Deep Down (I) (23 page)

Cassie wished something like that could work out for her and Tyler, though he’d probably try to take them away from here, and her emotional roots ran deep in Deep Down. Yes, Cassie thought, as she made her own daydreams, she wanted a man she could love, not one she just wanted. They’d have other children, too, she’d still do wildcrafting and sell the items to the gift shops and florists, while Tyler commuted to work until his book made so much money he could afford to stay here…

Cassie gasped and hit the brakes. The truck skidded on the wet road, but she managed to keep control. Through the mist of gray rain ahead, a dark form darted across the road. For one second she’d thought of that figure in Tyler’s photo, but it wasn’t that big.

It looked like Junior Semple, but he’d disappeared into the brush as fast as he’d appeared, and she sure wasn’t going in there after him. She’d have to rush home and call Drew. Drat, why was it that lately in what used to be boring, quiet Deep Down, she was always calling someone for help?

As Jessie followed Vern back toward the sales counter where Peter Sung sat on a tall stool, she vowed to do a better job of getting things out of Vern and maybe even Peter than she had Ryan Buford. At least he’d admitted that he’d been through here five or six years ago; that made the timeline possible for his being Pearl’s father.

But one other thing kept tugging at the thoughts: was it just coincidence Buford had mentioned those beasts of legend like the so-called Swamp Ape?

She’d bet anything that he’d gotten the information about Tyler’s strange picture out of Emmy, even though Drew had told her not to tell anyone else. So should she tell Drew that word of The Thing had leaked out, probably from Emmy, but maybe from Tyler, too?

“In only one day, so much tragedy again,” Peter said, taking Jessie’s hand as if to shake it but then just holding it. “Dreadful about Ms. Brazzo’s death and the fire at Mr. Bearclaws’s place.”

“And Junior’s still missing,” she said. “You haven’t heard anything from him, have you?”

“I have his sang ready to be packed for my drying barn in Lexington, but I’ve had no word of him or from him,” Peter said as she tugged her hand back and walked behind the counter with Vern.

“Is the drying barn that old tobacco barn on your property?” she asked as she sat on the stool next to Vern’s.

“Didn’t I mention that? We were so busy at the house and with the Plotts, and then you left so suddenly.”

Jessie would have liked to have searched that barn and, no doubt, so would Drew. Illegally harvested ginseng could be stored there. Maybe it could somehow be linked to the sang that had been where her mother last counted, or even that she was half-buried in. The sang from what Drew said Seth called “the grandfather tree” was still at Jessie’s house in sacks.

“Okay,” Vern said, knocking his knuckles on the counter, “here’s the quick rundown on handling sang buyers that come in here. We only buy mature roots, at least five years in the ground.” From a box on the counter, he picked up a great-looking root and extended it toward her. “You know how to count neck scars?”

She pictured her mother’s neck—Beth’s, too—bent at a terrible angle from a blow. She fought to concentrate. “Yes, of course. Each annual bud leaves a scar,” she said, pointing at the marks on the root. “I use a magnifying glass for that in the lab. I have it in my bag. Actually, I’m carrying my mother’s old denim pack, just to have a bit of her with me.”

Vern looked teary-eyed; Peter glanced at the bag she’d laid on the counter.

“She would have liked that,” Vern said, clearing his throat. “Also, I expect roots to be cleaned of general dirt, maybe lightly brushed with a toothbrush when they bring them in, but not really washed or soaked. Darned if I’m paying for soil or water weight. As for curing, I want them dried, with a white center that will break before it bends,” he said, snapping the root. “Now I know you been ’round sang all your life and still work with it, so this is just a reminder.”

“I appreciate the review. I didn’t have time to ask Cassie
about your procedures. Besides, I’d rather hear it from the main man’s mouth.”

His eyes looked wet again. “Wish I would have been Mariah’s main man, Jessie. On both sides, it just didn’t work out between us, but at least we parted friends. I thank God for that since she’s gone now.”

