Saving Laurel Springs (6 page)

“Oh,” gushed Mrs. Reeves. “We're only two doors down from you in Redbud Cottage.”

Rhea loaded her visitors into the tram now. She'd drive them from the assembly grounds around the lake, with stops at the old Tritt and Gilliland cabins and the cantilever barn, then up to Gold Mine Springs below High Ridge, where historic photos and artifacts told of the gold-mining days in the Smokies. On the route back, she'd stop the tram so her visitors could see the gazebo and boat dock beside the lake and then give them a tour of the old one-room schoolhouse as a finale.

“Got room for two more?” a voice behind her asked.

Rhea turned to see Carter and his son, Taylor, walking up to the tram. She ground her teeth but offered them a pasty smile. “Of course, but wouldn't this be old hat to you, Carter?”

“Maybe.” He grinned at her. “But not to Taylor. He's never taken the tour.”

She saw Taylor's bright eyes watching her with childish enthusiasm.

“Well, climb on,” she said, introducing them around as they did.

She put the tram in gear and headed down the meeting grounds driveway to connect with the main Assembly Road. Rhea continued her tour talk with less ease now. Having Carter on board made her nervous.

He and Taylor had climbed into one of the front seats where no one else wanted to sit, and Rhea could sense Carter's presence close behind her. She could also hear Taylor's excited questions and comments.

“This is just like a little train, Dad. And Rhea is like the conductor, isn't she?”

He was a cute little boy, but Rhea churlishly didn't want to like him or get to know him better. However, despite her own misgivings, his sweet, eager disposition—and nice manners—quickly stole the hearts of the tour group.

Furthermore, at every stop, Carter tossed out extra comments about Laurel Springs to entertain Taylor, old memories or cute stories, which soon mesmerized the visitors on the tram. Naturally, Taylor told them how his dad had grown up here, which opened up a spate of questions Carter was only too eager to answer.

“My dad and Rhea learned to swim right there in this lake,” Taylor told his captivated audience when they stopped at a pull-off beside Laurel Springs Lake. “And my dad can swim all the way out to the raft in the middle of the lake and back.”

Mrs. Reeves giggled. “I'm not sure I could do that anymore.”

Like most six-year-old children, Taylor bubbled with questions on the tour route. The grown-ups found his questions charming, but Rhea, the one expected to answer, found his questions annoying, especially with Carter watching her with barely suppressed mirth the entire time.

At Gold Mine Springs, Rhea finally lost her temper as the group climbed up the short trail to High Ridge to see the old Sutton cabin.

Taylor had asked why the old springs, spurting out from the rocky ledge in a small falls, were called Gold Mine Springs. Before Rhea could answer, Carter jumped in to reply. “The name comes from the fact that settlers hoped they might find gold here in the Smokies' streams like the gold being panned in the mountain streams out West.”

“Did they really find gold here in the Smoky Mountains?” Taylor asked.

The tourists looked first at Rhea and then at Carter, not sure who should answer.

Rhea gave Carter an insipid smile. “You know, I think it would be nice if Carter did the rest of the tour. After all, he grew up here, just as I did, and I'm sure he'd enjoy offering his account and memories.”

He turned questioning eyes to hers and Rhea sent him a tightlipped, challenging look. She hoped he fell flat on his face. After all, he hadn't been here for nine years.

Carter's eyes flashed back at her in challenge, and then he turned to the group with enthusiasm. “I rode this tour a million times with Sam Dean, Rhea's father, when I was a boy. It will be my pleasure to do the rest of the tour.”

He directed the group up the steps to the door of the Sutton cabin and then turned to put a finger over his mouth. “If we're all real quiet we might hear the ghost of Jonas Sutton rattling around in the cabin.”

The group gasped.

His voice dropped dramatically to a whisper. “Rumor has it that he still roams this part of the mountains and walks through his old cabin.”

