Lover's Knot (23 page)

She thought he nodded.

“We hiked with friends,” she said, “but you don’t see many other people along the way. It’s pretty special.”

“You probably didn’t see many people up here before the park took over, either.”

He sounded nostalgic. She wondered if Caleb could ever be convinced that people were worth getting to know. Being a teenager was a lonely business anyway, and experiencing those years without at least a few friends to help was going to be lonely indeed.

Two hours had passed before they reached the visitors center at Big Meadows. It was an attractive building, with what were probably spectacular views through wide windows. They parked in the lot, but Kendra knew better than to suggest they go inside immediately after the long ride. Instead, she took out her day pack and suggested they hike a nearby nature trail.

Both Caleb and Cissy instinctively slowed their steps to hers, so the short loop took twice as long as it might have normally. Neither seemed to mind, but Caleb, in particular, was fascinated with every new view, as if he were framing and snapping photographs in his mind. On a bench near the end, Kendra offered them bottles of water from her pack, and they rested.

“How’s your ankle?” Cissy asked.

“A lot better than it ought to be.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be walking so far?”

“This is as far as I’ll go today. But it’s feeling good. I’ll probably always limp a little, but that’s from…” She took a deep breath. “From the carjacking.”

“Carjacking?” Caleb said.

She told the briefest possible version of the story.

“How come nobody’s there taking care of you?”

She tried to think of a quick way to explain something she didn’t quite understand herself. “I need to prove I can do it alone. Although I haven’t done a bang-up job so far. The whole county seems to be taking care of me.”

“Seems only fitting,” Cissy said. “From what I hear, the woman who used to live in that cabin took care of everybody in the county.”

Kendra got to her feet. “And she’s the reason we’re here. Let’s go and see if there’s anybody we can talk to and find out more about the quilt.”

The views inside
were
lovely. The building was open and breezy, with stone slab floors that brought the outside indoors. Best of all, there was a hallway beyond the reception area that featured an in-depth display about the evictions. They took their time reading the history and looking at photographs. When she had completed the circuit, Kendra went to the reception desk and waited for the ranger to finish with a young couple looking for information about hiking trails.

Kendra introduced herself and pointed out Cissy and Caleb, who were still looking at the displays. “Do you have a little time to talk to us?”

The young man in a khaki ranger’s uniform maintained a pleasantly attentive expression, but she suspected he would rather be outside doing something physically challenging than answering tourists’ questions.

She favored him with her most winning smile. “I understand the park service found a couple of skeletons in a cave about a year ago.”

He was no longer as relaxed. “They weren’t hikers or climbers. Any place can be dangerous, but the park is no more dangerous than any wilderness area.”

She sympathized, sure he’d answered too many inquiries about park safety since the bodies were discovered. She launched into her story and reasons for being there. She told him what she knew about Leah, which didn’t take long. She ended with Helen’s trip to the Virginia Quilt Museum.

He seemed interested. “I don’t know a lot about quilts, but didn’t lots of people make the same patterns over and over?”

Cissy had wandered up to listen. “Even in those days, there were a lot of fabrics available. So if there was a wide selection to choose from, having the very same fabrics in the very same places on quilts made from the same pattern, well, that surely does mean something.”

“By any chance did you bring the quilt?”

“It’s in my car,” Kendra said.

“Why don’t you bring it in? I’ll see if I can find Hank Armstead. He’s our history buff. And he was one of the two men who found those skeletons.”

“I’ll get it,” Cissy told Kendra after the ranger had gone. “No call for you to be running off to the parking lot.”

Kendra gave Cissy her keys. Caleb joined Kendra, and she explained what was happening.

“Did you enjoy the exhibit?” she asked.

“Doesn’t say enough.”

She was pretty sure that wasn’t what most boys his age would think. “I notice they’ve got books for sale. Why don’t you pick out the ones that look most interesting for me. I’d appreciate your help.”