“I understand, really,” she assured him, but her pulse pounded. He was still trying to make excuses. All his emotion at the wake, the funeral and now here—could it be guilt over more than a rejection of his offer of marriage? It also interested her that Vern must have shared all that with Peter already, or surely, he would not have brought it up in front of him. How much did the two of them work together on things besides buying ginseng?

“No shrunken roots with the skin wrinkled,” Vern went on, “or they dried it wrong, and no way we’re paying full price. All roots one-eighth of an inch or smaller should be broken off. They want to sell that as fiber, I’ll buy it separate, five bucks a pound. Last, you know roots absorb moisture on a rainy day, so make a point of that with them if they come in today. We’re starting with offers of only six-hundred-fifty dollars a pound today, which gives us a bit of leeway to go up. You okay with all that? I s’pose most of it’s old hat to you.”

“I understand. I’ll be fine.”

“Now I’m gonna help Peter pack the almost-wild he bought from Junior Semple, but you need me for anything, I’m in the storage room back by my office. You can’t handle somebody’s tall tales or sass, just sing out and I’ll be right here. You can keep your pack in my office.”

“I’ll take it back for you,” Peter said, swooping it off the counter as he started away.

“Thanks,” she said, thinking that would give her an excuse to be in Vern’s office later so she could look around, maybe even glance in his desk drawers or whatever files he kept. “Peter, did you hear how Junior was trying to protect that crop you bought?” she asked, still full of questions for both of them. Drew had never figured out where Junior got those poison sticks. Peter turned back, resting one hand on the far end of the wooden counter. She went on, “I don’t think Drew and I mentioned he’d planted varmint sticks that spewed poison gas. We almost got zapped by one.”

“Varmint sticks? I don’t know what those are. Poison gas?”

“I’ll explain it to you,” Vern said as he rose, too.

Jessie was torn between keeping up the chatter or letting them go. She didn’t want to push her luck by grilling them right now, but she might not have a chance later and Drew was depending on her.

“It’s lucky,” she said to Peter, “you weren’t dealing with Junior anywhere but from his jail cell, or you could have been hurt. I’m sure he was glad you bailed him out.”

“I believe the man must be claustrophobic—he was desperate to escape his cell—but I didn’t know he was deadly dangerous. Poison gas!” he repeated. “Amazing and appalling what desperate measures men go to for jen-shen. I suppose what I paid Junior sounded good to him, but virtually wild like his runs only about sixty dollars a pound right now. The farm-grown grade from Wisconsin is barely thirty dollars. All that to say how valuable by comparison is the wild sang. Jessica, I’m glad to see you here helping my friend Vern, but I hope, weather willing, you’ll be back out counting soon. From what I’ve heard passing through
here—and I think Vern will agree—the harvest is bountiful and your count, even if you estimate it, will no doubt reflect that.”

She knew better than to commit to that or the opposite. “By the way, Vern,” she added, “I forgot to say I was really impressed with how well the Deep Down volunteer fire department handled Seth’s fire last night.”

“Doubly sad,” Vern said, frowning, “that the old guy’s out a place to live and that it was arson. I’m keeping my ears open ’case I pick up anything about who might have done it.”

He stared straight into her eyes. He couldn’t be lying, couldn’t be the one behind that outrage, could he? How could Vern have started the fire, then made it back to town in time to get on the truck and head back to fight it? Unlike with Peter Sung, she couldn’t picture Vern hiring anyone else to do his dirty work.

“Thank heavens,” she said, forcing a relieved expression, “you were in town when Cassie called the fire in.”

“Yep, upstairs, working on getting the displays all set for Tyler Finch. He wants to take photos of them ’fore he leaves for Miss Brazzo’s funeral—pictures for his own book he’s doing, not for their ads. Wonder if the power drink company will still use Deep Down now at all, ’cause she was the one pushing for that, setting everything up. But I got me the idea Tyler will be back to see Cassie and Pearl, even if the ginseng ads are now off.”

Ryan Buford had emerged from the back room so silently that Jessie wondered if he’d been standing in the shadows for a while. If he had any reaction to hearing Cassie or Pearl’s names, he didn’t show it.

