Lovely in Her Bones (8 page)

Elizabeth stowed the crate in a corner of the site tent. “I just put my folks to bed,” she told Mary Clare. “Do you need me for anything else?”

Mary Clare shook her head. “I’m about ready to pack it in myself. Maybe the guys will be back from town by now.”

“Well, if they are, tell Milo I’ll see him later. I’m going to find the Wise Woman of the Woods.”

“More power to you,” laughed Mary Clare. “I’ve got all the wise guys I can stand right here.”

    Although she had acquired a certain regional reputation, Amelanchier Stecoah was by no means easy to find. Outlanders seeking her advice had to park their cars at the church and follow a footpath through the woods, which, after a twenty-minute walk, mostly uphill, stopped in a clearing sheltered by a wooded ridge. At the end of the path, a crudely hand-lettered sign, the twin of the one on the highway, proclaimed:
WISE WOMAN OF THE WOODS LIVES HERE
. Smaller printing below advised: “If Door Locked, Ring Yard Bell or Rad a Note.” A large brass bell was mounted on a post in front of an unpainted wooden shack. Elizabeth decided to try the porch door before ringing the bell.

“Hello?” she called out. “Anybody home?”

“Just got back!” answered a cheerful voice from within. “Come on in.”

Elizabeth edged her way past an old wooden icebox and a cardboard box full of letters. The room was small and crowded, but the sprightly old lady in jeans and a denim workshirt was no martyr to poverty. Her eyes sparkled behind gold-rimmed glasses, and she jumped up to greet Elizabeth.

“And who might you be?” she asked in a tone suggesting
that she’d be pleased to meet you whatever the answer.

Elizabeth introduced herself and explained that she was with the dig arranged by Amelanchier’s son.

The old lady nodded at the mention of Comfrey’s name. “He’s the ambitious one of the bunch. Allus was.”

“He said that it would be all right for me to visit with you. I’m very interested in herbs.”

“I reckon you came to the right place then. Will you be wanting to go out gathering? I was just fixing to go get me some ginseng.”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened. Ginseng had been discussed in reverent tones in her folk medicine class. Hailed as a cure for everything from the common cold to cancer, it sold for $140 a pound for export from the Orient. “Do you think you’ll find any?”

Amelanchier snorted at such a tomfool question. “We got a woods full of poplar trees. That’s where it grows. ’Course we’ll find some. Pick up that basket and follow along.”

She led the way past a small shed beside her house, picking her way up the ridge through underbrush and around fallen logs. “Now you only want to pick the old plants,” she told Elizabeth, lecturing as she walked. “Them young ones won’t bring much nohow. Their roots are no bigger’n a peanut. And another thing: when you pick sang—ginseng, you folks call it—you always want to pick off that red berry that grows between the twigs, and you want to plant it. If you do that, why, there’ll be a plant growing there the next time you go a-hunting it.”

Elizabeth nodded, wishing she’d had the sense to bring a notepad with her. “How did you learn so much about wild plants?”

“Handed down in my family,” said the old woman. She stooped to examine a small three-branched plant near the base of a tree. “My grandfather did the root medicine when I was a girl, and he taught me. Indians
allus been close to the land. You know how there come to be healing plants in the first place?”

Elizabeth shook her head. She knelt beside Amelanchier and watched her uproot the small plant and carefully rebury the strawberrylike fruit.

“You want to watch how you kneel down out here in the woods,” Amelanchier warned her. “Those copperheads blend right in with the underbrush. And you oughtn’t to jump up quick like that, neither. Slow, steady movements is the best. Got to look out for snakes this time of year; bears mostly minds their own business. Animals aren’t our friends, though, the way the plants are. That’s how the healing plants come about. Back in olden times, when people could still talk to other living things and be talked back to, there was peace among us. But by and by, man began to get above hisself, wanting bearskins to keep him warm, and deer meat for supper, fish for fertilizer. Man became a danger to his fellow creatures. So all the animal folk of the world had a meeting and decided that something would have to be done about it.”

“What did they do?”

Amelanchier dropped another root into the basket. “They brought disease into the world. The bear clan called down rheumatism on every hunter who killed without apologizing to the hunted one, and the deer people wished influenza and colds on those who were ungrateful for the animal hides that kept them warm. Pretty soon every beast and bird had come up with some ailment or another to wish on brother man, till it looked like there wouldn’t be a soul to survive it.”

