Circle of the Ancestors

by Susan Gabriel

  However, the first time Grandmother met Tink she warned Sam to be careful.

  “Not everything that glitters is gold,” she told him.

  “Grandmother, please don’t speak in riddles,” Sam said, feeling cross. He didn’t always like what Grandmother had to say.

  But she had explained. “Some people are like crows and collect shiny things to feather their nest. But that life is phony. True gold is found inside. It’s found in here,” she had said, touching his chest.

  At the time, he rolled his eyes, but he knew she was right. Tink Watson was a fake. He was then and still is now.

  In front of Raven’s store, Tink narrows his eyes at Sam.

  “Get lost,” Tink says to Buddy.

  Buddy looks at Sam, who nods and tells him he should go. Buddy gets on his old bike and rides away.

  Tink gets off his bike and leans it against the building. He looks whiter than usual, if that is possible. His white shirt reflects off his white skin.

  “I need to talk to you,” Tink says. “Let’s go out back.”

  Tink fidgets like he’s spooked, and Sam sees what Buddy means by his eyes. They look red and wild. Sam glances at the watch he borrowed from Rocky since his broke, noting he has thirty minutes before Jake Waters is due to arrive. He agrees to go into the alley and follows Tink around the side of the building to the back of the store. The alley is empty and the dumpster stinks of rottenness, like its contents have baked too long in the sun. Tink stands where they talked weeks before, in the shade of the huge maple.

  Sam is too distracted about Jake Waters' visit to be angry at Tink. Instead, he waits for him to explain himself.

  Perspiration soaks through Tink’s shirt, and for the first time Sam notices how bony his legs are sticking out of his khaki shorts—weak chicken legs, slightly bowed.

  “What do you want, Tink?” Sam asks, looking at his watch again.

  Sweat forms on Tink’s upper lip and his bottom lip quivers. Is he going to cry?

  “You need to take that damned Cherokee curse off of me,” Tink says.

  For a second, Sam doesn’t have a clue what Tink is talking about. Then he remembers their last conversation and the curse stuff Sam totally made up. He covers his mouth to hide a smile, forcing his eyes into a squint so he looks serious.

  “Why, what’s wrong, Tink?”

  Tink looks around like invisible enemies hide in the bushes. “Ever since you put that curse on me, all hell’s breaking loose,” Tink says. “I haven’t slept because of bad dreams and I keep wrecking my bike for no reason at all. I nearly broke my neck twice! And all at once I’ve broke out with this awful rash.”

  Tink scratches his chest and pulls back his white shirt to reveal bright red, bubbling blisters. Sam doubts this outbreak has anything to do with a curse, that it’s more about Tink not knowing poison ivy when he sees it.

  “And to make matters worse, the investors at the casino up and fired my dad for no reason at all,” Tink begins again, “and Jennifer broke up with me for nothing.” Tink pauses to take a breath and scratch his chest again. “You gotta take back that Cherokee curse, Sam. I’m begging you.”

  “I can’t take the curse back, Tink, not until you return the ruby.” Sam slides a finger along the spine of the hawk feather.

  For several seconds, Tink looks at Sam like he’s debating the next move in a chess game. Finally, he pulls the ruby from his pocket and tosses it to Sam. Despite Sam’s surprise at the abruptness of the act, he catches it and looks at it briefly before slipping it into his own pocket.

  “Call off the curse,” Tink says, his voice serious, but contrite.

  Sam pauses and then regally raises both hands in the air. He then sings a Cherokee praise song his grandmother taught him as a boy, acting like Rocky performing a show for the tourists. He chooses this particular song because it has Cherokee words that sound ceremonial. After Sam finishes the song with a flourish he looks up at the sky and says in his deepest voice: “I hereby call off the Cherokee curse on Tinker Watson.”

  Sam lowers his arms and smiles at Tink, who vigorously shakes Sam’s hand, his relief as tangible as Sam’s smile. Tink leaves quickly, without an apology for stealing the ruby.

