by Tom Deitz
But there was still the thrill of the forbidden, though Mama had not, in fact, lately said she couldn’t go there, just not to go outside the reach of her voice. That that admonition conveniently superseded the much more ancient one not to cross the road, and Lord knows not to play on the tracks beyond, was not lost on her. If she got caught, she’d just plead ignorance of the law (that was a phrase she’d learned from Robert, who was morning shift commander in the Whidden Police Department).
One final glance toward the back of the house, one final check to see that the coast was clear, and Allison slipped outside. She had already started to run across to the nearest of the fifteen loblolly pines that dotted the wide expanse of newly mown yard (another thing teenage brothers were good for), when something brought her up short.
She stopped in her tracks and stared, brow wrinkling in perplexity. The yard ended a short way farther on, where it ran up against the dusty yellow-white length of the upstart logging road that meandered past the new ranch house Daddy had built Mama when she was five. Beyond it was a fringe of weeds, and beyond them the slight elevation that carried the Georgia Pacific on down to Brunswick. She knew its habits quite well: once in the morning going west through Whidden with a burden of ragged tree trunks, and then east again in the afternoon, laden with rolls of newsprint and other paper products. Even on Sunday.
Beyond the tracks were the woods that were Allison’s destination, but what had stopped her cold was that, while the coast had most certainly been clear earlier, it definitely wasn’t now.
For as Allison slipped around to the road side of her pine tree, she saw somebody come hobbling down the tracks from the west. An old woman, it looked like, probably real old, though Allison couldn’t see enough of her face to tell. But the way the poor old thing was walking—sort of hitching along like she had a limp, or maybe like her feet were too heavy; and the way she was all bent over with almost a hump on her back seemed to indicate that was the case. And the clothes more or less clinched it, for the woman wore a grayish-tan shawl flipped over her head like a hood and trailing over her arms and back, largely obscuring the long, shapeless dress beneath it. Allison found this curious not only for itself, but because it didn’t jibe with the oppressive south Georgia June heat. But she just couldn’t imagine that poor old woman wearing shorts and a T-shirt like her mama did when she didn’t have company. The old woman looked dirty, too; and Allison was sure she could see bits of leaves and twigs sticking out of the ragged fabric.
Maybe she shouldn’t go play in the forest after all; maybe the old woman would be there. Maybe the old woman was a witch who would eat her up.
Except that was silly, and if Don Larry knew she even considered things like that, he’d make fun of her for days, and that settled it. Soon as the coast was clear, she’d run right on over.
As soon as the coast was clear, ’cause it was taking the old biddy a long time to make her way down the tracks. Allison watched her, as if hypnotized, and realized she’d nearly dozed off just following the methodical step-and-hitch that was the rhythm of the crone’s progress. It was almost like every step made the ground vibrate—which made Allison’s eyes tingle in turn, kinda like they did when she got sleepy, but it was the middle of the day and she wanted to play, and didn’t like that at all.
The woman didn’t seem to have noticed her, though; didn’t seem to notice anything as she moved with slow precision from Allison’s right line of sight to her left. Eventually she passed from view behind a screen of oleander, and Allison breathed a sigh of relief and concluded her dash for the road. She’d be okay, she knew: the old woman was gone, and if she crossed the tracks quickly and silently, as she knew she could, she’d be at her playhouse in no time. It was kind of to the west, anyway. And the old woman had been heading east.
In fact, when Allison dashed across the tracks and entered the woods, she was nowhere in sight.
Chapter VII: Off the Beaten Path
(east of Whidden, Georgia—early afternoon)
Calvin was practically beside himself with irritation when he awoke. The sun was shining square on his face (which is probably what had roused him to start with), and a gritty-eyed squint in its direction through the froth of live-oak leaves indicated that it was clearly afternoon—which meant he had slept rather more than twelve hours. Time he had certainly not planned to let slip by.