“Hey, Ryan,” Vern said, and Peter nodded solemnly to him as if they’d already met.

“Hot soup and sandwich at the Soup to Pie calls,” Buford told them, ambling toward the front door. “Anyone want anything brought back? Figured I’d see if Emmy next door wants to go along,” he said with a wink at Jessie as he opened the front door.

“Better watch out,” Vern called after him. “Audrey might put something in your soup, you drag pretty little Emmy in with you!”

Buford only grinned and went out into the rain.

23

D rew’s windshield wipers cleared his view as he pulled onto Seth’s property. The rain had blurred the windows of the old man’s parked truck, so Drew couldn’t tell if he was inside it or not. Surely he wouldn’t go off into the forest again in this weather. Drew had stopped here to see how Seth was doing. But beyond that, he wanted another crack at questioning him about what he’d done or found up by Bear Creek yesterday—and why he’d worn what looked like war paint.

Keeping his two-way with him in case Emmy called—Jessie was to go through her to reach him at any time—he got out. Seth rolled his truck window down. The sickening smell of charred wood hung heavy in the air.

“Can I get in?” Drew asked.

“I’m not getting back in yours. This is where I live for now.”

Drew got in the passenger side. The windows were so steamed up he couldn’t see out. Seth must have heard him coming. Drew saw he’d been eating a sandwich and drinking a G-Women power drink, of all things, but then the food had come from Jess.

“Sandwich?” Seth asked. “She packed plenty.”

“Yeah. Don’t mind if I do.”

The old man reached into the cooler at his feet and came up with a plastic-wrapped sandwich and another G-Women drink. Drew thought about Beth Brazzo, power woman, lying dead in the morgue. He forced his attention back to Seth, who was saying, “Jessie has a note in here to come eat supper with her tonight. A good woman, like her mother.”

“Amen to that.”

They ate in silence for a moment. Whole grain bread, cheese, meat, mustard, lettuce, dill pickles. Drew didn’t realize he’d been so hungry. Maybe food and the power drink would pick up his strength. The rain seemed to be letting up a bit.

“So, what?” Seth asked, then crunched into an apple.

“I need to know more about what you found—or didn’t—yesterday up by Bear Creek.”

Seth chewed and swallowed. He took so long Drew thought he would refuse to answer. “I found more badger fur at about a six-foot height on the grandfather tree where Mariah was laid. It wasn’t easy to see, so don’t beat yourself up for not catching it before.”

“The other day, you didn’t want to so much as look at that tree, let alone to approach it.”

“Old ways die hard.”

“Did you bring the fur back so we—I—can match it?”

He nodded, but said nothing else.

“You dressed the way you did and wore the face paint—”

“Blackberry juice with sawdust—”

“—to honor Mariah?”

“To honor the tree. I keep thinking this,” he said, shaking his head as his voice became awed. “Did my house burn
because I invaded sacred ground, the very place where some of my people once hid to save their lives—and some died?”

“You told me some hid there but not that they died there.”

“The government soldiers said to assemble near Bear Creek for the march west. When they were found hiding, some were stabbed or hacked to death with bayonets. I only tell you this because you believe me.”

“I do, Seth,” he said, turning to face him more squarely. “I’m really sorry. A death tree, not just a grandfather tree. But you don’t believe that about the tree cursing you by burning your house? I’m telling you, someone human started it.”

“I know,” he said, pounding a fist on the steering wheel. “It wasn’t a curse any more than some strange creature killed Mariah.”

“But you don’t sound convinced.”

Seth shrugged. “As I said, old ways die hard.”

“I need your help again. What the hell are we going to do with badger claw marks on her and badger fur six feet up a tree, in the sang leaves, or anywhere else? I know you don’t like to talk about your heritage, but—”

“I like to talk about it with someone who honors it, not someone who does not.”

“Okay. What can you tell me about skillies?”

Seth looked even more shocked than when he’d seen his house on fire. His narrow eyes widened; his jaw dropped.

“What?” Drew asked. “Is it some sacred secret?”

