A Widow's Curse (21 page)

It came to me. “You're right!”

“I know I'm right,” he groused.

“A little rusty on my Georgia history,” Andrews said, raising his hand.

“President Andrew Jackson wanted to remove all the Indians from Georgia to Oklahoma or somewhere, take away their land,” I said.

“It went through the courts, but eventually it all came down to the Trail of Tears.” Skid stared at the map.

I had a great moment of melancholy realizing that nearly everyone in the world to whom that alphabet had meant so much was now gone—passed into history and longing.

“This sounds familiar.” Andrews sat back. “We talked about this before, in connection with the Barnsley estate.”

“We did,” I said to Skid.

“But this alphabet—,” Andrews began.

“It is amazing.” I stared down at the impossible letters. “Sequoyah took twelve years to complete it. He was a silversmith, you know. All he wanted when he started the project was a way to sign his own name to the work. He tried pictographs first, but he realized that his alphabet would have to be thousands of letters, so he created a symbol for every syllable in the spoken language.”

“Like the Japanese,” Andrews interjected.

“Actually Phoenician in origin,” I corrected, “but the point is, he developed something like eighty symbols, and it became the written language of the Cherokee nation.”

“It's a very poetic name, Talking Leaves.” Andrews couldn't take his eyes off the mysterious words written on the map.

“In fact,” I pointed out, “it was primarily derisive. The Cherokee felt that most English words would dry up and blow away like leaves when the words were no longer suited to a political purpose.”

“Really an amazing thing to have done,” Skid said, “if you consider that this man put together an alphabet in a few years, when it took most other civilizations on the planet a couple of thousand.”

“And it was apparently easy for the Cherokees to use. If you could speak the language, you could learn to read or write it in a few weeks.”

Andrews touched one of the letters.

“But who can read it now?” He looked up. “They're all gone, aren't they?”

“A forlorn question,” I admitted, “but I've been thinking about just that. As luck would have it, there's a happy answer. When I was in graduate school, I was fascinated by a bit of oral folk collection done in the late 1800s by a man named James Mooney. I must have read his ‘Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology' a hundred times. It prompted me to seek out a man named Dan Battle, a Blue Mountain resident, who clamed to be a descendent of several Cherokee families who hid in these woods around here and managed to avoid relocation.”

“How did they do that?” Andrews was surprisingly fascinated.

“It wasn't hard,” Skid said before I could. “The Treaty of New Echota was signed in 1835, but the so-called legal relocation didn't happen until 1838. That gave a lot of the Cherokee time to figure things out.”

“Where did you say they were supposed to be relocated to?” Andrews scowled.

“Oklahoma.” Skid shook his head. “They were marched from Georgia to Oklahoma.”

“And that's the Trail of Tears.”

“Right.” Skid swallowed.

“Jesus,” Andrews said a little too harshly, “it's a wonder they
all
didn't die. The United States government—I mean, sorry, but where do you people get the nerve?”

“I would imagine it comes from the same source,” I countered slowly, “that allowed the English government to annex India.”

“Point taken.” Andrews sat back.

“The first guy they got to take the Cherokee away,” Skid went on, “was a general named John Wool.”

“Can you tell history was Skidmore's favorite subject in school?” I asked Andrews.

“He resigned his command in protest,” Skidmore went on. “The general they got to replace him, Winfield Scott, had seven thousand men with him. In the summer of 1838, the United States Army began what could only be called ‘the invasion of a sovereign nation.'”

I stared at the map, going over all the parts of it that said, plainly, “Cherokee Nation.”

“But some of them evaded Scott, you're telling me.” Andrews nodded, also looking down at the map. “I can see how that could happen. There must be a thousand places just around your house where a whole group of people could hide.”

Skid nodded.

“And your friend—what was his name? He was one,” Andrews said after a moment.

“Well, his family was. Dan Battle is his name.”

“And he can read this.” Andrews tapped the map.

“He once told me he could.” I sighed. “He's a sort of self-styled Cherokee shaman.”

“Then why are you still sitting here with us? Call the man.”

“Right.” I stood.

“You're not going without a police escort,” Skid said casually.

“What?” I was about to argue.

“If you go anywhere else without telling me for the next six months,” he said plainly, also rising, “I will hunt you down with my pistol in my hand. So I believe I'll get someone to carry you over there to Mr. Battle's. Just to avoid the appearance of impropriety.”

Andrews and I both glared.

“You really have taken to this sheriffing business,” I accused. “That's the sentiment of a politician.”

“You make your call,” he responded wearily, “I'll make mine.”

Less than a half hour later, I was in a squad car with Crawdad Pritchett, map in hand.

“I'm really glad the sheriff called me,” Crawdad said for the third time.

“You told me that.” I was still a bit perturbed about having an escort.

