Bearer of the Pearls
Bearer of the Pearls
Episode One
of
The River Rangers
Terry Faust
Copyright © 2017 Terry Faust
Cover images © Adobe Stock
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-68201-062-4
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First edition: June 2017
Printed in the United States of America.
Published by:
North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc.
19485 Estes Road
Clearwater, MN 55320
www.northstarpress.com
This book is dedicated to my wife, Kathy. She listened to my concerns about it, added insightful comments, proofed it, and after all that, liked it enough to insist I get it published. I’ll miss her forever.
I wish to thank the members of the Minnesota Speculative Fiction Writers Group for their critiques. They were very helpful in shaping this story.
Before the Beginning
I am Wendy Adair and my life sucks. A year ago my dad died in Iraq, and my brother was locked up in the workhouse. My mom left—just plain left. She had left twice before. That was when dad was alive. This time I don’t know if she might ever come back. It all totally sucks.
My cousin Ben says that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Maybe that’s true, but people I know get killed, or go to jail, or just plain leave. This is supposed to make me stronger?
Well, that’s where I was at not that long ago. As you can tell, I talk to myself. I guess I got used to talking to myself because I was the only one who would listen to me. But I’m not going to bore you with all that. What I am going to talk about is where I am now: staying with my Aunt Mary, Uncle Craig, and my cousin Ben. They took me in when mom left. It was sort of a trial to see if I’d fit in.
This story really all started when I was eating breakfast in their kitchen and didn’t know how it would all work out—my staying with them, not breakfast.
One
My Cousin Benny
I poured milk over my cereal until it floated; the Cheerios were little lifesavers. They bumped into each other and stuck like magnets. I guessed they couldn’t help it.
My cousin Ben sat across the table from me. He did this big sigh and rolled his eyes at my breakfast. “A half cup of milk is all you need for your cereal, Wendy.” He poured what I was sure was exactly a half cup of milk on his Cheerios.
We were the same age, fourteen, but I could have sworn he was born an old monk or something. Aunt Mary and Uncle Craig were okay for old people. They were professors at the university. Ben and I were home because it was summer vacation.
“Ben, let Wendy eat,” Uncle Craig said through his newspaper.
“I drink it when I’m done,” I told Ben. I didn’t explain that my brother Tyrone used to steal my glass of milk and drink it if I didn’t use it right away. That is, if there was milk.
“Did you see this article about the creek?” Uncle Craig asked nobody in particular, giving his paper a snap. “Some children found a mound of mussel shells downstream from the falls. Authorities counted about a hundred.”
Ben stopped eating and listened, really intense. He tipped his head and raised his eyebrows like someone just told him his computer died or someone revoked his nerd membership.
“Muskrats?” Aunt Mary said. She was reading her own section of the paper and didn’t notice Ben’s reaction. “Muskrats love mussels. Or maybe it was raccoons.”
Aunt Mary was pretty, like Mom, with long blonde hair and blue eyes. She was thinner because she and Uncle Craig rode bikes to the university. They biked everywhere. Their helmets looked bizarre. My dad and I used to ride bikes along the Greenway. He was an army medic.
Their house was on West River Road, a little ways south of the Lake Street Bridge. It was not far from our apartment, what had been our apartment, in south Minneapolis, but you would think there was a galaxy in between. Their place had all the window screens—and shelves of books everywhere. I like reading.
It was a brick house, two stories high with dark wood beams in the ceiling and carved vines and flowers in the wood over the doors. There were no beat-up cars or furniture in the alley. In fact, their alley looked better than my old apartment’s front yard. Their alley was full of flowers and painted fences and stuff that nobody but your backdoor neighbors would see. My mom, Juliet, used to say my aunt and uncle were trying to impress people. But all their neighbors’ backyards were kind of the same. It was just the way it was.
“What about the mussels?” Ben asked when Uncle Craig didn’t say any more.
“What? Oh, it says here that the shells had been opened, but they were intact. Nothing had eaten them. Couldn’t have been muskrats. Some children smelled them. The police were called.”
“The police?” Aunt Mary asked.
“It’s illegal to fish for mussels if they are federally protected,” Ben said. “They could have been an endangered species.”
That was typical Ben, always knowing, always lecturing. He even looked like a lecturer: thin and always holding himself kind of stiff and upright. His face was even brainy, with a high forehead, a sharp nose, and serious gray eyes. The nose and eyes were all from the Adair side, like my mom and me, though I thought my nose was too big. Aunt Mary had the Adair forehead and nose, too. Ben’s blond hair fell below his ears and twisted and turned in a crazy tangle that would be about the same length as mine if he bothered to comb it. He just brushed it out of his eyes and straightened it with his fingers—when he thought of it at all.
“A hundred dead mussels must smell awful,” Mary said. “If it wasn’t muskrats, or raccoons, what did it? It sounds like a real mystery.” But Aunt Mary flipped a page of her paper and didn’t sound that mystified.
Ben lowered his spoon back to his cereal. The way he looked, you’d think he had lost his best friend. This mussel thing had got to him—very strange.