“No. But from the first time I saw Tyler Finch’s photo, I thought it looked like a skilly.”

“You believe in them?”

“My people believed in them years ago, the kecleh-kudleh, the hairy savages who came to snatch souls away
and spread fear. Now, I believe in them with my heart but not my head.”

The nape of Drew’s neck felt as if it had been stroked by an icy hand. No wonder Seth had not brought up skillies before. He was already the hated target of rumors and arson, so why tell anyone that The Thing looked like a Cherokee mythical beast?

“Anybody else around here ever mention them?” Drew asked. “Or did you mention them? To Vern? Peter Sung? Junior Semple? Tyler Finch? Anyone?”

“No. Well, maybe I told Mariah, but she didn’t pose for that picture or kill herself.”

“I just can’t accept—in my head or heart—that we’re dealing with the supernatural. There’s no way that—” He jumped when his two-way buzzed. “Gotta take this. If it’s nothing, I’ll be back. Maybe I’ll see you at Jess’s for supper.”

He got out, slammed the door and ran to his truck. It was Emmy; he steeled himself for bad news.

“Drew, Cassie Keenan spotted Junior Semple crossing the highway between Castors’ place and hers. She called me from her house. He was heading east.”

“Tell her I need more specific directions—where he crossed. I’m heading there now, so call me back.”

He spun his wheels in the mud to get traction, fishtailed, then tore out of Seth’s lane.

Jessie was starting to believe that signs from heaven were telling her to search Vern’s storage room and office. He’d just received a call from Widow McGillan up by Crazy Creek, who said that she had a sack of old sang she wanted to sell, but she wanted him to come up and buy it rather than coming in. Peter had driven back to Lexington
with boxes of Junior Semple’s ginseng in his trunk. But for an occasional seller coming in, she’d been left alone in the store.

She wasn’t sure whether Drew would approve of her actually searching Vern’s property, but she couldn’t miss the opportunity to find something to link him to her mother’s stolen sang counts, or something he’d written that might link him to an ongoing disagreement with her mother—anything. Keeping an ear attuned to the front door in case anyone came in, especially since the rain seemed to be letting up, she went down the hall to peek in the storage room and Vern’s office.

Both were small rooms without windows. First, she opened the heavy door to the storage room; it had a long table and shelves filled with wooden boxes, obviously stuffed with sang. A small, grated vent high on the outside wall let in air and a tiny shaft of light. She sneezed at the dust from the packing Vern and Peter had done. She noted a bolt lock on the outside of the door, but not the inside. Closing the door behind her, she left it as she’d found it.

She went across the narrow hall to Vern’s office. Unsure if it would be locked, she turned the knob and slowly opened the door. Darkness. She felt along the wall and clicked on the light. A small black safe sat in the corner behind a large, neat oak desk and four beige metal filing cabinets. Two chairs were crammed in, one behind the desk, the other, with her mother’s denim bag on it which Peter had put there for her—near the door. She stepped inside.

The wall facing the desk was filled with large, framed, black-and-white photos of his parents and grandparents, standing in front of the Trader. A phone sat on the desk, surrounded by tidy stacks of papers. She knew better than
to think her mother’s notes might be out in the open, but she quickly rifled through the stacks anyway, then tamped them back into crisp piles. It would take forever to really search here. She’d have to snatch time piecemeal when she got the chance.

Besides the hall door she’d come through, the office had two other doors side by side, both closed. She opened the first—a bathroom, toilet and washbasin with a mirror. The next opened to a closet with large, shelved boxes, each neatly labeled in big printing SANG #4. The closet didn’t smell like sang. It was more like mothballs, though how could she tell when the entire store was redolent with aromas. After being here awhile, she was probably as nose-dead as someone working in a perfume shop.

“Darn!” she muttered, when she heard the front door open and someone come in. She turned out the office light and hurried down the hall to see who it was.

Despite the fact the rain had stopped and he’d said he had work to do, Ryan Buford was back.

By the time Drew got near the spot where Cassie had seen Junior, Emmy had called back with better directions. Women and directions, he thought. Did Emmy and Cassie think he could find Junior in this overgrown area if their only direction was a two-mile stretch of road?