“I mean, Dan Battle is kind of a hero of mine.”

Crawdad's eyes were locked onto the treacherous mountain road. We were climbing through thick pines on a dirt road. A darker gravity was jealous of our assent toward light and did its best to prevent it.

“He is?” I couldn't imagine why.

“I mean, what he does and all.”

“Dan Battle is a real estate broker.” I tried not to sound too condescending.

“Naw.” Crawdad laughed like a teenager. “That's just what he does for a living.”

“I'm not sure what you mean, then.”

“Sure you do.” His smile seemed a permanent fixture. “You more than most. What he
really
does is, you know, magic tricks.”

He'd whispered the last two words so softly that I wasn't certain I'd heard him correctly.

“I mean, his stories are great and all,” Crawdad went on, “and I could listen to them all day. I expect you've heard every one. But when he does those tricks—they say he's as good as your dad was back in the older days. Your dad was the best, everybody says. Of course, I never saw him.”

The road had gotten even steeper. It was little more than a rut, and I feared that gravity might win our war. Great granite boulders were beginning to replace the pine trees, a certain sign that we were achieving the top of the mountain. The day was opening up, but it was too soon to tell if the sky would clear; low-flying rain clouds were moving in.

A few words from a boy named Crawdad, and my entire nervous system had sizzled. In the first place, I was chastising myself for thinking of Dan Battle as a real estate salesman instead of a folk genius, the living repository of invaluable information. In the second place, I was confused by Crawdad's reference to my father's magic act. And finally, I was embarrassed that I didn't know anything about Dan's life other than the stories I'd gotten out of him years before, preserved for my files on a trusty Wollens tape recorder. At that moment, I could not even have told anyone alive where those tapes were in the jumble of my office.

Crawdad seemed to sense my discomfort, if not its source.

“Sorry, Dr. Devilin,” he said, easing up on the accelerator. “I ride up around here all the time and I forget the road can be a little—You got you some carsick?”

“No.” I rubbed my face. “I'm fine. I didn't know Dan Battle was a magician.”

Confession is good for the soul.

“You're kidding! Everybody knows that.”

Also good for derision, apparently.

“Our discussions were more along the lines of his Cherokee heritage.” I was hedging.

“That's what I'm talking about.”

Crawdad slowed the car almost to a stop, and I realized that the landscape around us was suddenly golden. We'd made it over a ridge, and the car had leveled off. Accustomed as I was to the so-called scenic overlook, what I saw out the window absolutely stopped my heart for a beat or two.

We were above the clouds. All around us, the sun was glazing everything, blazing rocks and blasting shadows. White birds of light filled the sky, and I could barely tell the difference between land and air.

Clear light shocked the tops of the clouds, turned them to roses and wheat. They looked solid enough to walk on, and I had the light-headed sensation that we were in another world.

“God.” It was the only syllable that seemed appropriate.

“Yeah.” Crawdad, too, was mesmerized.

After a moment, I deliberately turned my concentration to the matters at hand.

“Dan Battle used to be in town when I knew him.” I looked around for a cabin. “He's up here now?”

“That place in town, it's just for the tourists in the summer.” Crawdad opened his car door. “This is where he lives.”

Crawdad started off toward a large granite outcropping, and I spent a foolish moment wondering if Dan Battle lived in a cave.

“It's over here,” Crawdad called.

I got out of the car and followed. It was still a bit difficult to see anything in all that light. I rounded the edge of one of the biggest boulders, and there was his home.

Designed very much like a Tudor bungalow, wood beams and raw stone, the house was perfectly set in nature. It faced due east; a small mountain stream ran close by on the southern side; tall shade trees at the west kept hot afternoon sun from troubling the place. There was a stone walkway leading to the front door, lined with white impatiens. The garden bed in front of the house was more adventurous: Strange celosia rose over black sedum, burgundy-leafed cuphea shot white spires into the air, and some sort of flowering moss acted as perfect groundcover. I barely had time to remind myself that I would never have known any of those plants but for Lucinda, when Dan Battle appeared in the doorway, beaming.

“Fever!”

Dan was dressed in purple Hawaiian shirt and old blue jeans, but clothes did not belie his true bear nature. Before I knew what was happening, he had moved down the walkway and crushed me into a near-fatal hug. I was trying to think of what to say, when he moved away from me.

“Crawdad!”

Crawdad received the same greeting.

“Skidmore called and said you'uns would be up this way.” Dan turned without looking and strode back into his house.

Crawdad followed; I stood dazed for a moment.

The Dan Battle I remembered was a mysterious, nearly wordless sage, given to darker moods. The man who had just crushed me was an American Santa Claus on summer vacation.

“Come on in,” he called from the recesses of his home. “I've got martinis!”