“What did man do about it?”

“Wasn’t nothing he could do. That would have been the end of us if it hadn’t been for the fact that the plants were our friends. When they heard all these awful things being called up by the animal clans, they decided to help man out. So every tree, shrub,
grass, herb, moss—every growing thing decided that it would cure one of those evils. And they do, right down to this day. And when you learn which plant cures which evil—why, you’re practicing medicine.”

“So plants are our friends,” mused Elizabeth, looking at the basket of roots.

“Yep. That’s why I named every one of my young’uns after one. There’s Laurel and Stargrass and Yarrow and Comfrey. He’s my youngest, Comfrey is. Rest of ’em went off and got jobs in the big city. Reckon they’ll be back when they get to be my age.”

“Does Comfrey live with you?” asked Elizabeth, thinking of the tiny cabin.

Amelanchier smiled. “He couldn’t hardly stand all the company I have. No, Comfrey’s got him a little place down in the valley. He comes up to see me, though, ’bout ever’ day or so. He sure is worried about this mining business the Harknesses are pushing for. He reckons it’ll come to us losing the whole valley.”

“We’re not going to let that happen,” Elizabeth assured her.

“Now how do you’uns aim to prove that we’re entitled to the land? We don’t have proof like the Cherokees got—stuff that looks good in a museum for the tourists. We come from the Unaka people, and them folks in Washington ought to take our word for it.”

Elizabeth smiled at Amelanchier’s idea of the workings of the federal government. She explained the basics of forensic anthropology, and the amazing process of determining age, sex, and race from the examination of a skull. In her enthusiasm, Elizabeth sounded much more expert than she actually was, but Amelanchier did not seem particularly impressed. She continued to scour the ground with a practiced eye, occasionally uprooting a small plant or picking a few leaves from a shrub.

“I’m doing the skull measurements myself!” said Elizabeth triumphantly.

“And you can tell all that?” murmured Amelanchier politely.

“Well, no,” Elizabeth admitted. “Dr. Lerche can, of course. I just make measurements for him to check over later. So far he hasn’t had time to look at them. He’s setting up a computer in Laurel Cove.”

Amelanchier straightened up and looked at the fading sky. “I reckon we ought to be starting back,” she announced. “You come on back with me, and we’ll talk some more about plants if you’ve a mind to. Is there anything in particular you’d like to know?” She eyed Elizabeth appraisingly. “I’ve got a sody cure that’ll take weight off’n anybody.”

Elizabeth blushed. “I’d like to hear it. I wish I could get another one of our diggers up here to see you. He’s allergic to
everything.
Food, dust, bees, cats—everything! Do you have any medicine that would help that?”

“Why, ginseng ought to help some with it. I’ll give you some of my powdered stock, and you take it back there to your camp and burn it, and make your friend inhale the smoke.”

“Is it expensive?” asked Elizabeth doubtfully. She knew that ginseng brought fabulous prices, and that Victor was not worth a fraction of such an expenditure.

“Shoot far,” scoffed Amelanchier. “I don’t charge nothing. Plants just grow wild in the woods, don’t they? They don’t cost me nothing. Now, how would you like to stay for supper? I got a coon Comfrey shot laying up in my freezer, and we could have him with beans and cornbread.”

Elizabeth hesitated. “It’s very kind of you to ask me, but I’ve never … I mean, what does raccoon taste like?”

“Just like bear!” was Amelanchier’s instant reply.

T
HE MOONLIGHT
did not illuminate the gravesite. From the granite ridge above, it looked like a large black square set down among the trees.

“I don’t guess you can tell too much from here,” said Mary Clare.

“I didn’t come up here to look at it,” Alex answered. “But I’ve inspected at closer range. You’re doing a fine job as site manager.”

“I enjoy it, Dr.—Alex.”

He looked up at the night sky. “This whole experience of roughing it out here makes me feel young again. You know, when I was still a grad student, Tessa and I used to spend summers in the desert …” He stopped, realizing that Mary Clare had stiffened at the mention of his wife’s name. “I guess those days are gone,” he finished lamely.

Mary Clare touched his arm. “They don’t have to be.”