He shook his head to clear it. He was not only exhausted but feeling desperate and angry. He had to calm down. The fact that it had rained actually helped him find tracks this time, whereas the leaf litter up by Bear Creek had obscured footprints. In ten minutes he’d found fresh boot tracks heading from the spot and in the direction Cassie had said—due east. As far as Drew knew, no one lived out this
way anymore. Hunters might come through, but there were no access roads in the area.

With his semiauto pistol in its holster and his 12-gauge shotgun in his hands, he headed deeper into the undergrowth and trees. If Junior was armed—Cassie wasn’t sure—it would probably be with his Remington 12-gauge firearm, the deer-hunting weapon of choice around here for years. Drew was pretty sure that Junior hated being locked up so much that he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot. Besides, he was in much more trouble than last time, and if he’d had anything to do with Mariah’s death, he could be desperate if cornered.

Drew also figured that there could be more between Peter Sung and Junior than a one-time deal for sang and bail money. Such as free varmint sticks to protect the crop. Such as orders and cash to be sure Mariah Lockwood’s ginseng count was good enough to keep the stuff flowing through Peter’s pockets to the Kulong family. Or if this year’s count would be low, Peter would want to somehow stop her reporting it, until they could find someone else to count who could be bribed.

Occasionally, Drew lost the tracks in leaves or grass, but managed to pick them up again. Where in hell was the guy going? If he’d been hiding out, wouldn’t he have stuck to an area closer to home he knew better and where he could sneak in to see his wife?

He was careful not just to keep his head down, but to look ahead too, in case Junior had stopped or sensed pursuit. Mountain men had been known to “get the notion” that tipped them off to someone else nearby in the woods.

Drew wondered again about Jess’s vision of her mother’s death, the old mountain sixth sense. It wasn’t
exactly a psychic ability and seemed to come to the person in random fashion, as if they could not control it, but—

A sharp sound! The crack of a limb? He jumped behind a tree. In a small clearing up ahead, smoke—or was that just a drifting wisp of mountain fog?

Holding his shotgun ready, he moved closer, going from tree to tree, not coming directly in, but edging around the small clearing. He watched where he stepped, even tried to make his breathing more shallow. Not since basic training had he stalked someone like this. Stalked someone—was that what The Thing was doing in the forest the day Tyler took that picture? And who was it stalking then? Another woman to murder? Even Cassie or Pearl?

“I saw Vern and Peter leave while I was sitting in the restaurant,” Ryan told Jessie as he came in, closed the door and leaned against it. He looked really nervous. Though her instinct was to retreat, she walked closer to him so they could both be seen through the front windows. She wished she wasn’t so on edge, so paranoid. Had he come to admit he had fathered Pearl?

“I just wanted to tell you something,” Ryan said, “without them hearing me. I know you’re close to Sheriff Webb. I don’t want to get in the middle of any of this, but he should know Vern’s been really bad-mouthing Seth, even stirring up feelings against him over your mother’s murder.”

“I knew it! I got that idea from what you told me about Vern’s sick joke over the fire being a bear to put out.”

“Yeah. The guy seems prejudiced against Seth.”

Or jealous of how her mother had admired Seth, she thought. Knowing full well that Seth didn’t like Ryan, she
asked, “Have you had the chance to get to know Seth? I appreciate your standing up for him.”

“Tell you the truth, last time I was here he cussed me out for planning more roads around here, mostly, I think, because it would cause trees to be cut down. Government red tape halted my work then, but I’m back now to pick up the assignment. The old guy should accept that progress is necessary.”

So, Ryan was an honest man, or at least was willing to admit that Seth didn’t like him. “So why are you standing up for Seth?”

He stood up straighter, not leaning against the door. “Basic human decency. Down where I’ve lived for years, the Seminole tribe interests me, too. They’ve got big casinos raking in a fortune and a couple of reservations, but years ago they were driven off their land, just like the Cherokees up here. It just wasn’t fair, and still isn’t.”