The Rosewood Casket

by Sharyn McCrumb

  He heard the peeb again, followed by a whistling sound that meant the bird had taken flight. It was courting time for the woodcocks: high spiraling dances above the fields, loud cries and whistling wings, all to impress the hens, watching below.

  Clayt crouched near the alder thicket, cupped his hands to his mouth and made the whooo-ing sound of the great-horned owl. That would stop the revels. Nothing ought to be merrymaking tonight, he thought. Before the sound had died away, a dark shape rose up before him with a raucous cry. Its wings brushed his cheek as it soared upward, and he staggered back, gasping from the shock of that sudden encounter. It was a woodcock, of course, fleeing from his owl noise. He stood there for several moments, bent over, his heart pounding, while he waited for the feeling of panic to subside. “Only a woodcock,” he whispered, over and over. The mountain was a menacing place tonight, but he had to go on.

  Clayt looked ahead to the darkness of the woods, and wondered whether it was more dangerous to use his flashlight, or to go on without it.

  * * *

  Kelley Johnson tapped on the bedroom door. Lilah was alone, she knew. After Garrett left, Debba had fled sobbing to her room, and no one followed her. Robert Lee found a basketball game on television, and he had turned the sound up to a deafening level. Charlie stayed in the room, looking at the screen sometimes, but mostly picking out chords on the Martin. Kelley slipped away, and left them happily watching the game, as if all the turmoil and anxiety had been confined to the previous cable channel, instead of there in the room with them. Kelley wanted to talk.

  Lilah, in her turquoise caftan, opened the door and ushered her in. “Is there any news?”

  Kelley shook her head. “I just came to see you,” she said.

  Lilah indicated the little chair beside the mirrored dressing table. “You need company,” she agreed. “It’s best not to try to bear these things alone.” Lilah had brought a piece of the coffin quilt upstairs with her. She picked it up now, and began to make measured stitches like grains of rice against a background of green velvet.

  “I feel alone,” said Kelley. “Charles Martin isn’t any help. He refuses to believe that anybody would harm Kayla, and he thinks that the police will catch that woman any minute now. He says Kayla will be home in an hour or two as if nothing had happened.”

  “I hope he’s right.”

  “So do I, but I can’t just sit back and watch basketball. That’s my baby out there.” Tears coursed down her cheeks, and she pushed them away with the back of her fist. “Charlie acts like he doesn’t care a damn.”

  Lilah nodded with a sad smile. “That’s Stargills for you, honey. I think they learned early on not to show their wounds. When something pains Robert Lee—a rude remark by a customer, perhaps, or something going wrong with the house that’s going to cost money—you’d never know from looking at him that anything bothered him at all. Just for a second he gets a frozen look, and then he sets his jaw, and goes on like nothing happened. I’ve been with him thirty years now, and I can tell when he’s just aching inside from something that’s been said or done to him, but he holds it right in, and never lets on to anybody.”

  Kelley looked puzzled. “But then they stay angry. They never get rid of it. Never stop hurting.”

  “I think the old man taught them to be like that,” said Lilah. “I expect he called it courage. It isn’t easy on the rest of us, though, is it? It’s probably hardest on them, though, holding all that pain inside.”

  “I had made up my mind to leave him,” said Kelley.

  “Well, you need to make up your own mind about that,” said Lilah. “Ask yourself whether he’d be a good father to that little girl of yours, when she comes back safe. Don’t think he doesn’t care just because he didn’t go traipsing off into the woods and risk getting shot at. Charles Martin isn’t much on heroics, but would he be all right day to day? That’s what matters. That’s mostly the kind of bravery you need in this life.”

  “If he loved her—”

  “Honey, there’s a dozen policemen out there looking for the child. Do they love her? Or do they love the danger? Garrett went. Ask yourself why they’re out there.”

  “I’m so afraid,” whispered Kelley.

  Lilah nodded. “I was going to pray about it, but I really do feel that Kayla will be kept safe.”