  A red-tailed hawk shrieks in the distance. Are his ancestors behind this latest turn of events, his almost magical recovery of the ruby? In the next moment a memory nudges him, something his grandmother told him. At the time, he didn’t understand it, which was not uncommon when his grandmother shared her wisdom. But now it makes sense. She said that inside every blessing is a curse and that the opposite is true as well; that inside every curse is a blessing. Finding the ruby was certainly a blessing, as losing it was a curse. Then a made-up curse made Tink Watson return the ruby, another blessing. The entire experience is like one of grandmother’s puzzles. Sam takes the ruby from his pocket and welcomes it home.

  CHAPTER 22: A SPECIAL VISITOR

  On the bench outside Raven’s store, Sam waits for Jake Waters to arrive. By some miracle, or the intervention of his ancestors, Sam possesses the ruby again, and not a moment too soon. It is one o’clock, the time he and Jake Waters agreed upon.

  I’m getting good at waiting, Sam thinks.

  Not only did he wait for answers all summer about what to do with the ruby and then how to get it back, he also waits for his grief to go away. However, he doubts it ever will.

  Within seconds, a rental car pulls up in front of the store. Sam stands, the ruby heavy in his pocket. Jake Waters isn’t what Sam expected. He is younger than Rocky and has sandy blonde hair, a deep tan, and wears bleached out blue jeans, a green shirt and hiking boots. He looks more like a surfer from California beaches than an expert on gemstones from Washington, D.C.

  The man walks over to Sam and introduces himself. “I thought I’d never find this place,” he says. “You’re off the beaten path.”

  Sam certainly isn’t a world traveler like Jake Waters. The farthest he’s traveled from Rachel’s Pass is sixty miles to Asheville. Jake Waters has probably been all over the world. On the other hand, Sam’s grandmother lived her entire life in the shadow of the mountains, and she was the wisest person he knew.

  Jake Waters shakes Sam’s hand, and Sam is grateful his palms aren’t sweating anymore.

  He always feels awkward with white strangers and mumbles a thank you to Jake Waters for coming.

  “Is your father meeting us here?” Jake Waters asks, looking around.

  It never occurred to Sam to invite Rocky to join them, or to invite anybody for that matter. “Rocky’s at the casino. He probably won’t be home until after midnight.”

  “Oh, I just thought somebody would be joining us,” he says, looking confused.

  Maybe kids where he’s from don’t hang out by themselves as much as I do, Sam thinks, convinced he already sounds like a total idiot to this man.

  Jake Waters asks a few questions about Rachel’s Pass which Sam answers. Sam’s world must seem small to someone from the nation’s capital. However, the stranger smiles as he looks around as if he appreciates his surroundings.

  “Where’s that ruby you told me about?” Jake Waters asks.

  “Come to my house first,” Sam says. He isn’t ready yet to share the ruby so recently returned. Jake Waters agrees and then helps Sam load his bicycle into the trunk of the rental car.

  In contrast to Old John’s truck, the rental car starts instantly without rattling or burping smoke. Sam runs his hand along the fabric seats. Unlike Rocky's old Buick where the upholstery is torn in a dozen places with foam sticking out, these are perfect.

  On the way out of town they pass the jewelry store and Sam remembers the owner going along with Tink’s lie.

  Maybe I should put a Cherokee curse on that jewelry store owner, too, Sam thinks.

  He smiles. Perhaps it is a coincidence that all those things happened to Tink, or maybe Sam’s ancestors had a part in it, or Tink created them in his own mind. Sam doesn’t know, but he has to adm
it he is curious. Regardless, Sam has the ruby back and will soon show it to an expert geologist, Jake Waters.

  “You talked a lot more on the phone yesterday,” Jake Waters says, interrupting Sam’s thoughts.

  “Yes, sir,” Sam answers. Unlike Buddy, who talks nonstop whenever he meets someone new, Sam’s words go inside, like one of Grandmother’s silences.

  “Where did you say you found the ruby?” Jake asks, as if to jumpstart the conversation.

  “Up the mountain. By a stream,” Sam answers. “Under the roots of an old tree.”

  Jake Waters nods. “I’d like to see that place if we can,” he says.

  Sam agrees. “The tree is up on Joshua’s Ridge. The ruby was really buried, too,” Sam says. “Little Bear and I both were digging. Little Bear’s my dog,” Sam adds.