Carter opened the door carefully. “Jonas was a prospector in the 1800s. He panned with his brother on a claim down in Dahlonega, Georgia, and after his brother's death, returned and panned here at the springs on Rocky Creek and at a stake on Porters Creek in Greenbrier.”

He led the group into the cabin with confidence, acting as though he'd been here only yesterday. Rhea seethed. Granted, the old cabin had hardly changed a whit, with the same dented gold pans hanging on the walls and the same spade and shovel leaning against the fireplace. The furnishings still included a battered table and chairs, a rocker by the fireplace, a few tin dishes and personal items on a rough sideboard, and an iron bedstead draped with a faded quilt. But Rhea had added a display table in the cabin with artifacts under glass inside it—plus old photos on the wall above it.

Spotting the new table right away, Carter walked over to study it covertly while he talked about the other simple furnishings in the room and reiterated how harsh life was for mountaineers in the 1800s.

“Jonas Sutton was murdered here in 1850.” He pointed toward the fireplace. “That dark stain on the floor in front of the fireplace is thought to be a blood stain from where his body was found.”

Cecily gasped and jumped back from the spot.

Kent laughed. “Who killed him?”

“Authorities never found the murderer. Legend has it Jonas was killed to learn where he'd hidden his gold stash. Whenever he got liquored up, he foolishly bragged about all the gold he was savin' for his old age.”

Ralph McMahan picked up one of the battered gold pans to study it. “Did the murderer get the gold?”

“Rumors from that time say no. Family and friends said Jonas would have died before he told where he'd hidden it—and most think that's exactly what happened.”

Several in the group looked up in interest. “Was the gold ever found?” Cecily asked, wide-eyed.

Carter shook his head. “No, and no one is really sure if Jonas ever really had much gold. Still, those who panned around Dahlonega, Georgia, found some big stashes. And there are accounts that say Jonas went over to pan a stake around Franklin one year, too. Gemstones were found in that area—rubies, amethysts, emeralds, garnets, topaz.” He smiled at the group. “It's an unsolved mystery in this area that still gets talked about.”

He raised his eyebrows and grinned at Rhea before artfully drawing the group's attention back to the display area. “Two decades before the California gold rush in 1849, a major epidemic of gold fever descended on the streams, creeks, and riverbeds of the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains. The amount of gold found in the Smokies was limited, but an industrious man could pan two dollars a day in gold, an excellent business in those hard times.”

Carter pointed to several quartz rocks in the display case sporting gold veins in them. “Most gold was found in quartz veins like this. Sometimes, when you are hiking in the mountains, you can find quartz pieces similar to these—some with bits of gold or copper running in them. However, most gold was panned from rivulets and brooks in the mountains.”

He discussed a rough map of the area and an old rifle and knife in the display case and then pointed to a small collection of gold pieces in a tin box. “Prospectors had different names for the gold pieces they found. Small bits like these—large enough to pick out of the pan with one's fingers—were called ‘pickers.' Bigger pieces, which could weigh up to several ounces or pounds if a prospector was lucky, were called ‘nuggets.' Gold pieces larger than nuggets were rare in this area.”

Carter turned to the group. “Most of the gold in the Appalachian region was found along a forty- to fifty-mile-wide belt going through East Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia. You can still prospect for gold in the Smokies—but you need a gold prospecting permit from the ranger station to do it.”

Kent leaned forward with interest. “Do people still find gold in the Smokies?”

“Some people still do, Kent, and a few tourist venues capitalize on this by offering sites to encourage tourists to pan.” Carter grinned. “Generally, these locations stock a little gold or a few flecks of gemstones in the panning areas to make their tourists happy.”

McMahan considered this thoughtfully. “With gold having seen a 20 percent increase in value lately—and with the price of gold now up to nine hundred dollars an ounce, it might be worth getting out the pans again and hitting the streams.” He laughed. “I read that some professional panners make sixty to eighty dollars a day panning around the Appalachian region. That's not bad money while you're having a little fun.”