Something close to a smile crossed his face. She watched him head to the racks. Spending so many years with Isaac had taught her to look for small signs. She suspected enthusiasm.

The young ranger returned with another and left them together. Kendra introduced herself, and Hank Armstead shook her hand. Judging from the silver hair paired with a still youthful face, Hank was in his late fifties. He wore round glasses like a grown-up Harry Potter, and twice before the introduction was completed he pushed them up his nose.

“Jake told me about your quilt.”

“Here it comes.” Cissy was just coming through the doorway with a black plastic garbage bag. Caleb looked up from the bookracks, and Kendra motioned for him to return.

Hank seemed pleased. “Let’s go in the back, where we can spread it out a little.”

“May Cissy and Caleb come? They’re descendants of people who lived here before the park was created.”

“Is that so?”

Hank waited while Kendra introduced Cissy. Caleb had joined them by then, and Kendra introduced him, as well.

“Where did your family come from?” he asked. “Do you know?”

“I think I might recognize the name if I heard it,” Cissy said.

“Then we’ll put you to work with a map,” he said. “I’ve got a big one on the wall in my office.”

They followed him to a small room that was normally off-limits to the public. He guided Cissy to the wall map, which filled a space the size of a large dining room table. While Cissy looked it over, he cleared a utilitarian fold-up table along one wall so that Kendra could open the quilt. Off went a stack of books, a three-tiered letter tray and a stapler that looked like it could secure a loose-leaf manuscript of the Bible.

“Okay, set it there,” he told her once the table was bare.

She removed the quilt from the bag, unfolding it until the whole top was revealed and draped over the four sides. She didn’t say anything. She just waited.

Hank bent over the quilt. “Jake didn’t say how you got this.”

She told him about Leah, about Isaac’s inheritance and the fact that no one could understand why Leah had worked so hard to make certain he got this quilt. “It’s not a beauty,” she said. “Not by artistic standards.”

“Hmm…” Hank was studying it carefully, inch by inch.

“Do you happen to have the photos of the quilt fragments you pieced together?” she asked.

He straightened. “You bet I do.” He left for the filing cabinet in the corner and returned with a folder. He pulled out four photos and spread them on top of the quilt. “What do you think?”

She thought it was possible the quilts had once looked alike, but it was nowhere near as certain as Helen had claimed.

“That’s all you have?”

“That and the fragments.”

“Do you have any here? I know some of what was left ended up at the Quilt Museum.”

“Not right here I don’t. But I can tell you this…” He pointed at one block of stained muslin paired with a red print sprinkled with tiny white and green windmills. “We have that.” His finger moved. “And we have that,” he said, pointing to a blue fabric with green and red roses. “And this one.” He pointed to a green fabric laced with spidery white and blue lines. “There are fabrics here we don’t have, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t on the quilt. Our quilt was in that cave a lot of years, and some of it just disappeared.”

He straightened, and turned to Kendra and Caleb. “There’s not a fabric I do remember that’s not on this quilt of yours. I’m sure of that.”

Kendra said a silent apology to Helen for ever doubting.

“Corbin Hollow,” Cissy said from the other side of the room. “That’s where our family lived. Leastwise, I think it is. Caleb, come and see.”

Kendra had forgotten that another mystery was being solved. She followed Caleb and looked where Cissy was pointing.

“Cissy told me her family made baskets,” Kendra told Hank.

“That fits,” Hank said. “Corbin was the closest hollow to Skyland, which was built as a resort in the late 1880s.” He moved his finger to the left and let it rest on another area. “The folks who lived near here made their incomes working there, or selling crafts to visitors. Baskets were a big deal. Some of the finest craftsmen lived near Skyland in Corbin and Nicholson hollows, although the folks at Nicholson were farmers, too. But there were whole families famous for the baskets they made.”