“It’s not the same any more. When you’re first starting out, you think you’re going to be another Darwin. Revolutionize the field. But after a while, you’re like those poor beasts in the La Brea Tar Pits: you’re bogged down in mortgages and lectures and bridge games.”

“I know, Alex, but it shouldn’t be like that. What you need is someone who cares about your work instead of just your salary.”

Lerche winced. He’d forgotten how melodramatic people could sound when they were courting. She’s very young, he thought. But isn’t that how I wanted to feel—young again? Suddenly—Alex wasn’t quite
sure how—he was holding her. An inborn urge to caution made him ask, “Won’t the others be wondering about us?”

“They’ll think we’re working,” whispered Mary Clare, without really considering it. “Shhh!”

    “Hello!” said Elizabeth loudly to all the people she expected to find in the Sunday school room. A moment later, when she looked around, she saw that the only people present were Jake, reading a book, and Victor, who was working on a scale drawing of the site. “Where are Dr. Lerche and Mary Clare?”

“Out necking,” said Jake, turning a page. “You want dinner?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “I had dinner with Amelanchier. Where’s Milo?”

“He came back to eat and waited around for you, but when Dr. Lerche went off with Mary Clare, he said he was going back to work on the computer, and he stomped out.”

Elizabeth sat down at the table beside Jake. “Milo’s been awfully edgy lately,” she mused.

“Like a bear,” nodded Victor without looking up. “Too much caffeine, I expect.”

“No, I think it’s something—emotional,” said Elizabeth, groping for the word. “He seems upset about something.”

Jake eyed her warily. “This is an interesting book I’m reading,” he remarked. “It’s about the Cherokees.”

“If you’re interested in Indian lore, you ought to go up and talk to Amelanchier. I went out gathering with her this afternoon, and she told me all sorts of wonderful stories. Oh, and, Victor, she sent you an allergy cure.”

Victor looked up suspiciously from his map. “She what?”

“I told her that you were allergic to the immediate
world, and she said that if you will inhale the smoke of this ginseng—what are you laughing at?”

Victor favored her with a condescending smile. “My parents have spent thousands of dollars taking me to the best allergy specialists in Washington. I don’t need the service of the local witch doctor, thank you.”

“You never know, Victor,” grinned Jake. “After all, penicillin started out as bread mold. Maybe she has an old Indian miracle drug.”

“You don’t have to tell
me
about Indians, Jake. My great-grandmother was a Cherokee princess.” With a self-righteous nod, Victor returned to his drawing.

Jake sighed. “I’ve been waiting for that one,” he whispered to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth braced herself for another shouting match, and she was surprised when none was forthcoming. Jake turned again to his book, apparently unaffected by Victor’s latest claim. She walked to the window, looking for the shine of headlights that would signal Milo’s return, but the road was dark. Since she wasn’t hungry and didn’t owe anyone a letter, she began to wander about the room, peering over Victor’s shoulder at his drawing and studying the plaques and pictures on the wall. A sepia photograph of some bygone Sunday school class attracted her attention.

“That’s funny!” she said aloud.

“What?” asked Jake, turning a page.

“This picture must be fifty years old judging from the outfits they’re wearing, but the people look just the same.”

“Mountain witch woman discovers elixir to keep people from aging,” Jake intoned without looking up.

“Idiot! That’s not what I meant. Of course they’re different people, but they’re just as much of a hodgepodge as the ones today. Blonds, people with dark straight hair, people with dark kinky hair, light
ones, dark ones. I thought that the farther back you went, the more pure Indian they’d look.”

“Not the Cullowhees,” Jake told her cheerfully. “They’ve always been like that.”

Elizabeth considered this. “What do you think of them?” she asked. “Are they the Zone Six people?”

Jake shook his head. “I’m no expert, but for what it’s worth, I think Lerche’s wrong about the Cherokees being recent invaders. I think they’ve been in these mountains all along.”

“That’s not what Amelanchier told me. She—”

“Where’s Alex?”

They turned to see Milo standing in the doorway, pale and breathless. Jake and Elizabeth glanced at each other, and silently agreed to an edited version of the truth.

“He’s out walking,” Elizabeth answered lightly. “He should be back soon. Come in and let me tell you about—”

“Not now, Elizabeth!” snapped Milo, slamming the door behind him.