Mussels were like clams, that much I knew. I couldn’t get real worked up over a bunch of dead clams. I lowered my voice and tried to sound serious. “I’m telling you, inspector, no animal did this. It looks like a shellfish act of destruction. And all our usual informers have clammed up.”
Uncle Craig and Aunt Mary lowered their papers. Ben looked up. All three of them stared at me like I’d farted. Obviously these people were not big on puns.
My dad had liked puns. He used to get my mom groaning when he’d pile one pun on top of another. Like, “I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.” Or, “When I joined the Army, nobody warned me they’d fire at will.” His name was Will—William Morton. And they did fire at him.
I said my name was Wendy Adair. Adair was my mom’s last name. She used it on my birth certificate because she and dad weren’t married yet. Tyrone got Morton.
Uncle Craig shrugged off my joke. “Okay. Well, Mary and I have got to be going.”
“May I see the paper?” Ben asked Uncle Craig. “The part about the mussels.”
Uncle Craig handed it over, wiped his thin lips with a napkin. “So what do you and Wendy have planned for today?” he asked and got up.
It was the start of summer vacation. I had just moved my stuff to their spare upstairs room, but had not “settled in.” There wasn’t much to move: my collection of mystery books, some clothes, the bag of marbles my grandma gave me, and my stuffed camel. The camel was the last thing my dad had sent me from Iraq before he died.
Ben said, “I was planning to get
together with Werling. But this mussel situation needs to be looked at.”
I had met Werling once. That was enough. He had this robot he was working on and figured everyone was interested in it. For ten minutes straight he talked to me about it. Ben said he was just nervous meeting me. Just weird was more like it.
Uncle Craig sighed and said, “If you go to the site, you will not interfere with the police. Is that understood, Benjamin? I don’t want any trouble.”
Ben shrugged. “I won’t interfere.” He didn’t sound too convincing, and I thought it strange Uncle Craig warned him about police.
Ben added, “I doubt the police care much about mussels.”
“How about you, Wendy?” Aunt Mary asked.
“I’ll hang around the house and read. Maybe take a walk. Ben doesn’t have to baby-sit me.”
“A walk sounds wonderful. Ben will go with you. You two should get out on a nice day like this.”
Ben twisted his mouth up in a kind of grimace, but before he said anything, Aunt Mary gave him “the look.” My mom was an expert at giving “the look.”
“Fine,” Ben grumbled.
Two
Minnehaha Creek Mystery
Ben trotted ahead of me down the chipped and cracked steps of the longest stone stairway in history—probably the oldest one, too. It wound back and forth and followed the steep bank of the creek gorge cut just below Minnehaha Falls. This was a longer walk than I had in mind, though it was nice to see the falls. Old trees clung to the uneven slope; some of them had fallen over and lay rotting. The place was thick with branches and leaves. I thought they were mostly elms and oaks, but you couldn’t prove it by me. They crowded over us, turning things greener and greener the farther down we went. It was like we headed into another world, or maybe another time. Sweet.
The cool, moist air at the bottom smelled kind of musty. The falls were going like mad. They thundered and sent up a cloud of spray. It was pretty amazing.
“Ben, hold up,” I called. He’d crossed over an old stone bridge without a glance at the tons of falling water. I’d only been to the falls once before, on a school field trip, and I didn’t remember what they’d told us. It seemed like a fairyland back then. I called again and figured he couldn’t hear me. So, I ran to catch up. “Ben, what’s the rush?”
“What?” He stopped.
“I was hoping to look around a little.” I caught my breath. “You know, like watch the falls. Enjoy the view.” I was out of shape. I had a brown belt in judo but hadn’t been to the dojo for months, not since Dad died.
“The falls?” He looked up, like the flood of water gushing over a cliff surprised him. “Okay. I’m down here a lot, so I’m used to it.” He waved his hand at the water and said, “There it is—Minnehaha Falls.” He gave me a second to appreciate the view, then turned and headed down the path again.
“Hey, wait! What’s the hurry? I wanted to read the plaque.”
“What for?”
“Flash! To get some information?”
He halted and turned back at me. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, how about the name. Minnehaha? I remember something about an Indian legend.”
“People like to say it’s Indian for ‘laughing water.’ Minnehaha.” He laughed out the last part but didn’t sound amused.
“I get that part.”
“The translation comes from an 1849 book titled Dacotah by Mary Eastman. The ‘ha ha’ part is actually Dakota for ‘waterfall.’ The source is Lake Minnetonka—”
“And ‘minne’ means water,” I said.
He looked a little surprised that I knew that much.
“So the name actually means ‘water waterfalls’?” I said.
“Yeah. I guess so,” he said. “The Dakota had the run of the place until the whites came. The Dakota are Indians.”
“I know!” I snapped.
“Longfellow wrote a romantic poem about all this, but he was never actually here, so I guess you can take it or leave it. It was the first Minnesota state park, but Minneapolis runs it now. Anything else?”
“Jeez, are you always this enthusiastic?”
He heaved a big sigh and looked a little apologetic. “Okay, look. You can stay here and watch the falls. I’m going downstream to check the mussels. I’ll be back in thirty minutes.” He went off down the path again.
“Wait, I’ll come with.”