“Damn,” he grumbled under his breath, as he rummaged through his meager gear in search of breakfast, then remembered the Vision Quest and checked himself abruptly, wondering if he should continue his fast. Good sense won out, though: he had sought his vision and failed, and while some sort of threat was evidently still laying for him, and he still ought to be on his best behavior as far as things like lying went, it was not necessarily wise to confront…whatever it was…half sick from starvation. Besides, the fasting was to help sunder soul and body, not weaken that body when the actual trial began. With that bit of rationalization giving him a degree of comfort, he broke out a stick of beef jerky and began gnawing it reflectively. He did not, however, make coffee.
By the time he had got himself cleaned up and his camp in order, his course of action was clear. He would go into town (he needed to anyway, since if there was trouble brewing it would be a good idea to know what goods and services were available), and once there, he’d ring up Dave and Sandy and alert them both to his situation. He hadn’t a clue what he’d tell Dave, of course, only that he should beware, but he had a pretty good idea what his conversation with Sandy would be about, which was basically everything that had happened to him in the past three days. It occurred to him, though, that she might already know most of the story, since while he wasn’t reachable by phone, Dave was, and she might very well have wrung a detailed briefing out of him when Calvin proved unavailable. But still, it would be awfully good to talk to her, and he had promised her a call and not delivered—though that was not, strictly speaking, his fault.
He was just making final preparations for his departure—checking the fires for embers, and secreting his bow inside the trunk of a nearby hollow tree—when his eyes fell on the copy of the Savannah Morning News he had bought yesterday and never got around to perusing. The article that had drawn his interest then jumped out at him once more: JACKSON COUNTY WOMAN FOUND DEAD UNDER MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES. Now, as then, it intrigued him, not merely because he had recently been in Jackson County (and of course, there was also the slightly sensational use of mysterious), but also because Jackson County was a long way from Savannah, and thus small happenings there were not likely to make the front page unless it was a slow day for news—or unless it was not, in fact, a small happening.
An impatient grunt, because he really did need to get his ass in gear, and Calvin flopped against his tree and scanned the article.
His hair stood on end as he read it. Not only had one Evelyn Mercer been found dead outside her trailer, but that selfsame trailer was apparently right off Lebanon Road, only a mile or two from where Calvin and his friends had camped on their way from Sandy’s to Stone Mountain the Sunday night just past. As for the “mysterious circumstances,” they remained frustratingly obscure. All Calvin could piece together from the article’s oblique language was that the woman had risen early to fix breakfast for her husband, stepped outside to feed the chickens, and simply not come back in. Her husband had found her in the yard hours later, with the chickens pecking at her body. There were a few veiled references to mutilation (“The body, dressed in a housecoat over a T-shirt, appeared to have been tampered with in an unconventional manner, resulting in unconfirmed reports of possible removal of some viscera. When questioned, the local coroner had no comment,” was the way the paper put it), but nothing really concrete. The rest of the article was a brief bio of the late Ms. Mercer and the usual rejoinder about further information being withheld pending investigation. There was no actual mention of murder, though that was certainly implied, and was what the dead woman’s husband was quoted in print as su
specting. Bizarre stuff, all right.
Calvin suppressed another chill as he refolded the paper and stashed it inside the rapidly collapsing asi. Still, he supposed, sensationalism, no matter how un-sensational, had never yet failed to unload a few piles of pulp. Maybe when he got to town he’d pick up another and see if there was a follow-up.
*
It took Calvin perhaps thirty minutes to make his way through the woods to the road that led into Whidden, but he miscalculated his trajectory slightly, so that when he slipped out of the brush and slogged across an unexpectedly marshy bit of right-of-way and onto the shoulder of the only major highway around, he didn’t recognize the place at all. The so-far-unseen metropolis had to be fairly close, though; he could just make out a pair of steeples and what looked like a clock tower looming above the treetops to the right, no more than a mile or so away.
