The Rosewood Casket

by Sharyn McCrumb

  He parked his Jeep Cherokee, noting the old truck and the other late-model car, and hoping the latter wasn’t paid for. He helloed the house. He probably didn’t need to, with a younger generation of town boys in residence, but it was a habit worth keeping in the wilder parts of the mountains. People didn’t like you to sneak up on them. A holdover from who knew what terrible times in the past. Revenue men, armed for a raid, perhaps, in the early part of the century. Or Civil War guerrillas who turned the war in the southern mountains into a house-to-house feud, stealing livestock and ambushing the householders. You might even trace their wariness of strangers back to Scotland, the Rising of 1745, when the Duke of Cumberland sent his soldiers into the Highlands to kill the Jacobites—that is, anyone they could find. Many of the ones who hid—who distrusted strangers, and therefore survived—ended up here. The lessons of the past would not desert them easily. They distrusted trespassers instinctively. Frank didn’t blame them. Even today, a trespasser might be a hunter who would shoot your cow by mistake, or a tourist who figured that the whole state was a theme park, open to the public. He had learned to smile broadly, and to use the front path.

  Still, he thought the Stargills would be glad enough to see him when they heard what he’d come for. He went back to the Jeep, and reached into his glove compartment for a handful of Whitescarver Realty key chains and ballpoint pens. It always helped if you gave folks something at the outset. They seemed to feel obliged to be polite to you, if they took your trinkets.

  A heavyset man appeared on the front porch, squinting out at the visitor with a look of apprehension. Frank waved and grinned. This Stargill was fiftyish, with polyester trousers and a seersucker sport shirt. Frank loosened his tie, and hurried forward, assuming the look of neighborly concern.

  “Mr. Stargill,” he said in hushed, but cordial, tones. “I came to pay my respects. How is your father doing?”

  “Well, we think we’re going to lose him.” Robert Lee contrived to look appropriately solemn. He sensed that this was not a social call, but he extended his hand in a cautious welcome.

  “Would you mind telling me which Stargill boy you are?” said the stranger. “I’m Frank Whitescarver, by the way.” He deposited a keychain and a refrigerator magnet in his host’s outstretched hand.

  “Robert Lee. I’m the oldest.”

  “Knew you weren’t the singer. I’m glad to know you, Mr. Stargill. Reckon you’re the head of the family now.”

  Robert Lee was pleased at this assumption of his importance, although he was by no means sure that he could exert any authority over his brothers. They were a stubborn lot, reckless with their lives and their money, and none of them had ever listened to good advice.

  Frank Whitescarver looked admiringly at the white house and plantings of daffodils in the flowerbeds, Clarsie’s legacy to the land. “This is a real nice place you’ve got, Mr. Stargill,” he said, smiling. “We’ll be right glad to welcome you back to the community.”

  “Welcome me back?”

  “Why, sure. With your dad’s passing, you’ll be coming home to take over the farm, surely? I hear good things about sheep raising in these hills—good pastures, lots of clean water. Of course, wool prices are down, and we’ve got coyotes coming into the area. But maybe you know more about the farm business than I do.”

  Robert shook his head. “I have a life in Cincinnati,” he said. “I couldn’t afford to leave it, and take on a farm. It takes capital to get a livestock business going, and it’s backbreaking work, even for a young man, which I’m not.”

  “Backbreaking work. It is that,” said Frank, strolling around the yard, admiring the forsythia and the redbud. “Makes you respect those pioneers who carved these farms out of the wilderness, doesn’t it?”

  “Reckon they were young men, too,” said Robert Lee.

  Frank nodded. “Right nice flowers there. I’m partial to daffodils myself. Bet your mother was a gardener.”

  “She was that.” Robert Lee was inspecting the Whitescarver Realty trinkets that Frank had given him.

  “Well,” said Frank. “Flowers don’t get you through the winter, do they? I can see how a man might be loath to give up Cincinnati for a lonesome farm in the middle of nowhere. Don’t suppose your famous brother would want to keep this place as a summer home away from Nashville?”

