Mighty Old Bones (8 page)

“Betty, don’t you have a little dog?”

“Sure do.” She wasn’t chewing gum, but I could smell Juicy Fruit. I understood. We’re both old school. Our mamas taught us that ladies may not chew gum in public. It’s trashy. She had a wad stuck in the roof of her mouth. I’ve done it a thousand times myself. The wad would also explain the slight lisp when she said, “Sure.”

“What kind of dog is it?” I said.

“She’s a Yorkie-poo.”

“Oh,” I said like I was impressed. I had no idea what she was talking about. “What’s her name?”

“Peekie-boo.”

Good grief. I forced myself to keep a straight face. “And about how big is a Dorkie-poo?”

Betty held her hands out about a foot apart. I told her about Rowdy. You would have thought I told her I had a new baby grandchild from the way she carried on. She showed me what kind of food Peekie-boo liked. I bought what she suggested, which I was happy to see had a much better price tag than the other stuff, and also picked up a few other little things, like a special comb. I figured I might as well make it easier on myself even if Rowdy wouldn’t be staying with me very long.

W
hen I heard the kettle rattle, I rose and poured myself a cup of tea. Phoebe wouldn’t be arriving for our walk for some time yet. I thought I’d read the previous day’s newspaper while I waited. I was about to take a sip but, slowly and with great care, I set my grandmother’s china cup into its saucer with a slight tremor. I stared at the front page. I blinked hard and blinked again.

“Good heavens,” I whispered. Homer, lying by the door, raised his large square head from atop his front paws and gave me a questioning look.

“Sorry. It’s just that the newspaper is behaving strangely.”

He rose and walked to me, sitting before my chair and cocking his head. He gave me an incredulous look. “Yes, you’re quite right,” I said. “Actually, it isn’t the newspaper that’s misbehaving at all, is it, love? It’s me. I’m afraid it’s happening again, dear.”

I set the newspaper down and sighed. I rubbed my eyes. What should have been simple print in black and white on the page was something completely different. Part of the print had a yellow glow, as if a ghostly hand had highlighted the text.

I tried to ignore it. I got up and started a load of laundry. I dusted the living room and dining room. Finally, armed with another cup of tea, I faced the paper once again.

Enough dithering, I thought. What I needed was an objective opinion. I picked up the newspaper and turned it toward Homer.

“You see? No matter how I turn it, this section is yellow.” He gave a single bark that sounded more like a word. I was unsure if it was one that confirmed or denied my own assessment.

I gave the rest of the paper a glance, turning through the pages in search of other highlighted passages. There were none.

“Well, then. I suppose I should give attention to the article. On the off chance that it is actually yellow, you understand.” He blinked. Since he remained seated there beside me, I thought it a small courtesy to read aloud for his benefit.

“‘Local Man Missing,’ it says in the heading. ‘Sheriff John Bailey has phoned us here at the
Day-Herald
to let everyone know that Junie Reed has reported her father, Brody Reed, is missing again. As you all know, Brody frequently goes off into the woods for days on his own. This time, Junie is a little worried since we have storms predicted. This wouldn’t ordinarily be of any concern to her. Brody is probably the best woodsman in these parts. “This time,” Junie says, “I’m worried because Daddy has been getting forgetful lately.” This is a valid concern, as some readers will remember his last spell got him lost in downtown Tullulah. Junie asks that if anyone has seen him in the last few days to please call her or the sheriff’s department “He knows these woods better than anybody, and has survived in a lot worse conditions outside. At his age though, and with the bad weather coming, I’d feel better if he was home.” ’”

I set the paper down and sipped my tea. Homer returned to his rug. Puzzling. Why was that name familiar? I’d ask Phoebe about it. No doubt she could give me the names of all Brody Reed’s family members, their ages and occupations, and what his life had been like since birth. Her knowledge of personal histories in Tullulah astounds me.

I had almost finished reading the paper when Homer uttered a soft growl. He was on his feet without a sound and off quickly. This wasn’t unusual behavior. In the last few weeks, he’d taken to staying inside with me after our breakfast. Quite often, at about the same time of morning, he’d done just this, perked up his head and padded off to find the source of a noise I had yet to hear myself. In the first few instances, I followed him to the kitchen door. He always sat and looked at me expectantly, asking, I assumed, to be let out. I obliged, and every time he trotted down the porch steps and to the old shed twenty yards or so behind the house.