Fortunately the terrain looked a little dryer across the highway, so he crossed it at a lope and headed north beside one of the ubiquitous pine plantations, with the sun mercifully hidden behind a puff of clouds that might be vanguard of an afternoon thunderstorm.
He was not thinking very hard about anything at all—or thinking so hard about so many things at once that it amounted to the same thing—when he became aware of the crunch of tires behind him. That was strange, too, because he was facing traffic. Whoever it was would have had to whip across four lanes to come upon him from the rear.
Trying not to appear alarmed, though he was—with some reason, given his looks and circumstances—Calvin risked a glance over his shoulder and saw more or less what he expected: one of the bronze Chevy Caprices that belonged to the local constabulary—probably a County Mounty this far out. Whether there even was a city police force, he hadn’t a clue.
A whirr/whistle/buzz of siren, and the car ground to a halt, whereupon a public address speaker broadcast a rattly “This is the Willacoochee County Sheriff’s Department. Please remain where you are and turn around slowly.”
Calvin obediently stopped in place and eased around to face whatever music might be playing, having no desire to do anything to upset these people, who might, after all, have perfectly good and reasonable intentions. Nor was he surprised when both the Chevy’s front doors popped open and a pair of mirror-shaded officers climbed out, each of whom outmassed Calvin by at least forty pounds of—in the driver’s case particularly—solid muscle. Indeed, though both gray-haired and balding, the guy looked remarkably fit—much more so than his much younger sidekick, who sported a bit of a paunch and a vestigial auxiliary chin. Unfortunately the driver also had a hard, thin mouth Calvin did not much like—as if he were used to getting his own way most of the time and didn’t hesitate to let it be known when he didn’t.
His partner, by contrast, seemed far less certain of himself, a quality he evidently tried to mask with a snappy precision of movement that was almost prissy. Calvin had to bite his lip to suppress a smirk when he saw the guy’s inky sideburns, which had to weigh at least a pound apiece. Even Willacoochee County, it appeared, harbored the occasional Elvis wanna-be. Maybe this redneck rube moonlighted at the local honky-tonk or something. Calvin wished suddenly he still had his harmonica; music might help charm this possibly savage beast. Perhaps because he was nervous and wanted something to do with his hands, he reached unconsciously for the pocket where he usually kept his Hohner, then realized to his horror that he still had the hunting knife clipped to his belt—which he probably shouldn’t be carrying. No doubt the officers had noticed it by now, but he froze anyway, lest his intentions be misconstrued.
The driver’s brow furrowed ever so slightly, as if he had caught Calvin’s gesture and was filing it away under “additional charges.”
“Mind if we have a few words with you, mister?” he drawled as he came to within about a yard of Calvin. Calvin had to raise his head to look him in the face. Mirrored RayBans shielded the man’s eyes, though, and beyond the unpromising mouth Calvin couldn’t get any feel for him at all. No hostility—but no friendliness either. Basically business. The nametag on his light tan shirt read W. LEXINGTON. His badge indicated that he was the local sheriff.
“Sure,” Calvin replied as casually as he could.
“What we was wonderin’,” Sheriff Lexington informed him, “was what you ’uz doin’ long here. Hitch-hikin’s ’gainst the law in these parts, ’case you didn’t know.”
“I wasn’t hitchin’; I was just hikin’ into town,” Calvin replied carefully, trying not to appear either nervous or confrontational—and keeping his hand well away from the knife hilt.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” the other officer barked with more aggression than Calvin thought necessary. He paused, his forehead likewise wrinkled, and then: “Hey, didn’t we see you down at the Magic Market yesterday?”
“Probably.” Calvin hoped very hard he wasn’t coming across as a smartass, but was beginning to suspect that any response would be subject to that interpretation.
“You didn’t look too glad to see us, son,” the sheriff noted pointedly. “Any reason for that?”