  “Why? Remember that box of bones the strange old woman brought here? Those belonged to a child. Maybe her folks prayed, too. Maybe they felt that she was going to be all right.”

  “Times were harder then,” said Lilah. “Many a child sickened and died. We don’t know what happened to the owner of those little bones. A disease, perhaps.”

  “Then why wouldn’t the old woman tell us anything about the bones?”

  Lilah smiled. “Old people are a bit peculiar at times,” she said.

  Kelley wasn’t convinced, but she hadn’t come to argue. “Do you really have a guardian angel?” A week ago she wouldn’t have believed that she could ask such a question, but now any consolation seemed worth having.

  Lilah sighed. “I have an angel, dear. At least, that’s what Rudy says he is. And I can’t see him, except as a fuzzy image in my mind, so I can’t be sure that he has those feathery white wings that you see on the Christmas cards, but, yes, I believe that someone is with me. Not right now. No use you looking around for him, not that you could see him anyhow. Even I’ve never caught a glimpse of him. But … someone speaks to me.”

  “Why to you?”

  “That is a bewilderment, isn’t it?” Lilah was not in the least offended by the question. “I’ve often wondered myself why I should have an angel, when there’s people who are more pious than I am, and people worse off, too, who could sure use one. I haven’t got any answers to give you. He’s just there.”

  “Could you ask him to help Kayla?”

  “I could ask him. Of course I will, dear, but you mustn’t pin your hopes on Rudy. He doesn’t look at things quite the way we do. He very seldom interferes in worldly happenings. I have tried to ask him about it, but he says he’s not here to debate theology. Those were his very words. He doesn’t grant wishes like a fairy godmother, I’m afraid. Mainly he just lectures me about being a righteous person. He says miracles are pretentious.”

  Kelley shrugged. “What good is he then?”

  * * *

  Joe LeDonne was taking a break, sitting with his back against a tree. He was drinking coffee, mostly to warm his fingers, and listening to reports from the coordinating officer. The last likely trail had come to a dead end in some fox scat. Mistaking an animal’s tracks across wet grass for the path of the suspect had cost the search team an hour, perhaps more. Now they must go back a quarter of a mile or so to the last definite point of reference, and begin again. And all the while Dovey Stallard could be putting more distance between herself and her pursuers.

  LeDonne swallowed his rage. “Any word on the sheriff?” he asked the Carter County deputy.

  “He’s in intensive care, last we heard. He came through the operation all right, though. That’s a good sign.”

  LeDonne nodded. He’d rather be here in the woods than pacing the floor at the Johnson City Medical Center. At least here his anger could be directed to some purpose. “Anything else?”

  The deputy hesitated. “Did they tell you about the little girl?”

  “What little girl?”

  “A trooper was notifying all the people in the area late this afternoon, and he says there’s a six-year-old missing from the Stargill farm up the ridge. Maybe the suspect took the child as a hostage.”

  LeDonne took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. That changed the equation. On the one hand, the woman would find it harder to travel with a small child in tow; on the other hand, a direct confrontation was now something to be dreaded. He didn’t want any innocent people caught in the crossfire, least of all a child.

  Now, though, it increased the urgency of the hunt. They must find Dovey Stallard soon, before she
could harm the hostage, or before the girl died of exposure. If only it weren’t such a long time until daylight. The tedious pace of night tracking made him want to ram his fist into a tree. He wished he knew where she was going. He wondered if Martha could have second-guessed her—another woman, and all.

  “Maybe we ought to get the suspect’s father out here,” said LeDonne. “If there’s a hostage involved, we may need to talk her out when we find her.” He wouldn’t think about the possibility of her getting away. “We’ve got roadblocks set up, don’t we?”

  “On most of the main roads, yes. There may be dirt roads out of here that aren’t covered. No reports of stolen vehicles, though.”

  LeDonne nodded. That was something to be thankful for. “I should get back to it,” he said. “Anything else?”

  “We got a new volunteer who wants to help with the search,” said the deputy. “Fellow from the next farm, the one the kid is lost from. His name is Garrett Stargill. Says he has commando training in the army.”