Hank continued, telling Caleb and Cissy more about that area and the hikes they could take to see it up close. “There’s still an old cabin standing, a fairly primitive example that’s been renovated. One of the ways officials talked the public into voting to remove residents from the park was to make them sound too ignorant to take care of themselves. You’re too young to remember Li’l Abner, but it was a comic strip about a bunch of hillbillies in a place called Dogpatch. The trick was to turn this area into Dogpatch in people’s minds. We were in the middle of the Depression, and the folks in Corbin Hollow, who’d depended on tourism for their income, suffered the most. So they were the ones the government trotted out as examples.”

Cissy was drinking it all in. “My granny said that her mama and daddy just didn’t know what to do with themselves afterward.”

“I’ve heard it was particularly hard for the basket-makers,” Hank said. “They went from being honored craftsmen, with all the white oak saplings they needed right there for their use, to begging farmers in the areas where they were resettled to let them scavenge for trees. There just weren’t enough materials to do what they did best.”

“I’d like to go there,” Caleb said.

Kendra was pleased. Like Isaac, Caleb had few reasons to feel tied to his family. But the more he understood them…It was becoming a common refrain in her life.

Silence fell. She knew it was time to change the subject. “Hank, while we’re staring at the map, can you show us where the bodies were found?”

Hank moved back a little; then he put his finger on a spot south of Corbin Hollow and close to the park’s boundary. “Right here.”

Kendra’s gaze fell to that section of the map. She bit her lip as she stared.

“Surprise you?” Hank asked. “You thought it might be in another part of the park?”

“I didn’t have any idea where it was.” She stepped forward and traced a line. “These blue lines are rivers?”

“Not all of them are what you’d think of as rivers, no matter what they’re called. More like creeks.”

“And these are hiking trails?” She traced a series of dotted lines.

“Uh-huh, but some of them have been there since Native Americans peopled these mountains.”

“So some of these would have been trails or footpaths before the area became a park.”

“Definitely, though I can’t tell you the history of each one.”

Kendra cocked her head and squinted. The moment she’d looked at them, the lines of rivers and trails had seemed oddly familiar, but now, as she stopped and silently repeated a name on the map, she understood why. “Lock Hollow?”

“This little area right here. This is Little Lock Mountain.” He pointed. “Not a big mountain, as they go, and not particularly good for hiking. The cave where the bodies were found is at the base of the mountain. There used to be a small community there with a little store. Good land for farming.”

“Lock for Spurlock,” she said.

“What makes you think so?”

“The lines on my quilt? The quilting lines? I think they’re a map of Lock Hollow. And I bet if you have a list of the residents who were forced off their property in that area, we’ll find Spurlocks on it. Maybe that’s what Leah Spurlock Jackson was trying to tell her grandson.”

Hank marched over to the quilt and studied it. He spoke after a moment. “Maybe she was trying to tell him more.”

Kendra pulled her gaze from the wall, although she was still fascinated that Isaac’s grandmother, a mediocre needlewoman, had managed to render this map in thread. “What else?” She crossed the room, and found that Cissy and Caleb were already flanking him.

“See these lines here?” He pointed to a section in the right-hand third of the quilt, about halfway down. They stood out from the others, tiny and even, in thread that seemed to be thicker and darker, as if particular care had been used when stitching them. Kendra had never noticed it before.

She gazed at the spot, then back up at the map. “There’s nothing on the map that corresponds to that intersection, is there?”

“Not on the real map. But where these two lines cross? That would be the cave where we found the bodies.”

I
saac had a theory that sometime during the wee hours of every morning, a bevy of elves tiptoed into the ACRE offices directly to his desk. Instead of leaving a tidy bare surface for him to admire in the morning, the elves left extra work. Mountains of extra work.

Victimized by lazy elves. He would have preferred a fire-breathing dragon or a wicked snow queen in his personal fairy tale.

“For someone who’s about to close the biggest land deal of his career, you’re looking a little glum.”

