Poisoned Soil: A Supernatural Thriller (21 page)

“Island’s overrun with them little black suckers,” they had said. Hunts were held on the island every year just to eradicate as many wild pigs as they could, most of the carcasses just lying there and going to waste. After they were captured, it was Blake himself who had hauled them to the mountains. It was Blake who had built the curing sheds. Nick had told him how, sure, but otherwise he had nothing to do with it. Most important though, Nick was right; the meat wasn’t inspected. Blake had talked to the USDA folks in Atlanta early on about getting licensed, but they said it had to be in a climate-controlled, stainless steel facility.

“That is bullshit!” Nick had said at the time. “Look Blake, if you follow all the rules then you’re playing someone else’s game and not your own. You won’t accomplish anything that way.”

“Look at this,” Nick had said, pointing to his gold watch. “This watch cost me thirty grand. I have four of them. Pocket change. You think I’ve achieved everything I have by doing what others told me to do? Friggin’ USDA! What the hell do they know about gourmet food? About tradition?”

Blake recalled how intoxicated he was at the idea of Nick’s wealth. At the idea that he, Blake, could achieve...well, if not all of it, at least some of that wealth. In Blake’s eyes, Nick could do no wrong.

“I want those hams to be from wild, black-hoofed pigs that range on acorns and are cured in the open mountain air. Just like we did it in Spain. None of these heavily salted country hams the USDA loves. I wouldn’t feed that garbage to my bulldog. Otherwise Blake, no deal.” Blake had hesitated for an instant, before Nick gave him his closing pitch. “But, if you do raise these for me,” Nick had said, “you’ll not only be richly rewarded, you’ll be a legend, Blake. It’ll be me and you together, doing something that no one else has done.”

So Blake built the sheds and hid them in the woods the way the mountain moonshiners had done successfully during prohibition. Now, Nick was squeaky clean, Blake concluded as he stood there and thought it through, and Nick had no intention of letting him stop, of letting this be a one-time deal. Blake realized that he’d have to find another way out.

Hell, I’ll just close up shop and not even tell Nick
, Blake thought.
Get rid of everything to the highest bidder. Ain’t a damn thing Nick can do then once I’ve shut it down. To hell with him!

“You know,” Nick continued, “come to think of it I can’t remember if we ever asked for your tax identification number or your social security number to issue you a 1099. I’ll have to check with my accountant to find out for sure. What did we pay you last year, Blake? At least a hundred grand I’d say for the fresh meat, wouldn’t you?”

Blake stared and listened, hating what he was hearing, hating how much Nick knew about him, how much he controlled him. Most of all, hating what he had been doing. Nick was right. Blake had not walked the straight and narrow. He was nowhere close to the center of the road. He had veered off, deep into the woods, and now found himself perched on the edge of a ravine with a strong wind at his back.

“And I figure we’ll owe you, what, another twenty-five, thirty grand for the shipments and deliveries this week. Broken up into checks for five grand each per usual, right Blake?”

Blake exhaled, looked at his feet.

“I wouldn’t worry about anything, though,” Nick continued, “I know you just added all the money I paid you to your tax return as the IRS requires, and that you will again this year. Besides, the IRS would have noticed if you didn’t anyway, unless...well, unless you didn’t actually deposit the checks in a bank account, but just cashed them instead. Of course you wouldn’t have done that, and even if you did I suppose the only record would be the cleared checks that I have with your signature from when you cashed them.”

Nick stopped talking and simply stared at Blake as his words hung in the air with the resonance of a jury’s verdict.

Blake had driven to The Federal full of hope. Hope for a fresh start, hope to get back on the straight and narrow and renew his vows to Angelica. Hope for the simple life that he had once scoffed at and couldn’t wait to get away from. Now it was all he wanted. Nick had just sucked that hope right out of Blake.

“Nick,” Blake whispered softly, “p-l-e-a-s-e!”

Blake composed himself.

“Please let me stop. Let me have my life back. Please Nick.”