  “When? I don’t want some doddering gung-ho World War Two vet—”

  “No. He’s still with his unit. He’s a warrant officer stationed at Fort Campbell. He’s just here visiting.”

  LeDonne shrugged. “Put him out there. See if he can find a trail.”

  “Well, he says he’s acquainted with the suspect. Says he might know where she’s headed.”

  “How?” LeDonne stood up, and poured his coffee on the ground. “Where is this guy? I want to see him.”

  “He’s back a ways with the others. Says Dovey Stallard used to play in the woods with him and his brothers when they were children. They had favorite places to hide, seems like.”

  “And he can find these places again now? In the dark?”

  “He’s willing to try.”

  * * *

  Clayt Stargill stood for a moment on the crest of the ridge, looking at the full moon through the bare branches of a sycamore. Some things had not changed since Daniel Boone’s time, but that fact gave him no pleasure. The moon was the same—maybe people were the same, too. A man had been shot and a little girl stolen away—Daniel would have felt right at home here today. But Clayt Stargill did not.

  He was unarmed, still numbed with shock from the jumble of events—Dovey!—and he was frightened, too. He knew that the woods would be swarming with law enforcement people, and that if they mistook him for their quarry, he might be killed. Being out here on the mountain tonight was no less dangerous than it had been when Daniel Boone had tracked his daughter through the wilderness two hundred years before. At least Boone had the luxury of unalloyed anger: he wanted his daughter back, and he would kill without remorse to save her. Clayt wished it were that simple now. Dovey and Kayla … and the valley was full of strangers, hunting them both.

  He kept walking along the ridge, wondering where Dovey would go. What would he do if half the cops in Tennessee were hunting him on Ashe Mountain? The question didn’t arise, of course. If he had done this thing—he could not picture it happening, but say he had—he would have stood his ground, given himself up peaceably, and hoped that some conservation-conscious lawyer would take his case as an environmental cause. Clayt liked to talk his way out of trouble, and he had never met a cop who was a sympathetic listener. No way would he make himself the rabbit in their hunt. In their anger at having almost lost one of their own, it would be all too easy for them to forget the humanity of the hunted one.

  Dovey wasn’t much on talking, though. Sometimes in school she could have got out of trouble by making a show of being really sorry, if she had gushed contrition, the way other children did to save their hide or their grades, but Dovey never would. She’d get a sullen look on her face and a mulish glint in her eye, and as likely as not she’d get punished twice as much for half the mischief. Dovey never begged for mercy, so folks gave her precious little of it. Clayt guessed she still hadn’t learned to play it the way the world wanted it played.

  Daniel Boone was like that, too. In his memoirs he wrote of his father’s method of punishing his unruly sons. Squire Boone would whip the boys until they pleaded with him to stop. Then he’d stop. It worked with all his other sons, but not with young Daniel. Daniel would grit his teeth, and take the beating and take it. “Why don’t you beg?” Squire Boone would ask, when the whipping had gone on too long. “Why don’t you beg?” Daniel couldn’t and wouldn’t. Not then, or ever. Maybe that’s why he lit out for the wilderness—there’s too much begging required in civilization.

  “Dovey, maybe you should have played Daniel Boone,” Clayt whispered. “Nancy Ward sure didn’t teach you much. She would have learned society’s rules real quick, and she’d have done what had to be done to save her land. Why couldn’t you have sweet-talked that sheriff, Dovey? Cry for the real estate man. Oh, Dovey, why couldn’t you beg?”

  Nancy Ward. Look where it got her, said a voice in his head.

  Nancy Ward.… Something stirred in his memory.

  The moon was full, but he still couldn’t see well enough to follow a trail, assuming there was one. Clayt wasn’t sure he could have done it in broad daylight. It wasn’t something he practiced. As a naturalist he looked at tracks to identify the wildlife present, or he looked for signs of feeding: nibbled leaves or discarded seed husks, evidence that an animal had passed by, but as he wasn’t a hunter, he never tried to stalk the animals whose presence he detected. He talked about tracking when he lectured school children on Daniel Boone, that was all. Knowing something from books was one thing; being able to do it when it counted was another.