  “Charles Martin couldn’t get away from here fast enough,” said Robert Lee.

  “Guess it’s just a case of the grass being greener,” said the realtor, smiling. “Seems like all the young folks from around here can’t wait to hightail it out of here, and all the people from somewhere’s else are standing in line, trying to buy a place up here in the mountains, because it’s so beautiful. Seems downright peculiar, when you think about it.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Makes my job easier,” said Frank, wandering into the backyard. He wanted to continue the uphill work of this conversation without going inside the house, if he could manage it. He had seen a curtain twitch at the front window, and he was afraid that the interview would not go quite so smoothly if Robert Lee Stargill’s relatives were allowed to participate. “Yessir, I sure do have a pleasant job sometimes. Almost like being a fairy godfather, you might say.”

  Robert Lee glanced again at the refrigerator magnet business card. “Real estate?”

  “That’s right. Land is dreams, Mr. Stargill. Every day I get to grant wishes. Folks come to me, and say, ‘Mr. Whitescarver, please find us a little piece of land with a view so we can retire to these beautiful mountains, and call them home.’ And other folks call me up, and say, ‘Frank, you know Mama has passed away, and left us the farm, but we have good jobs in the big city. We can’t come home and pour our savings down the drain, trying to keep up an unmechanized dirt farm. And they’re wanting the taxes paid. What can we do?’—And I can help. It makes me happy to be helping folks in their hour of need.”

  Robert Lee nodded. “You buy farms, and sell the land to rich people for vacation homes.”

  “Everybody’s happy, Mr. Stargill. People who want to move here get their dream home, and folks who left for the big city, and want to stay there, don’t have to be dragged home by family circumstances. They get some extra money to pay off their bills, or maybe get a new car. And both sets of folks are grateful to me, buyer and seller.” He tapped his chest. “Isn’t that better than driving an ice cream truck? I ask you.”

  “What kind of money are we talking here, Mr. Whitescarver?”

  The magic words. Frank Whitescarver suppressed a grin. “Well, we’d have to sit down and talk about it. I thought I’d broach the subject with you first—in case your brothers needed some advice from the new head of the family.”

  Robert Lee shook his head. “I’m not sure that I could persuade the rest of them to sell. They’re every one contrary.”

  “Have you talked about it at all? This is a big place, you know. You couldn’t just let it fall to ruin while you all went back to your lives outside.”

  “I know. It’s so hard, with Daddy taken so sudden—”

  Frank saw his exit cue. Now was the time to leave the owner with the thought of money dancing in his head. “And Lord knows I’m not pressuring you,” he said, patting Robert Lee’s arm. “But I wouldn’t feel that I had been a good neighbor to you if I didn’t warn you that the taxes on this place are likely to go up.”

  “They generally do,” said Robert Lee.

  “More than you think, though. By the time the next tax bill comes due, they’ll probably double. And that assessment will probably cost you a bundle in inheritance tax for Uncle Sam.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the tax assessors will value this land at an outlandish rate. More than you could sell it for. You see, this mountain is fixing to be rezoned—residential instead of agricultural. So they’ll figure its worth as if you had two houses per acre, which you don’t—and won’t, because some of your acreage here is pretty near vertical. Doesn’t seem fair, bu
t that’s the government for you.” Frank endeavored to look sympathetic. Robert Lee Stargill was of the generation that believed you can’t fight city hall; they even felt it was mildly unpatriotic to try.

  Robert Lee blinked. “But that doesn’t seem right. Why would they—”

  “I can tell you in confidence,” said Frank, dropping his voice to a church murmur. “The Stallards farm is about to be sold—not for much money, I’m afraid—but it’s going to a developer. Now those fellas are looking to put a whole community of fancy new houses on that property—paved streets, water and sewer—the works. When they do that, it will up the tax value of your place here, because the government will say you could be making a lot of money off your land. Never mind that you aren’t.”