  Sam directs Jake Waters to his grandmother’s house. The farther they get away from town the rougher the roads become. A two-lane road narrows to a one lane and then changes to gravel. Finally they turn onto a dirt track with branches and bushes swiping the car as they pass.

  “Turn in here,” Sam says, pointing beyond a row of hedges. Through the opening is the yard and their small, white wood house with a stone foundation. A large porch stretches across the front of the house, a house Sam’s grandfather built with his own hands.

  “This is Grandmother’s house,” Sam says. “Just park in the front yard. That’s what Rocky always does.”

  Jake follows Sam’s directions, parks the car and removes a backpack, slinging it over his shoulder.

  “We can walk from here if you really want to see where I found the ruby,” Sam says. For some reason he still isn’t ready to show Jake Waters the gemstone.

  Little Bear barks from the front porch and runs to greet Sam as soon as he sees him. Jake leans down and pets Little Bear for several seconds. “How long you had him?” Jake Waters asks.

  “Since I was a kid,” Sam says. “Grandmother used to say we were pups together.”

  Sam’s shyness begins to subside. It looks like this stranger from the city is a lot like Sam. They both love dogs and he appears totally at home in nature. Even though he was only there yesterday, Sam leads the way to the trailhead to Joshua’s Ridge, talking about the mountains like they are old friends, naming off the different trees and the kind of animals living there, repeating things his grandmother told him.

  “You know a lot about the ecosystem here,” Jake Waters says.

  “Over the years, my grandmother took me all over these mountains.”

  “I get the feeling she was a very special woman,” Jake Waters says. “And it appears she taught you well.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Sam replies, feeling again the deep ache that has come to live in his chest since Grandmother died.

  “Call me Jake,” the man says.

  Sam smiles. He wishes Rocky noticed his smartness the way Jake Waters does. Sam wishes Rocky noticed him at all.

  After an hour’s hike, they arrive at the Cherokee marker tree near the old oak tree and where Sam fell down the mountain.

  “Is this what I think it is? A witness tree?” Jake asks.

  “We call them marker trees,” Sam says. “They show the way to things like a map. This one marked the way to where the ruby was buried. There was one by the swimming hole, but I forgot to show you.”

  “Fascinating,” Jake says. “So you think someone a long time ago found the ruby first and then buried it in the oak’s roots?”

  “I think so,” Sam says. “It’s hard to say. I guess the marker could be for the stream, but it points straight at the oak.”

  Jake turns toward the oak and looks up into the mass of branches, his hands on his waist.

  “This is one of the oldest trees I’ve ever seen in a forest like this,” he says. He pats the tree, much like he petted Little Bear.

  Sam concludes he did the right thing by calling Jake Waters.

  “Here’s where I found it,” Sam says. He kneels on the ground and sinks his hand into the still loose earth. It feels cool to his touch. Sam also shows Jake the stick he used to dislodge the stone. He enjoys telling the story of how he found it, how it seemed, almost, to be waiting for him. He hadn’t told anyone the details, because that was the story he carried home to his grandmother—the story that he never got to tell her.

  Sam tells Jake Waters how he washed off the ruby in the stream and how he nearly threw it away before something provoked him to look inside. He pulls the ruby from his pocket for Jake Waters to see, just as Sam did that first time in this very spot. Sam had no idea then what he had in his hand. In some ways, he still doesn’t know. But he is now ready to find out. His trust complete, he hands the stone to Jack Waters.

  Without speaking, Jake looks at the ruby for a long time. He turns the stone from side to side. Then he bounces it in his hand like he’s weighing it. Finally, he steps into a sunny spot on the stream’s bank, takes a jeweler’s lens from his backpack and studies the inside of the stone.

  “Well, Sam, I’m not sure how to tell you this--,” Jake begins.

  Sam studies the look on Jake’s face. Will he tell him the ruby is worthless?

  “The truth of the matter is--” Jake stops, still studying the stone, until Sam thinks he might scream from all the waiting. “Sam, I think you may have found one of the most perfect star rubies in existence.”

  Sam exhales. “Really?”

  “Really and truly,” Jake Waters says.