  * * *

  As soon as Kelley had left the room, Robert Lee turned down the sound on the basketball game, and leaned toward his brother to talk.

  “Do you really think the little girl will be all right? Dovey wouldn’t hurt a child, would she?”

  Charles Martin was picking out the notes to “Maid of Constant Sorrow.” “I don’t know,” he said. “She was an awful hothead as a kid. I think she’s still got a temper, but I can’t see her being deliberately cruel to an innocent little girl. She knows that none of this is Kayla’s fault.”

  “Maybe she’s going to hold her for ransom—make you give her the money for the farm.”

  “That would be like stealing,” said Charles Martin. “I think Dovey would rather die than steal. I wish I’d had the money to give her.”

  “Did they mention whether the real estate man got hurt?” asked Frank.

  Charles Martin shook his head. “Not that I recall. I think the radio said just the sheriff.”

  “Don’t look at me that steely kind of way.” Robert Lee blushed. “All right! I was thinking about our land deal. That doesn’t make me a monster. I’m just as concerned about Kelley’s little girl as the next person, but somebody has to be practical in this family. Daddy raised me to economize, save my money, and be prepared for the unforeseen. I can’t pretend I’m not worried about the farm just because a child is missing. I hope we get her back, too, but that doesn’t change our financial predicament, does it?”

  “I guess not, Robert,” said Charles Martin. “Take it easy.”

  “I wish I could afford to be high-minded, like you and Clayt, but I’m not made that way. You can afford to be noble, and Clayt hasn’t got any better sense, but I have to worry about my old age—and Lilah’s, too. And Garrett had better be worrying about money, because from the looks of things, he’ll have to be paying alimony by and by.”

  “I’m not blaming you, Robert. I guess I’ve got to know you better these past few days, and I can see how worried you are about the future and all. I guess I can’t blame you. Hell, you may have more security than I do, after thirty years at the car dealership. Country music fans aren’t that faithful. Someday they may stop buying my records, and then where will I be? Playing honky-tonks in Nashville or signing autographs at car shows for the old folks who remember me?” He gave his brother a sad smile. “I might even be selling used cars someplace. Anyhow, you turned out all rig
ht, Robert Lee. You’re the only one of us with a good marriage, and you have a steady, respectable job. I think Daddy was proud of you. Maybe he worried least about you.”

  “How come?”

  “There was always a chance that I’d go broke or Garrett would crash that helicopter of his someday or Clayt would run out of hippie jobs and wind up on welfare. Maybe he counted on you to keep us in line.”

  Robert blinked at him. Then he smiled. The telephone rang. “I’ll get it, little brother,” he said, padding off to the kitchen.

  Charles bent his head over the strings of the Martin, and began to pick out “Worried Man Blues.” Kelley hadn’t figured out yet that she didn’t have to read his mind. The guitar broadcast every mood he had.

  “I was wondering if I could have a ride into town.”

  Charles Martin looked up. His sister-in-law was standing in the doorway, holding her suitcase, as awkward as a teenage runaway. He saw that she had been crying, and he wished he could like her. “Where are you planning to go, Debba?”

  She shrugged. “Home, I guess. I could take the bus. Garrett doesn’t need me around right now.”

  He set the guitar aside and stood up. “I guess I can take you. I could use a break from sitting here worrying.”

  Debba frowned. “I told her not to run off into the woods. I told her.”

  Robert Lee appeared in the doorway, tears coursing down his red cheeks. “He’s gone!” His chest heaved, and he gasped for the words. “Daddy’s gone.”

  They stood there for a moment in silence. Debba whispered, “I’ll go get Lilah.”

  Robert Lee shook his head. “I’m going out to the barn,” he said. “If I put another coat of varnish on the coffin, it’ll be dry by morning.”

  Charles Martin hesitated. “Do they want one of us to come in?” he asked. “I’m on my way to Johnson City.”