Isaac glanced up to find Heather standing in his doorway. It was after five p.m. on Monday, but she looked like an advertisement from an Eddie Bauer camping catalog. Khaki cargo shorts, blue microfiber shirt, Nikes and sport socks.

He leaned back, head in hands. “Did you come to work like that and I just missed it?”

“I changed. It’s too pretty to stay inside this evening. I’m going for a long bike ride. Want to come?”

“I promised John I’d drop by to talk about Ten.” Ten was now the name of the cat he had rescued. Ten because the cat was clearly blessed with at least one more than the traditional nine lives.

“How is old Ten?”

“Beating up John’s cats. I think he’s being evicted.”

“You’re taking him home?”

“No cats allowed in our condo. I’m hoping I can talk John into keeping him until I can find another home.”

Heather gave a snort. “Isaac, what are the chances?”

Isaac didn’t know. Not everyone appreciated a down-on-his-luck alley cat with homicidal tendencies.

“Anything new on Pallatine Mountain?” she asked. “You haven’t brought it up lately.”

“Dennis says the money’s in place.” When Gary Forsy the had finally gotten back to Isaac and promised to sell the land to ACRE if they could come up with another half-million dollars, Dennis had promised to find it.

“Do you know how he’s raising it?”

“Not yet.”

“Because I heard a rumor…” Heather looked down at her nails; then she polished them against her shirt.

The gesture was so unlike her that Isaac was instantly alert. This was not a casual conversation. “What?”

She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. “I hear Dennis isn’t averse to selling some select acreage on Pallatine to raise the necessary funds. Not to developers, but maybe to people who’ve done favors for ACRE.”

“We can’t develop it. That’s part of the deal with Forsythe.”

“But can we sell the right to build a few houses? With conservation easements, of course.”

Selling with conservation easements meant that theoretically the land was still protected. Restrictions were written into the deed. Among them, no one could log the land. Nothing could be built near sensitive areas like streambeds. A limit was set on the square footage of any buildings.

Isaac knew the way this usually worked. The land was sold to a few buyers at a price severely reduced from what ACRE paid for it, but by then the land, with all the attendant restrictions, was worth less. At that point the buyers would give a significant donation to ACRE, which they could deduct from their income taxes. ACRE would still realize enough money to offset some of the cost of preserving Pallatine, and the buyers would both lower their tax indebtedness and own property on a pristine mountainside.

Or a
formerly
pristine mountainside.

Isaac picked up a pencil and did a fair imitation of a snare drum solo on his blotter. “I’ll ask Dennis.”

“Other organizations have done it. Some of them say it works to everyone’s benefit, that the owners are people with a personal stake in sound and careful management, and the land is better off with a few occupants.”

Occupants in mini-mansions. On a formerly pristine mountainside.

Isaac dropped the pencil. “Those organizations caught a lot of flack and lost a lot of donations. They’ve changed the way they do things.”

“Well, I’m sure Dennis won’t fall into any traps that have already been sprung by others.” She paused. “In other words, he’ll find some way around the finer points of the contract.”

“You don’t like Dennis, do you.”

Heather polished her nails again—the most attention she had ever paid to personal grooming in his presence. “He’s a lot like you. He tunnels ahead without looking from one side to the other. Luckily, I usually admire your direction. I’m not sure about his.”

“We’re meeting tomorrow.”

“Really? I’ll be waiting to hear what he says.”

She left, nails shining, and Isaac knew it was time to call it a day.

He was still thinking about their conversation when he knocked on the door of the row house in Glover Park where Ten had a temporary home. John had promised to lavish tender loving care on the recovering cat. But after their phone call today, Isaac was pretty sure Ten had out-stayed his welcome.

John answered the door looking nothing short of harried. He was a short man, with dark hair bleached bright gold at the ends. He sported a diamond in one earlobe and an unbuttoned aloha shirt adorned with hula girls.

“He’s a rascal, and I’m a wreck.”

Isaac shook his head. “I’m really sorry, John. You should have called me sooner.”