Nothing ever came of his searches. I would watch him sniff around the small building where I stored tools and sundry items. He never flushed a small animal out, and he would trot back to the door a few minutes later, his imaginary search as security guard done.

This time, I walked outside with him. We still had fog, but it now lay like a thin covering over the grass. As he made his way across the grass, I, too, heard a sound. It was faint, but unmistakably a voice. Or so I thought at the time. I couldn’t make out any words, only the emotion behind them. Fear.

Homer’s sleek figure moved quickly through the ankle-high fog, his nose touching the ground as he made a circuit around the shed. We stood, waiting. Nothing but a slight stirring in the wind moved until Homer’s ears swiveled forward.

He padded slowly to the shed’s door without a sound. His body went rigid, like a pointer showing his master the hidden prey’s location. I froze as well. Homer was right. We heard something quiet, almost like a sob.

I told myself it was surely nothing more that a mouse or wild rabbit caught in the shed. Or perhaps it was a dove or some other bird. Still, I hesitated rather than opened the door to see the perfectly good explanation for the sound we heard. I could believe I might be imagining things, but surely Homer was not.

“Is anyone there?” I said softly. “Are you all right?”

Homer, still locked in his stance, suddenly jerked forward, less than an inch, toward the door. His hunting instincts held him back to await my command.

Gathering my courage, I flung open the door. The total darkness inside made it impossible for me to see anything at all at first. There was no electricity to the shed. I made a mental note to bring a flashlight out to set inside the door.

But then, as I stared into the darkness, I saw it, hunched behind a packing crate. I realized the shed’s intruder needed no light to be seen. A choked sound, a cry, came from it, just before it stood quickly, made a run for it, and disappeared. Straight through the wall.

Homer gave chase around the side of the building. I managed to catch a glimpse of the figure, a man who looked real and solid one moment but shimmered like a phantom of smoke the next, a mixture of green and white clothing, running toward the creek that runs near the edge of my backyard. There, he vanished, dissolving into the thicker and much higher fog that enveloped the stream.

Homer barked, confused, circling and walking back and forth at the creek’s bank. He looked side to side, just as I did. He sniffed the ground but with no luck. The apparition was gone.

P
HOEBE ARRIVED AT MY HOUSE WHILE I STILL GATHERED
the tools I thought we might need on our trek. She tapped on the door as she opened it. “It’s me.”

“In the kitchen.” She entered, carrying a plastic Tupperware container filled, I presumed, with her apple danish ring. She wore a deep purple top with matching paisley stretch pants. Her earrings dangled with purple and yellow pansies on the ends. Her red hair, piled on top of her head in her signature style, displayed a hairpin with a small gold ornament amid the curly lockets. “What a lovely pin,” I said.

“Why, thank you. I bought it in Pigeon Forge when Ronald and I went up there for his uncle’s funeral.”

“I can’t quite make out the ornament. A tiny shell?”

“No, it’s a roly-poly bug. They take real ones and dip them in gold leaf or paint them in bright colors. After they’re dead, of course. The gold ones are more expensive.”

“Fascinating. How, um, artistic.” We made our way out of the house. Homer joined us from his ramblings in the backyard. He came up as we crossed the main road that leads into the Anisidi Wildlife Refuge. My own private refuge lay ahead of us.

My benefactor, Cal Prewitt, had left it all to me. We were not related, had not known each other for more than a few weeks, yet he knew that, in me, he had found a kindred spirit. I swore to preserve his woods, just as Cal’s ancestors had preserved them for many generations and as he had done all his life.

He trusted me to find a way to ensure its future, though as yet I didn’t know how I would accomplish such a task. I had no children of my own. It was difficult to know whom to trust, how best to protect it, not just for a few years or decades but forever. We walked across the front meadow toward the woods up ahead.

“When are we going to do some more practicing?” Phoebe asked as we crossed the first stream, one that marked the beginnings of the forest. She inclined her head to the left. There, some one hundred yards away, a number of boulders stood about chest high. Behind them, grass stretched another ten yards or so to the edge of the bluff. Phoebe and I call the boulders our shooting range. I gave her a few lessons when I first moved here and when the land still belonged to Cal. We’ve only been able to practice a couple of times since.

“Whenever you like, dear. I’m still getting used to the fact that I’m the boss now.”

“Yeah, you’ve got full run of the place. You could weave flowers in your hair and hop and skip buck naked around here all day long and nobody would ever know.”

“True. But unlikely.”