  Sam jumps and gives a high-five to one of the low branches on the tree.

  “Of course it’s in the rough now. Someone skilled in cutting gemstones will have to show the world its true beauty. But it’s an unbelievable find, Sam. When you first told me on the phone, I didn’t even know if it was possible. That’s why I had to come to see it for myself.”

  Sam doesn’t have words to say. He only wishes his grandmother was here to share the news.

  “It’s truly amazing,” Jake says, still looking at the stone. “In today’s market, I would guess its worth—at the very least—around a quarter of a million dollars.”

  Sam gasps. A quarter of a million dollars? That is way more than the worth cited in the newspaper article. Sam’s words stumble as he voices his disbelief. He then drops to the ground, dizzy as the day he fell down the mountain. Is this really happening?

  If he sells the ruby, his money worries are forever gone. Supporting him and Allie will be a snap. But somehow, profiting from the sale of the ruby doesn’t feel right. How do you put a price tag on something sacred?

  The red hawk led him here. It forced him into a part of the forest he would have never discovered on his own. That entire day, including being lost, somehow felt planned and sacred. In the dream the night before he found the ruby, his ancestors gathered in a circle around him, as if to wish him well on his warrior’s journey. His grandmother said finding the ruby was an omen. Sam touches the hawk feather in his cap and silently thanks the red hawk for leading him here.

  “It’s a unique stone, Sam, and once it’s cut and polished by a professional, you’ll be amazed at just how spectacular it is.” He pats Sam on the back, a wide smile on his face. “You’re a wealthy young man, Sam. Your grandmother would be proud.”

  While Jake Waters explores around the oak, Sam bows his head for several seconds, weighed down by his thoughts. It is tempting to think about selling the ruby. Money buys things, and would be the end of his worries. But the more he thinks about it, the more it doesn’t feel like the gemstone belongs to him. Sure, he found it, but it was more like the ruby wanted to be found. Sam wants everyone to enjoy it, not just the person who might buy it and lock it in their wall safe.

  Grandmother devoted her life to honoring the Cherokee ways. She told him that they were keepers of the land and it was their job to treat the earth in a sacred manner. For the first time, it feels as though he is experiencing one of his grandmother’s silences. He takes a deep breath, feeling peaceful inside. A melody rises from deep insid
e and he hears his grandmother singing. A breeze kicks up, carrying with it the faint scent of lavender. When the song ends, Sam again turns his attention to Jake Waters, who appears to study Sam—like he studied the ruby—with great interest. No judgment appears, only curiosity.

  “Mr. Waters, it doesn’t feel right to keep the ruby,” Sam says. “Something this beautiful needs to be seen and shared, like those stones in the gemstone collection at the National History Museum, and like Grandmother’s basket in the same place. I want to donate it to the museum.”

  Jake steps back with a short laugh until he realizes Sam isn’t joking.

  “That’s very generous, Sam, but as much as I’m sure the museum would love to accept your offer, I think you should take more time, examine your options and maybe talk it over with your family.”

  Sam doesn’t really have any family to talk to. If left up to Rocky, he would sell the ruby today and gamble the money away tonight. If his grandmother were here, he would discuss it with her, but he thinks she would agree with Sam. However, out of respect for Jake Waters, he agrees to think more about it.

  “I’ll check with the ancestors,” Sam says. “They always know what to do.”

  Jake nods and looks at his watch. “It’s late. I need to get back and find a motel for the night. I have an early flight in the morning.”

  “Why don’t you stay at Grandmother’s house?” Sam asks.

  Jake pauses. “Are you sure your father won’t mind?”

  “You mean Rocky?” Sam asks, not thinking of himself as having a father. “It’s more my house than his,” Sam says. “And it’s mine when I turn twenty-one.”

  “Then I graciously accept your offer,” Jake says.

  After Jake hands Sam the ruby, Sam returns it to his pocket. They retrace their steps home, Little Bear at their heels. Back at the house, Sam half expects his grandmother to be waiting for them at the front door.

  “Isn’t that lavender?” Jake asks, sniffing as he approaches the house. “I thought I caught a whiff of it up there on the mountain.”