“He did okay at first. He was still recovering. But he’s not a team player, your boy. He got out of his cage last night and terrorized my little gang. And he nearly cut me to ribbons when I tried to put him back in.”

“I really am sorry.”

“You’re here to get him?” John sounded more than hopeful. He sounded desperate.

“Thing is, I don’t have a place for him to go. I worked on it today, but—”

“Isaac, honey, he just can’t stay. I don’t know what to tell you. I called a couple of other rescue people, but none of them has a place for him right now. They all have cats. He has to go to somebody without a cat. There shouldn’t be another cat for about a hundred miles.”

“I don’t know a place like that.”

“Someplace out in the country? Maybe somebody with space, so he can roam a little? He’d probably stay nearby if somebody was feeding him. I don’t know what else to say. Just that he can’t stay here.”

“Not one more night?”

John put his hands on his hips. “Don’t do this to me!”

Isaac was ashamed. “I’m sorry. I’ll take him.”

“You’re not taking him to the pound, are you? They’ll put him down without thinking about it.”

“No.”

“He’s in his carrier.”

That was the ultimate sign of John’s desperation. Isaac scrambled for a solution even as he followed him toward the bedroom where Ten had been deposited.

“Someplace in the country,” John said. “You must know somebody in the country who’ll take this cat. Somebody with a soft heart.” He stopped and faced Isaac. “You
must
know somebody like that.”

The construction crew left about three, claiming they had to wait until the concrete dried before they could move forward. Kendra knew them all by name now, and although she suspected they were still taking her measure, most were friendly. Randy was the only one who didn’t speak.

Kendra relished the thought of silence for the rest of the afternoon. Two hours and a brief nap later, she sat looking over the woods with a fresh glass of spearmint tea from Leah’s garden. The spring had been surprisingly pleasant. She wondered if she could tolerate the hot weather, which was undoubtedly going to make an appearance soon. She wondered how Leah had managed without so much as an electric fan, at least at the beginning.

Leah was pregnant with Rachel when she arrived in Toms Brook. A dilapidated cabin, at first no indoor plumbing or electricity, no husband to help or support her. She had probably come out to the porch when she could to catch a breeze, exactly the way Kendra had.

She sipped slowly, enjoying the peaceful vista. Earlier she’d heard movement deep inside the treeline. At first she’d suspected it was Caleb, who she was hoping to see; then she’d glimpsed the soft gray-brown coat of a deer.

Ah, country life.

She was ready to go back inside when she heard another noise, this time from somewhere down her driveway. A dog’s howl.

She walked to the edge of the porch and waited. At times neighboring children used her woods to hike down to the river, although it was not one of the better ways to get to the riverbank. Since she wasn’t expecting anyone, she guessed this might be more of the same.

But this time the noise
was
Caleb.

“Hey!” She waved. “Who’s your friend?”

The friend was a mutt the likes of which she’d never seen before. She suspected even the most astute dog lover wouldn’t be able to guess the totality of this puppy’s parentage. At least she thought it was a puppy, judging by the size of its feet, although it already came halfway to Caleb’s knee.

Part hound, she theorized, from the length of the body and that one pitiful howl. The spectacularly matted coat was the mottled blue merle of a purebred collie or Australian shepherd. The head was squarish, like a lab or, worse, a pit bull. Early in her career she’d been forced to cover a weeklong dog show. So she knew her breeds. This was a dog only Sam, whose dogs defied description, would love.

“Want a soft drink?” she asked when he was nearly to the porch. “And some water for your friend?”

“Just water for her.”

“Looks like you’ve got a new pal.” She stuck out her hand for the dog to sniff. The dog ignored her. It had the sad expression of a bloodhound.

Caleb chewed his lip and didn’t look at her.

Kendra had learned to read body language at a young age. Her heart sank. “Caleb, what have you done?”

“This dog, well, she’s got no home. Someone dropped her off at the Claibornes’.”