Phoebe certainly knew how to surprise me. Prim and old-fashioned one moment, earthy and unpredictable the next. A staunch churchgoer with a hidden wild streak. Her thinly veiled reference to me as a dancing pagan wood sprite who worshipped the forest in the nude made me chuckle. I could see the light of mischief in her eyes. She had managed to combine the two favorite topics she uses to kid me, religion and my love of nature.

Though I haven’t attended a proper church service since I was a teenager, I suppose others here see me as quite conservative. I am British, after all. Rather quiet as well. As to a hippie or naturist wild streak, no, though if Phoebe knew the truth of my background, she might think me decidedly “far out.”

“What have you done with your little dog?” I asked.

Phoebe watched the trail closely as she progressed through the woods. “It’s not my dog. It’s temporary. But he’s fine. He’s in the house. I hope I don’t come home to find my sofa and chairs ripped up with stuffing floating in the air. Boy, this place is a mess,” Phoebe said as we picked up branches that lay across our path. “Now, tell me again what we’re looking for.”

“Cal calls it ‘Rock Wall’ on his map. His notes say it is the highest point of the forest. Depending on which of his notations are correct, we will be looking for a wall. Or a rock overhang. Or a hole in the ground. Or possibly a tree.”

“Well that narrows it down. Did he not know himself? We need to take into account that we’re talking about a guy known to take a nip or two.”

“It’s puzzling. Yes, he did know where it was because he said he covered part of it with brush. Still, he seems to be calling one spot all those things.”

From what I could tell, the site of the rock wall on Cal’s map was not far down the main path, actually wide as a road at this point. Farther along, it narrowed on the map and led to an offshoot cut away to the right and not far into the woods. A main trail that ended at “Rock Wall.” Cal drew a line of dashes, and then showed the main trail picking up again on the other side of whatever “Rock Wall” was. An arrow indicated it continued off the page. At the edge, his shaky lettering spelled a name I recognized.

Above the arrow, the words “Smuggler’s Run” gave me pause. It served as a highway, a major trail that traversed many states from North Carolina to Louisiana. Both it and the side path we turned on were passable by car now, but only just. Cal must have driven this way often, for it was quite wide and remarkably clear—other than the storm debris—for a road so far into the woods.

I was thankful Cal had been so ardent in keeping the trails clear and easy to follow. The land rose gently at first, but as the woods thinned, we steadily climbed, higher and higher, until we reached a ridge. We stopped there and found ourselves looking across a wide clearing, one that appeared both natural and designed. The rock floor of the clearing stretched out to an overlook to the valley far below. The view took our breath away. The green flat pastureland looked tiny and miles away. Sometimes I forget how high in the mountain both the town of Tullulah and my own place here on its outskirts sit.

“Is this the place?” Phoebe said.

We each looked across the clearing at the same time. Both of us saw the remains of a low rock wall to the left of the clearing and continuing out of sight. As we looked in that direction, we saw the other map feature a distance behind the wall where the tree line began, an angled indention of solid rock that created an overhang about twenty feet high.

Yet the site of the rock overhang, which we saw at a different angle than that in Cal’s photos, did not occupy my mind at the time. It temporarily took second place to the gigantic root ball of a fallen tree beside it. From where we stood, I could see two large burned areas on its trunk, blackened by lightning.

“Heavens,” I said. “I think I saw this happen.” I turned around, walked to the rock wall, and looked down into the valley. Yes. I could see the road and the place I stopped during the storm.

“It smells smoky here,” Phoebe said as she sniffed the air. “Look right there at that burn mark. And another one.”

She pointed to the lower burned area. Lightning had struck at the tree’s base, toppling the trunk to the ground and upending the roots. The tangled wood tendrils now rose in the air, at least ten feet high, perhaps higher.

“The same tree struck twice?” I said. “In one night? Is that possible?” In addition to the blow, which appeared to have knocked it over, a long and wide black mark charred much of the tree on either side of a great split in the wood. More than two yards separated this burned area from that at the tree’s base.

“Sure it could happen,” Phoebe said. “My brother Gerald got hit three times, right in a row.”

“Good heavens. Is he, that is, did he survive?”

“Oh, yeah. He’s still bugging the fire out of me every chance he gets. He was playing golf in a thunderstorm like a fool. He got zapped, then he ran, then he got zapped again and it knocked him down, then it hit him again while he was flailing around in the wet grass.”

“How terrible. And no lasting affects?”

“Unfortunately not. No improvement whatsoever.”

“Amazing.”