  “But why would they do that to a family who has been here nigh on forever?”

  Frank Whitescarver shook his head and sighed. “I gave up asking why when the government has a hand in things,” he said sadly. “I’m just trying to help you folks out of a mess here. But you sit down and talk it over with the family, then give me a call. I’ll work with you any way I can. That’s a promise.”

  * * *

  Spencer Arrowood had called his mother to see if she needed anything. If he had to go out on a non-urgent errand, he generally stopped by the market on his way back, and took her a loaf of bread or a quart of milk, in order to save her a trip. This time, though, instead of reciting a grocery order, Jane Arrowood had said, “Nora Bonesteel said to tell you she’s here.”

  Spencer swore under his breath. He had the box on the desk in front of him, and he was getting ready to drive up Ashe Mountain to ask the old woman about it—and now, here she was, visiting his mother, and sending word to him about where he could find her, as if she’d been expecting him. “Tell her I’m on my way over,” he said.

  Jane Arrowood replied, “Yes, dear. I’m fixing you some lunch. Got it on the stove.”

  Spencer hung up the phone, and swore again—out loud this time.

  “Something wrong?” asked Jennaleigh. She was new as a dispatcher, and she seemed to think that anytime anybody got angry, it was her fault.

  Spencer managed to smile. “Just my mama, Jennaleigh,” he said. “You know how mothers are. And I was wishing Martha Ayers was back from Morristown, so I could stick her with the task of finding out about this box. You hire a female deputy to handle the sticky emotional situations, and where is she when you need her?”

  “Getting trained at Walters State Community College,” said Jennaleigh, as if it had been a quiz. “You sent her there yourself.”

  “I know. I just didn’t figure on needing her quite so soon.”

  “Well, she can’t come back, can she? I think Deputy LeDonne said that if people who take the course miss any days of the course, they have to start all over again.”

  “It’s all right. I want her to finish the training. I’m just grousing, that’s all.” Spencer Arrowood tucked the box under his arm. “I can handle this,” he told the dispatcher. “All I have to do is question an old lady I’ve known all my life. It’s not like the O.K. Corral, for god’s sake!”

  “Bet you wish it was,” said Jennaleigh, but she took care to be out of earshot when she said it.

  * * *

  Charles Martin Stargill stood beside his father’s hospital bed, feeling an awkwardness that never came to him when he faced a thousand people from a dark stage. He had set the Martin guitar in a corner of the room, and he glanced at it now, as if it could tell him what to say. “Hello, Daddy,” he said softly.

  The old man lay there, frowning slightly in his oblivion. Charles Martin wondered if pain could reach down into a coma and make itself felt, even through all the medication, or if bad dreams troubled even the deepest sleepers.

  “Well, Daddy, I’m back,” said Charles Martin. “I swore I wouldn’t be, didn’t I? I guess I never did fit in around here, and I couldn’t wait to get gone. I was the big nobody at the high school—didn’t play sports, didn’t run with the popular kids, so-so grades. When I left, I sure as hell didn’t look back, but it always nagged me that nobody thought I’d amount to anything, and they cared less. Guess I thought that when I made it big in country music, folks around here would sit up and take notice. But you know what? It didn’t work like that. They just got to ignore me on a grander scale. Daddy, I’ve given interviews to the New York Times, the Nashville Banner, Parade magazine—hell, even the Manchester Guardian in England, one time—but you know who never asked me for an interview? The Hamelin Record. Didn’t even run my press release when I played Johnson City. My publicist marked it “local interest”—as if they gave a damn. Bet they looked at it and said, ‘Old Charlie Stargill is at ETSU this Friday, so what?’

  “Daddy, I got a CMA nomination for hit single of the year last year. I’m on the charts in Cashbox and Billboard. But the radio station here doesn’t even play me. How do I know? Believe me, I know. Kathy Mattea asked me to do a duet with her on her next album—and I don’t reckon they’ll ever play that, either.”