Nick smiled, partly to calm Blake, but mainly because he knew his tactics had succeeded. He liked controlling things, owning things. Now it was clear to him that he owned Blake. He placed his hand on Blake’s shoulder.

“My friend, it will all be fine. And you’ll be handsomely rewarded, just as you wanted. Just deliver to me what you promised, when you promised. What we agreed to. We’re both men of our word, Blake. You do what’s right and I’ll do what’s right, my friend.”

Blake knew he was not Nick’s friend. And he knew there was nothing that he could do. He turned and walked away from Nick without saying another word. He continued walking through the kitchen, out the delivery door and to his truck, utterly dejected. He couldn’t imagine how his life could get any worse.

Chapter 18

“Hold up, Tammy!” Ozzie called ahead to Tammy as she walked furiously beside the stream away from Angelica’s secret garden. He raced ahead to get in front of her, his wounds finally healed enough to allow him to run freely. Ozzie turned and stopped, staring at Tammy.

“What’s wrong?” Ozzie asked.

“Nothing. Just leave me alone. I wanna go back to Hal’s.” She moved to her right and lunged forward to pass Ozzie. Ozzie moved left and leaned into Tammy, blocking her momentum with great force. The impact angered Tammy.

“Get out of my way, runt!”

The hair on the back of Ozzie’s neck stood up. “Who are you calling a runt?” Ozzie demanded. “What is wrong with you?”

Tammy lunged, this time right into Ozzie rather than around him. She wanted him to see her maturity, her determination. “I go where I want, when I want,” she exclaimed. “I’m free and I’m sure not gonna have you telling me where I can and can’t go!” She lunged into Ozzie with more force than before and hit him squarely in the chest, but despite being the one in motion, the impact knocked Tammy to the side. Ozzie barely budged. Instead he looked at her, puzzled, trying to figure out why his friend was so incensed. Tammy stepped back for a moment. She turned right and walked away from the stream, into the woods. The understory was thick, mostly a leafy patch of purple ferns and wild anise, but she liked the cool cover it provided. Ozzie followed her in and walked behind her for a few minutes with neither speaking.

“Tammy, what’s wrong?” Ozzie was as much concerned as he was curious.

Tammy stopped and sat down, crushing the leaves of the sweet anise plant. “I don’t know. Just something about that woman I didn’t like, that’s all.” Tammy said.

“She seemed pretty friendly to me,” Ozzie replied. “I like the way she sings.”

“Yeah, I noticed. Couldn’t keep your eyes off her!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ozzie asked.

Tammy didn’t know why she was so upset. She knew she had no reason to be. But she was flushed; her face was on fire. “I just don’t trust people in this neck of the woods,” she said.

“What about Hal?”

Tammy thought for a moment. “He’s all right,” Tammy said. “I guess. But I don’t need anyone else.”

Ozzie said nothing, just stood and listened. Tammy lay on the ground looking up at Ozzie, at the trees swaying gently and freely above him, their leaves painted in October red, orange and gold. At the beautiful, impossibly blue sky. The movement of the trees inspired Tammy to move. She rose, allowing her body to rock back and forth to the motion of the treetops as she inhaled the intoxicating aroma of licorice from the crushed anise leaves. She looked at Ozzie and walked slowly in front of him. Tammy moved whisper-close to share the anise fragrance with him and nuzzle his neck.

Ozzie watched Tammy and tried to stand quietly, but his heart began to pound loudly. A warm flush overcame him as she brushed close to him, his body tingling and burning from deep within, so much that it scared him. It was a burning sensation he had never felt before. He wanted to run, to move, to somehow get rid of that feeling, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Tammy moved around him, leaning against Ozzie’s back as she did, her warm breath falling softly on his neck. She walked right before him, stood there and presented herself to him. Ozzie felt the strongest need to move, as if an earthquake would erupt from within if he didn’t. He stared at Tammy’s body, her eyes drawing him closer in an inevitable embrace. Ozzie stepped forward and dropped his head on her shoulder, his lips on Tammy’s neck. Tammy uttered a deep moan as they closed their eyes at the same time, surrendering themselves to nature’s will.