The college kids began to talk enthusiastically about doing a panning expedition as Carter led the group out of the cabin and back down to the tram.

To her increasing irritation, Carter led the rest of the tour with equal aplomb and success. Rhea only barely kept her anger in check. She had no idea how he'd learned so much about gold mining in the area or how he remembered so much about Laurel Springs history after all these years. She could have kicked herself for handing the tour over to him.

In addition, Carter shared personal memories as he led the rest of the tour, memories Rhea didn't want to remember. His eyes found hers often as he shared these old stories.

At the elaborate gazebo by the lake, he talked about how couples often danced there in the moonlight. “When you're in love,” he said softly, “you make your own music.”

Rhea felt color rise in her cheeks. She and Carter had danced in the gazebo many times at night to music from a transistor radio, or to no music at all, just for the chance to be close and to hold each other. She focused her eyes out toward the raft built in the middle of the lake to avoid looking at Carter.

“There's the raft my dad can swim to.” Taylor pointed toward the raft in excitement. “My dad said he and Rhea used to skinny-dip here at night sometimes when no one could see and they'd swim out to the raft.”

The group tittered and passed knowing looks to one another. Rhea thought she would die on the spot. This certainly didn't help the professional image she was trying to maintain.

“We were very young then.” She smiled at Taylor. “About your age.”

Carter moved closer to her as they walked up the path back to the tram. “We weren't
always
small when we skinny-dipped,” he whispered.

She jerked away from him in annoyance.

At the old one-room schoolhouse, the last point on the tour, Carter finally turned the tour graciously back over to Rhea. “I'm going to let Rhea close out the tour for you here at the school,” he said. “She knows more about the history of the Laurel Springs School than I do—especially since it was her great-grandmother, Rhea Ansley Dean, who restored the log schoolhouse and taught classes for the local children.”

He smiled at Rhea. “Rhea often dresses in costume and teaches classes here to show outsiders what school was like in the 1800s. You should stop by when her school hours are scheduled and sit in to sample the experience.”

Rhea, embarrassed and surprised at the compliment, stumbled over her words for a few minutes as she settled back into the tour discussion. She talked about the history of the school as she led her visitors through the log building, and then she drove the group back to the old meeting grounds, where the tour had begun.

Several in the group had established friendships by the time the tour ended. And the college kids were full of plans to go panning for gold, to take both hikes to the old cemetery areas, and to hike up High Ridge behind the Sutton place to catch the Lower Mount Cammerer Trail inside the Smokies park boundary.

“Thanks for letting us take your tour.” Taylor offered his hand to Rhea in a surprisingly adult manner.

She shook his hand. “I hope you had a good time.”

His eyes shone. “I did. And Dad's going to take me and Beau swimming next and then Grandpa's going to let me ride with him on his tractor.”

“That's nice.” Rhea tried to smile again, but the strain of the day was wearing on her.

“I
love
Laurel Springs,” Taylor enthused. “And me and Beau are getting to be the bestest friends. Just like you and Dad were.” He paused. “Dad says we're probably going to stay here to live and not go back to California.” His eyes shone. “We're going to build our own house where the Costner cabin ruins are. That's on Low Ridge not too far from your house. You told us about that place today, remember?”

Rhea nodded. She felt sick. The site of the Costner cabin ruins had always been a favorite tryst spot for her and Carter. They sat against the old rock chimney on the hillside many times planning how they would build a house there one day.

She felt Carter's brown eyes probing hers and busied herself collecting weekly schedules from off the tram seat. Then she studied her watch.

“I need to go now.” Rhea attempted another smile. “I'm supposed to work in the store this afternoon for a few hours to cover for Jeannie, and before that time I need to do some work in the office.”

She turned toward the administrative building.

Carter's voice started behind her. “See ya later. . . .”

“Don't finish that, Carter.” She turned to frown at him, knowing the next words would be
and love you forever, Rhea Dean
. “The past can't be recaptured. You need to keep that in mind.”