 

It didn't take long to suss out the reasons for Dan Battle's personality shift. In town, he was sober, even grouchy, answering tourist questions about Indian history and great conflicts. Even when he had talked to me in my official capacity, he'd been rightly guarded. I was twenty, and my questions had carried with them all the arrogance of youth. As I sat in his perfect living room, filled with antiques, sipping something called a lemon martini, I understood why Crawdad held him in such high regard. His greatest magic trick had been his native persona. The real Dan Battle was, without question, the most delightful man I had ever met.

“Mr. Battle,” Crawdad was explaining to me quietly, “takes him a feather, any feather, and he can turn it into a bird. I'm serious with you. I seen him do it.”

Crawdad had eschewed a martini in favor of cherry Coke, complaining that he was on duty.

“Wasn't hard.” Dan winked at me—actually winked. “God's the one who got it started. He made the essence of the bird and put it in the wing. I just finished the job for Him. He's kind of busy at the moment.”

“Bird flies off,” Crawdad told me, nodding. “Right up into the sky. Best trick I ever saw.”

“Dr. Devilin didn't come here to talk about magic tricks,” Dan said, smiling. “He's got something interesting to show me.”

Dan's living room was larger than I'd expected when I'd been looking at the outside of the house. Hardwood floors were covered by ancient Persian rugs. The fireplace seemed to have been carved from a single huge stone and the design was ornate, almost medieval. The ceilings were high, and light poured in, but the room was cool. It could have been a finer home in any city in the world.

“I do have something of a conundrum.” I unfurled the map and turned it so that Dan could see.

“Say.” He moved closer, setting down his martini. “That's Talking Leaves.”

“That's what I thought.” I handed him the map.

“And this is the last map—I mean, it's a copy, but it's the last official map of Georgia that includes Cherokee land.”

Except for the coast and a few lowland holdings, most of Georgia had been marked “Cherokee Nation” on the map.

“Let me see.” Dan held the map closer to his face, leaned back, adjusted the angle to get more light.

A few moments of silence passed. The air in the home was clean and clear, filled with oxygen. I noticed what looked like a large sunroom filled with plants toward the back of the house.

“This is really something.” He wasn't smiling. “I think this is a note from your dad.”

“My father?”

Crawdad sat up.

“Something about a Cherokee artifact.”

“I didn't know he could write in that language.” I hadn't meant to whisper, but I couldn't seem to make my throat work properly.

“Yeah,” Dan said, staring at the map, demeanor darkening. “Says so right here: Your mom was frightened by the thing, the artifact, for some reason. She said it was bad luck and made your dad bury it out in the yard. Your backyard, I guess.”

“It's buried in my backyard?” Repetition is the earmark of the dumbfounded.

He stared at the letters of the Talking Leaves.

“Says right here: ‘between two cedars next to the mossy boulder.'” He looked up. “That make sense to you?”

I think I nodded.

“Well then, you have to go dig it up. You have to take it back where it belongs.”

“What? Why?”

“This particular object,” Dan said, “if I'm reading it right, was used in a very nasty way.”

“What way?” Crawdad managed to ask, nearly as hushed as I was.

Dan looked back down at the map, smile completely gone.

“It was very potent.” Dan set the map down on the table between us. “A water curse. Of course, we wouldn't have used the word
curse
exactly, but it comes out to the same thing. It could kill.”

“Come on.” But my protestation was halfhearted at best.

Dan started to say something, clearly thought better of it, and changed tack.

“It's up to you, since the item is in your possession. You have to find out where it was originally placed, what water it was cursing, and take it back there, if you can. This is very important, Fever. I'm not fooling around. You can't have that thing in your yard. It's doing you a lot of harm—maybe has done for a lot of years.”

All I could think of at that moment was how strange my family life had been, how silent my father was, how wild my mother became.

“How the hell did you dad get ahold of it?” Dan's face was ashen.

“My great-grandfather, Conner, bought it at an auction a long time ago.”

Dan's eyes narrowed, and I could tell he was about to ask me more.

“How in the hell—excuse my language—could you ever find out where that thing had originally been put down? I mean, how would you ever know what body of water it was meant to curse?” Crawdad shook his head.

“You could ask any Cherokee you know.” Dan's face was carved in granite; there was not a hint of levity. “But it's up to the owner, the one who possesses the thing. Personally, I'd like to find out a little bit more about how your kin got ahold of this in the first place—and why. Can you help me with that, Dr. Devilin?”

“Are you saying you know where this belongs,” I asked him slowly, “but you can't tell me?”

He nodded.

So Dan Battle was a genuine resident of Blue Mountain, a trove of hidden treasure, as stubborn and mysterious as Hek and June Cotage.

I did my best to keep my face from revealing what my mind knew, as well. At that moment, I felt I absolutely had to keep it all a secret.