***

Rose slipped the DVD into the player in Angelica’s living room and pressed play. Within seconds, Ariel entranced the girls as The Little Mermaid sealed them in an isolation bubble that was impenetrable to the kitchen conversation. Angelica poured coffee into Rose’s cup and poured herself a glass of lemongrass tea, into which she stirred some honey and two droppers of echinacea tincture. She sat next to Rose at the kitchen bar.

“So, are you all packed?” Angelica asked.

“Oh yeah,” Rose answered. “Even packed a bikini if I can get up the nerve to put it on. Maybe at night.” Rose laughed.

“Now Rose, stop it. You have a great body and you know it,” Angelica placed her hand on Rose’s forearm to offer reassurance, although she couldn’t imagine why Rose would need any. She needn’t worry. Indeed, Rose was beautiful as well as smart. The sheen of her black hair matched Angelica’s, though Rose kept hers shorter, never letting it drape over her shoulders. Like Angelica, Rose had inherited her mother’s green eyes and they seemed to be able to see inside you, what you were thinking, what you were feeling. They gripped and held their prey until truth was revealed, and only then softened their grip.

“Hey, you wanna take some of my sunscreen with you?” Angelica offered.

Rose laughed. “I’ve got my sunscreen already packed, silly. But don’t worry, it’s SPF 50.”

Angelica frowned at Rose. “Please tell me that you don’t put those chemicals on your skin. Do you even know what’s in it?”

“Now who’s being silly?” Rose asked. “It’s FDA approved, sis. You think they’d approve it to use on children if it wasn’t tested? Safe?”

Rose cast her green eyes at her country bumpkin sister in both a loving and condescending way, as if to say,
“Poor Angelica. Didn’t want to go to college and learn about scientific progress. Instead just kept her feet stuck in the mud back in the hills, going backwards in time instead of forward, clinging to Grandma’s Cherokee traditions.”

Rose had fond memories of the mountains, but going to Athens and meeting so many new and enlightened people and professors at UGA had liberated her from the parochial views on religion, family, and science that had clouded her thinking as a child. Once she stepped out of that circle and opened her eyes, she found she couldn’t move back, even when her parents were killed shortly after her graduation and she was so worried about Angelica. Instead, she had hoped to lure Angelica away, even offered her a place to stay in Athens. But Angelica was as stubborn as her Cherokee ancestors had been two centuries before, Rose reasoned, staying entrenched on her land, handcuffed by ancient religious beliefs, and refusing to surrender herself to progress.

“Are you taking the echinacea tincture that I gave you to boost your immune system?” Angelica asked. Rose reached into her purse and pulled out the small bottle. “Every day,” she said.

“Good. Because wasn’t that peanut butter sold in the stores FDA approved? You know, the stuff with the salmonella?” Angelica asked, without looking at Rose.

“Now wait a–” Rose began before Angelica interrupted.

“And wasn’t that spinach approved...the bags coated in e.coli?” Angelica turned and looked Rose squarely in the eye. Angelica despised confrontation and almost never raised her voice, the only exception being if one of her dearest beliefs was challenged. She knew there was much of the modern scientific world she didn’t know and didn’t care to know. But she also knew what she did know, and that was the natural world and the Bible.

“Come on!” Rose said, glancing over her shoulder to see if the girls had been disturbed. They stayed under Ariel’s hypnotic spell, so Rose continued. “Those are rare exceptions, Angelica. Accidents do happen, you know. The world isn’t perfect!” Rose didn’t like having to defend herself and preferred to squash questions as they arose so that she could then control the progression and content of the discussion.

“Nature is,” Angelica said.

“Is what?”

“Is perfect. There’s no waste. Everything is in God’s landscape for a reason.”

Rose rolled her eyes.

“Do you think people went out in the sun a hundred years ago...two hundred years ago?” Angelica asked. “Did you know that they knew how to protect their skin? Do you think there was widespread skin cancer back then?”

Rose was tempted to take the bait, to challenge Angelica to a debate. Instead, she chose to sit back and let Angelica have her moment.

“So tell me, little sister, what’s in your magic skin potion?”