Oh Lord, Calvin thought, here it comes. He’d have to level with them because he didn’t dare lie when on a Vision Quest, but he doubted they’d like the answer.
“Well,” he began, “uh…well, when you…look like…”
He broke off, not liking the direction he was heading in. “Well, I guess you’ve noticed that I’m an Indian, or mostly one.” he blurted finally. “And I’ve been around enough to know that not everybody warms to us, especially in small towns.” (And that, he realized as soon as he had said it, had been a mistake. Last thing he needed was to sound patronizing.)
There was no obvious response from the officers, though Calvin wished desperately that he could see their eyes. Or that they couldn’t see his, guiltless though they were.
“What’s your name, son?” This from the sheriff.
“Calvin McIntosh, sir.”
“You got any ID?”
Calvin shook his head. “Lost it.”
“Lost it? How’d you lose it?”
“Mind tellin’ us where?” the other—ADAMS, his name-tag read—added.
“I’m not sure,” Calvin replied truthfully. “Last time I remember havin’ it was in the Stone Mountain a couple of days ago.”
The officers exchanged startled glances, and Calvin could tell from their subtle tensing that his words had struck some chord with them.
“When’s your birthday? “ Adams snapped. “And what’s your Social Security number?”
Calvin told him, whereupon Adams spun smartly and trotted back to the car. He picked up the mike inside and began speaking into it, but Calvin couldn’t catch what he said.
“Nice knife,” the sheriff noted casually.
“Thanks.”
“Handmade?”
“Yeah. Guy up at Commerce makes ’em.”
“Commerce?” The man’s brow wrinkled again. “Ain’t that in Jackson County?”
“I’m…I’m not sure. Could be, I guess.”
“Just wonderin’.”
And then an uncomfortable silence, while the deputy continued his business on the radio.
“Look,” Calvin sighed finally, with more exasperation than he intended, “what is it, exactly, that you want from me?”
“Don’t get smart!” the sheriff warned, but before he could continue, his partner was back, easing around to the forest side, as though to block Calvin’s movements in that direction. He clutched a piece of paper, which he passed to his superior, who frowned at it for a moment, then looked back at Calvin.
“The name Maurice McIntosh mean anything to you?”
“He’s my father,” Calvin replied automatically, and his whole body stiffened as a host of unpleasant possibilities came flooding over him, chiefmost being that Dear Old Dad had called the law on him for busting down the fence around his beagle lot, never mind that there’d been extenuating circumstances—and that Calvin had not been driv
ing. He had left some gear back in the clearing there, though; and—his heart skipped a beat—probably his wallet was among it.
Sheriff Lexington advanced another step. “’Bout this Stone Mountain business you ’uz talkin’ ’bout—you don’t happen to know which day you ’uz there, do you?”
Calvin frowned thoughtfully, puffing his cheeks and wishing fervently he could lie. “Let’s see…I got here yesterday—that’s when you guys saw me—so it must have been…yeah, it was Monday mornin’.”
“Monday mornin’? You sure about that?”
“Positive,” Calvin affirmed, not flinching.
“And how’d you get here?”
“Some friends brought me. I can give you their names if you like.”
“No need—yet.”
“When did you see ’im last?” Adams inserted, earning a warning glare from his superior.
“Christmas—briefly. Sometime in the fall. I don’t remember before that. I don’t live there anymore.”
“He throw you out?”
Calvin shook his head. “I left. I was in high school. Dropped out to go and try to get my head straight.”
“And did you?”
“I don’t know. See, Dad was half Cherokee, but he didn’t want anything to do with that, but Mom’s dad was Cherokee too—one of their last great medicine men, in fact—and he more or less took me under his wing when Mom died. I’m a lot more my grandfather’s son than my father’s. I—”
The sheriff silenced him with a scowl. “An’ you ain’t seen your daddy since Christmas?”
“’Fraid not. Like I said, I was by his house Monday, but he wasn’t home. That may be where I lost my billfold.”