The dirt path wound through tall trees and outcrops of rock beside the creek. Roots crossed a hard-packed path. Lots of people have used it. The roots stuck up like speed bumps. I banged my toes, but Ben picked his way along. The creek splashed over its rocky bed to our left and the tree-covered walls of the gorge rose above us. Twenty minutes earlier we had been walking past bungalows with manicured lawns and trimmed juniper bushes, gardens full of daylilies and plastic yard gnomes. Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if Tarzan swung across the path.
The ravine widened as we went. The ground on either side of the creek became thick with bushes. The place smelled damp and moldy; maybe wild was a better word. There was something eerie in the air, like electricity. I wasn’t sure how to describe it. I caught sight of a shadow moving through the leaves across the creek from us, something big. It snorted. When I stopped, it vanished.
I shouted, but Ben was nearly out of sight. I ran after him. I don’t freak out easily, but this place was working on me. “Ben!”
“What?” Ben’s pace didn’t leave room for talk, or breathing. The walls of the gorge spread out, and I was glad to see more blue sky.
I caught up with him. “I, ah . . . there was a . . . oh, never mind.”
I probably imagined it. Ben wasn’t a patient guy, and the last thing I wanted was for him to think I was seeing things. Through a break in the trees ahead, I glimpsed a longer stone bridge arched over the creek. Beyond it, the creek spread out over a bed of rocks and splashed around a tiny island. The bridge led to a big meadow on the other shore, surrounded by trees.
I stopped dead. The most gorgeous guy I had ever seen strode onto the opposite end of the bridge and stopped halfway, leaning against the low bridge wall. He watched us with a half-smile. His pants were tight leather and his dark-green vest did nothing to hide a beautiful set of tan arms. Leather boots nearly reached his knees. Slim and muscular, I gave him a fifteen on a scale of one to ten. But it was his face that got me—high cheekbones, long curly red hair, full lips, and melt-my-soul pale-blue eyes. I wasn’t talking cute. I was talking throw-me-off-the-bus-I’d-drink-his-bath-water beautiful.
“Good day, Master Preston,” he said with an Irish accent that nearly stopped my heart. “Who would this doe-eyed vision of loveliness be?” He nodded to me.
Oh, my God!
Ben noticed that I’d stopped. With a muttered curse, the first I’d heard him use, he clomped back to me and took my arm. “Don’t pay attention to him,” he said to me.
I fought his grip and whispered, “You must be out of your mind!” I smiled at the stranger, and he bowed to me. “You know him?”
“Yes.”
“It wouldn’t kill you to introduce me,” I hissed, still struggling to slip out of Ben’s grip.
“He can be bad news,” Ben said.
“For bad news, he has a great front page.”
The stranger strode toward us. At the edge of the bridge he stopped and said, “Allow me to introduce myself. Cathal Corkin. At your service.” He bowed again and came up with a killer smile.
Ben started to tell me not to give my name, but it was too late. “Wendy Adair,” I said, and for some reason I tried to curtsy. Seeing him close up, I was not sure what age he was. He might have been fifteen or twenty-five.
“Wendy Adair?” Cathal rubbed his chin in thought. “The fair lass of the ford by the oaks. Wendy, I do believe we share some history. I’m kin to Ryther-u-fin.”
I had no idea what he meant, but I’d share history with him any day.
Ben tugged me off balance to get me walking. “S
he’s not sharing anything with you. Switch off the glamour, Corky.”
I tried to twist out of Ben’s hold, but he was surprisingly strong. I said, “Let go! Listen, you wanted to ditch me at the falls? I’d be glad to stay right here until you get back.”
He dragged me along and said, “There’s a lot more to Corky than what you see.”
“More! How could there possibly be more? He’s perfect!”
Ben pulled me along for a few more seconds, then stopped and faced me. “Wendy. Listen to yourself. You just met the guy, and you sound like a dorky, love-sick eight-year-old.”
He was right. My thinking was not my own, and I was surprised. I’d never been boy-crazy. I didn’t tell Ben that, but he must have seen me return to normal because he let go of my arm.
“He’s gorgeous,” I said. It was no excuse, but it was all I could think to say.
“I’ve seen him when he’s not so gorgeous,” Ben said, and looked back at the bridge. It was empty. There was no sign of Cathal. Ben didn’t seem surprised and said, “Let’s go.”
Three
Mess at the Creek
Ben explained that what we were about to see was a crime scene, but it smelled worse than the dumpster behind a McDonald’s. I covered my nose. It didn’t help. Ben parted the branches. There were dozens and dozens of open clams, black with flies. The buzz thundered in my ears. It was beside the old stone foundation of a mill, at least that was what Ben said it was. To me the wall looked like indistinguishable crumbled stones nearly covered by brush.
A man and a woman in brown uniforms shoveled the dead clams into a garbage bag. The woman was about Mary’s age and the man must have been older. He scowled a lot, which looked like a permanent thing for him. The lines in his face said he was a natural scowler, but who could blame him? His job was gross.
The shells were about the size of my hand, much bigger than I would have thought. The woman held the bag open while the man scooped them up and dumped them in. The flies rose like smoke. Totally gross.
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