  He looked down at the still form, shrunken under bright lights and crisp sheets. “Did you ever ask them to, Daddy? Did you ever call the bastards up and say, ‘My boy is somebody! Now play his goddamn record.’ Or did you agree with them? Did you think that I must be exaggerating my own importance because I boasted about it. Hell, Daddy, I was driven to bragging. People just pretended I didn’t exist. I might as well be managing a Burger King in Nashville, it seemed like. Y’all don’t know how hard I worked, Daddy. How many nights I slept on the tour bus, and ate Rolaids for dessert. How many times my fingers bled from the Martin’s steel strings after eight-hour sessions. I worked harder than any dairy farmer, Daddy, and all the while I knew that my very best might not be enough. Wanting it isn’t enough. It’ll get you to Nashville, all right, but it isn’t enough to make the magic happen. Who the hell knows why people pick some ordinary folks to be stars, and leave the rest in the dust?

  “I wouldn’t take no for an answer, though. I just kept showing up. Writing songs. Hanging out. Talking to the men in suits. And I made it happen. By god, I did, Daddy. I willed myself right onto the charts, and I’ve never looked back.” His voice quavered. “I wish to god somebody besides me gave a damn that I made it.”

  Charles Martin sat down in the straight chair beside the bed. He could feel his teeth clenching and his hands had curled into fists. He took a couple of deep breaths, letting the last one out in a long sigh. “Seems like I’ve been talking a lot about me, and forgetting what bad shape you’re in,” he told the sleeping man. “I hope you pull out of this, Daddy. Of course, we both know I wouldn’t be talking to you like this if you were awake.”

  He waited, but there was no sign from Randall Stargill, not even the flicker of an eyelid to tell him anyone was listening.

  “Wish I knew if you could hear me, Daddy. So you’d know I came to see you. I did care. I came, didn’t I? There’s a girl I’d kinda like you to meet. Her name is Kelley. I’ve been seeing her for a couple of months now, hoping I could make it work this time. Make it stick. She’s had it rough before me, Daddy, and she has a smart little girl. Hell, I’d hate to let her down, but it’s so hard for a celebrity to walk that line. I just—”

  He ran out of words then, reddening with the effort of talking about anything more personal than his public life on a stage. He retrieved his guitar from the corner by the window. “Maybe you don’t even know I’m here, Daddy,” he said. “But in case you do, I thought I’d help you pass the time. We used to do a lot of singing on the back porch in the long twilights with this old guitar—before it got to be worth a New York fortune. This might bring back some happy memories for you.”

  He strummed the guitar and leaned his head down until it almost touched the neck of the instrument, and he began to sing “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” in a clear baritone that wavered with unshed tears.

  * * *

  Deputy Joe LeDonne spent his lunch break in the patrol ca
r, trying to write to Martha Ayers. There wasn’t much to talk about, except to say that he missed her, and that he cared about her, but LeDonne wasn’t much for putting feelings on paper. Surely she would realize that he wouldn’t write to her unless he cared.

  They had been together for several years now, first a tentative alliance between two lonely, wary people, and then with more resolve, as a troubled couple trying to make this last chance work.

  She had been the office dispatcher when they first began seeing each other. It was only recently that she had been given the job of deputy. That change in their relationship had been harder on his ego than he cared to admit, and he had almost screwed up the relationship by getting involved with another woman. He had been trying to hurt Martha, and he had succeeded much too well.

  They were still together, but there was a look in her eyes sometimes that made him ashamed. She looked like a whipped hound who is taking care never to get beaten again. He wondered how long it would take to make her trust him again, and if she ever would completely.

  But he could say none of that in a letter to a fellow officer. He could say none of that, ever. LeDonne straightened the piece of paper, and began: Dear Martha, Hope all is well with you in the training program. I’ll try to call you soon. Things are as slow as ever around here. The only interesting thing is that spring seems to be on the way, which is good news to me because the heater in my patrol car is on the fritz. Of course, good weather will mean more tourists to contend with. Oh, well …