of the shotgun to poke at him again.

  “Move!” Boyd shouted. Predictably, the shotgun prodded Nick’s ribs.

  Nick’s answer was to drop his hands and not move another step, rubbing furiously at his wrists and fingers.

  “Hey!” Boyd jumped around in front of him, slipping a bit on the snow. “What’re you doing?”

  “I can’t keep them up there any longer. Go ahead and shoot me. You’re going to anyway.”

  Nick watched as Boyd looked anxiously back the way they had come.

  Boyd wasn’t going to shoot him…yet. Boyd was waiting for the boss. Evan?

  “Too bad Old Annie doesn’t feel the same way about poaching as she does about doing drugs.”

  “Them as take them evil drugs deserve what they get. It’s like a plague on the earth sent by the Almighty to strike down those who ain’t righteous.”

  No. Evan was just another mule like poor Mitch.

  Feeble old Annie was the brains. And he would bet that she wasn’t as feeble as she put on. It all fit. Annie was the reason the boys didn’t take drugs. Annie was the reason they sold drugs to the addicts in the big city. He could picture her cackling over making money off the sinners. He would bet she thought up this whole operation, and she was lucky that these two managed to cook the meth without blowing themselves up, much less—

  “I said move! Put those hands back up now! And get down there,” Boyd barked.

  Nick glanced back. The fog seemed to have cleared in this area, although he imagined up this high that they were actually in the clouds producing all this snow. He could see now that they were standing on an incline that led down into a small clearing in front of a large rocky outcropping topped with trees.

  They don’t know what to do with me, which means they’ve never killed anyone before. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be standing here breathing, waiting for Old Annie to—what? Pass judgment? Give permission? Weigh her options?

  He needed to bring some pressure down on the right side of that scale, fast. Rolling his shoulders again, he lifted his hands, but not as high this time, and slid down into the thick leaf mulch that covered the ground beneath the snow. He thought he could see a well-worn path that led right up to the wall, but it might just be a trick of the light, or lack of light down here—everything was enveloped in white swirling mist.

  Nick dropped his hands down just a fraction and turned to face Boyd.

  “Hey—”

  “I’m going to reach into my jacket pocket and pull out my ID, Boyd, because you still have a chance to avoid the death penalty if you get a good lawyer. And considering the amount of Smoky Mountain Magic you’ve been trafficking, you might just pull it off.”

  Boyd’s face had gone almost as white as the snow falling behind him, something that should have pleased Nick, but really didn’t.

  “However, if you shoot me and manage to kill me, you’re looking at a mandatory Federal death penalty. My name’s Nick McKenzie and I’m an agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and I’d like to show you my ID.”

  He lowered his hands another fraction.

  “You’re—” Boyd couldn’t seem to find his voice.

  “I am Special Agent Nick McKenzie of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration,” Nick repeated very slowly. “I was sent up here to investigate the source of the meth you’re producing. If you kill me, it’s a guaranteed Federal death penalty case. I’d like to show you my ID.”

  Another voice joined in before Boyd could react. “Go right ahead and show us yer shiny badge, Mr. Revenuer Man. I’ll add it to the collection that my grandpa started back in Prohibition. It’ll look real nice.” Old Annie stood at the top of the incline with Mitch beside her. He carefully set down the box he had been carrying, then took a shotgun from her and helped her hobble down the incline, holding onto his arm and using her cane.

  “Mrs. Taggart,” Nick said politely.

  She cackled. “Hell, no one’s called me that fer years. Mrs. Taggart. That’s a hoot.” Once she reached the bottom, she hit Mitch in the head with her cane. The boy yelped with surprise and staggered back, rubbing at his ear.

  “That’s fer disobeying the rules about where we put our trash. Taggarts don’t piss in their own well.”

  Boyd stepped back when she rounded on him. The old woman didn’t seem to have any problem standing while handling that cane like she was swinging for the fences.

  “You likely started all this by not settin’ that trash fire when you shoulda yesterday. I’ll bet that chemical stink got all up in Her Majesty’s woods.”

  So, he hadn’t imagined it. He wondered if he should protest Grace’s involvement. Likely Annie would take that as an admission that he cared about Grace’s welfare, and that would be dangerous, no matter what happened here.

  “As I was telling your—” Nick began.

  “Oh, I heard you jes fine. Got the volume turned up on the hearing aids.” She laughed, a strange cackling sound, as she motioned to Mitch. “Get in there and get the guns and ammo. Leave the rest of it.”

  “Aw hell, we’re not gonna—”

  “Shut up. If brains was dynamite, you couldn’t blow yer nose!” Annie looked at Nick sadly. “These are the kind of sons that woman produced.”

  Nick watched closely as Mitch seemed to disappear into the rock face. Apparently there was a sideways opening that was flush with the rocks. He heard the sound of a lock being opened echoing inside the rocks.

  “Yep, that’s our little meth kitchen, Mr. Nosy-DEA man. My grandpap used to hide his still and his hooch here, long time back. Revenuers never could find it then neither. Mitch can’t make his way here by hisself. Even Boyd has trouble finding it most days.”

  “I don’t,” Boyd whined.

  “Hush. That cave’s damn useful for our purposes. One of the mountain’s secrets, I expect. Just kind of hides in plain sight. Even has nice vent holes in the roof and running water.” Annie looked thoughtful. “Seeing how helpful it’s been to someone or other since afore white folks showed up here, it’s a crying shame to plug it up for real and final, but Evan got us these nice explosives to play with and we been wanting to try ’em out.” She prodded the box up on the incline with her cane. “And since no one can find it now, they sure as hell won’t be able to find it when it’s all caved in on itself.”

  Nick tried again. “The agency knows exactly where I am and—”

>   “Don’t say ‘You won’t get away with this’. Everybody says that on the TV and it ain’t true. I seen my grandpap get away with it, way back when. Right in there.” She stabbed her cane toward the cave. “Even when I was just a pup, I never had a problem finding this place. The mountain told me where it was.”

  Nick frowned. The damn headache had started up again and he could have sworn her voice was slurring or echoing or something. Maybe it was the altitude. Did she just say the mountain talked to her?

  Mitch emerged from the rocks with a duffel bag.

  “Bring it here and open it up for me.”

  “I left that walking stick. The one with the silver top. Did you want it too?”

  Annie made a face and shook her head. “I swear. Somedays I’m pretty sure you ain’t got a drop of Taggart blood in ya.”

  Boyd snickered and she pointed at him. “Neither of ya.”

  Mitch just looked confused as he held the bag out to her.

  Nick took the opportunity to lower his arms another notch.

  “I’m not as stupid as these two. Just keep yer hands out where we can all see ’em,” Annie said, reaching into the bag to retrieve a gun holster—a brand new leather gun holster holding a pearl-handled stainless steel 9mm. He wondered briefly if she could shoot it without ending up on her backside.

  It was one thing to wish for a quick death instead of a long, slow decline into oblivion. It was another to confront it. And after last night, after feeling more alive than he had in years, he wasn’t going to just let go without taking somebody with him. Dammit. He was going to see Grace again. And his mom and his Nan and Alison and tell them he loved them. And he was going to tell Grace—

  “I’m sure you’re plannin’ on walkin’ in there real polite and nice, ’cause that’s the kinda man you are.” Annie was handling the 9mm like she had done it before, racking the slide to make sure it was loaded. He could have sworn he heard her muttering at him, but her lips weren’t moving.

  “But I think the boys’ll carry you in, just to be fer certain.”

  She pointed the gun at him, her hand shaking only a little.