Her heart hit bottom. “Caleb…”

“They already have a dog.”

“And they won’t let you keep her?”

“Can you get that water?”

Vacating was an excellent idea. She would take her time filling a bowl for the dog and prepare a gentle letdown speech. Because she knew what was coming. The air was thick with it.

By the time she returned, boy and dog were sitting on the porch. The dog still looked dejected, as if she had figured out that this home, too, wasn’t going to work out.

“Did the Claibornes ask you to find her a home?” She had already set the bowl on the ground for the dog, who ignored this, too. Now she handed Caleb a can of Pepsi he hadn’t requested and watched him pop the top.

“Not exactly,” he said after half the can was gone.

“And?”

“She’s got a brother.”

“And?”

“And, well, they told me I could keep him.”

“So you’ve got a new dog all your own.”

He finished the cola before he spoke again. “They told me I could keep this one, too.”

She felt her heart lodge firmly in her chest again. “Aren’t those Claibornes great?” She said it with even more enthusiasm than it deserved.

“But, see, I want you to have her. I gave her a bath and everything. I got a dog now. And you, well, you got nothing. Look at this. You’re all alone out here with no protection. And this dog barks at everything—don’t you, girl?”

The dog, who had been lying lethargically at his side, didn’t even wag her tail.

“Well, she does,” he said.

She was impressed with the speech. “I’m sure you’re right—”

“And the thing is, you could train her. She’d be a help. She can fetch, chase rabbits out of your garden. You need that.”

She was stumped. Caleb had appointed himself her guardian. She realized it was a good sign that, despite the number of upheavals in his young life, he could still care about the well-being of others. He had been at least partly responsible for the injury to her ankle and completely responsible for helping her to safety afterward. In his mind, that made him responsible for her into the future.

She stalled. “What’s her name?”

“She’s
your
dog.”

She opened her mouth to tell him he was wrong, that the dog needed a better home than she could give it, that her future was too uncertain for her to take on a pet. Caleb was watching with troubled eyes, and she realized he was worried he had made a mistake. She imagined he worried about mistakes a lot. He had dared to reach out, and now he was afraid he’d been wrong.

“How about Blue, for the silver color of her coat?” she heard herself say. “Or Dusty? Or maybe Patience, since she looks like the most patient dog in the world.”

He relaxed visibly. “I named mine Rusty. He looks like her, only his coat is red.”

“Then she has to be Dusty. You can bring Rusty to visit.”

He looked so relieved, she wanted to hug him—but knew better. Being his mom was Marian’s job. Hers was just to be his friend.

And the patsy who couldn’t say no
.

She had a sudden insight, and not a positive one. “Have you taken Rusty to the vet yet, you know, to have him checked over and get his shots?”

Caleb gave a shake of his head.

She wondered if Dusty’s sad demeanor was due to illness. “Tell you what, since you’ve given me such a nice present, why don’t we go together. I’ll make the appointment for one afternoon this week.”

“Mr. Claiborne said he’d give me some chores to earn the money I’d need for that.”

“Good. But let’s go as soon as we can, and you can pay me back later. Deal?”

“Okay.” Caleb ruffled Dusty’s fur and patted her head; then he stood. “Well, I guess I ought to go.”

“Caleb…”

“Uh-huh?”

“Well, you’ve done a lot for me, and don’t say you haven’t. I’ve got something for you. It’s a thank-you present.”

“I don’t need a present.”

“I know you don’t. But I have something anyway. Will you wait a minute?”

Warily, he lowered himself back to the step to pet Dusty some more. The dog still hadn’t moved.

Kendra returned in a minute with a shopping bag. “I noticed something about you Saturday. You have a great eye for detail. I’m a reporter, and I’ve worked with a lot of photographers. They all look at things the way you do. Kind of framing them in their minds.”

She held the bag out to him. “I hope you like it.”

He was frowning, but he took it and looked inside. Then he set it down and took out a box. “A camera?”