“Drew—a pencil,” she said, picking it up carefully by its eraser, a big one fitted on the end over the smaller one.
“Could it be hers?”
“It’s what she used—the extra eraser, too.”
He walked with her shoulder-to-shoulder as they searched the rest of the area, looking around and under the sang. “Jess, this area over here looks trampled,” he said, moving toward the other edge of the patch. It was on the far side, back toward the path they’d walked in on but in the other direction.
Jessie looked down where he pointed. “Could someone kneeling have made this?” she asked.
“Or someone fell here, or—I don’t know.”
“Let’s look both ways along the path from here.”
“You’d think, as late in the day as she must have been way up here,” he reasoned aloud, “she would not have gone farther into the forest. She must have been heading back the other way at this point.”
“Unless, when she was here, she thought she’d look around to see if there were more strange hoe marks or berries at another sang patch farther in—if these designs were made before she got here. I’m still praying she didn’t surprise poachers and run into trouble with them.”
Clutching the pencil as if it were a lifeline, keeping Drew in sight, Jessie started down the deeper forest path just behind him. He held his shotgun up as if he expected trouble. Her pulse pounded. Yes, there was another small patch of sang ahead, its autumnal leaves beckoning. Spotting it before he did, she started for it at a good clip.
“Drew, look, over there!” she called, pointing and cutting through the fringe of goldenseal that so often grew near sang. Again the deep, curved hoe marks, some dug sang and berries, this time arranged in a primitive bear head. And, radiating from that head were the strange lines again, but all pointing in the same direction.
“Are we looking at more of Sam Bearclaws’s art?” she asked. “Bear’s teeth, like he wears around his neck? Could the design be a warning?”
“I don’t know,” he muttered, frowning as they walked farther into the patch. He kept looking ahead, all around, instead of down. “I realize he didn’t like her counting the sang, but if the count was low, he should have wanted her to report it, so the government would protect it. You don’t think that carved tree trunk was some sort of atonement for his harming her?”
“You mean the hands protecting the ginseng could
actually be his?” A shiver snaked up her spine. Just this morning, Jessie had brought that carved piece into the very heart and hearth of her mother’s home. What if Sam had actually meant it to be a sort of tombstone or memorial to her because he knew she was dead?
“He did tell me,” she said, “there’s a Cherokee saying that only one in four ginseng roots should be harvested, and I’m sure he’d want to replant.”
“When did he tell you that?”
“When I went to thank him for carving the tree trunk for my mother.” Drew shot her a stern look. “Well, you didn’t tell me he was a suspect. I can’t help it if he is now, maybe the number one suspect.”
“The sang does look ceremoniously harvested, but who knows what the Chinese customs are—or who would like to blame something on Seth,” Drew said. “Let’s not jump to conclusions.”
“Drew, her pack!” she cried when she spotted the big, old denim bag. On shaking legs, she rushed to it. “I bought her a new backpack this winter, but she must have still preferred this one. She’s been here! Yes, this is hers!” she cried and fell to her knees to hug it to her.
Lifting the shotgun, Drew went down on one knee beside her as he scanned the area. “Check what’s in it. See if her counts and notes are there.”
“It doesn’t feel like anything is inside,” she told him, still holding it to her before she slowly opened it. “See, nothing.”
“Then someone emptied it, and it wasn’t some forest creature. Bring it. Let’s keep looking.”
“Should I call for her?”
“If you want, but…”
“But what? Drew, she could be out here hurt. However
this looks, we can’t give up on that possibility, can’t give up on her. Mother! Mariah Lockwood! Mother!” she cried, but her voice broke on a sob.
“Mariah!” Drew took up the call. “Mar-i-ah!”
They strained to listen. As the wind picked up and shifted directions, they heard only rustling leaves and their own footsteps. The third cove they came to was also partly stripped of its sang and marked with the red berries. But this time, they could both tell what the patterns showed.
“Claws or teeth, maybe,” Drew said, “but I’m betting on arrows, pointing the way.”
She could barely breathe. “The way to what?” she whispered.
They went different directions around a massive, hollow red cedar, the kind the Indians and early settlers used to take shelter in during storms or snow, the kind of tree that was sacred to Sam’s people.
Nothing but more trees lay ahead, thicker in the deeper woods. Had they missed the meaning of the arrows? But now, with the change in wind direction, Jessie smelled something. Not skunk. Dear God, not something dead?
They circled back. Then, within the hollow shelter of the cedar, mostly hidden under slashed and dying sang piled inside the trunk, there she was—or what had been Mariah Lockwood.
11
T he awful scent of death reached for them as they gaped at the half-obscured body, mostly shrouded by the dying plants. Mariah was curled up with one arm thrown across her head as if to protect her face. The thin band of her wedding ring glinted on her stark white, waxy finger.
Jessie heard a woman scream, “Mother! Mother—noooo!” Another scream rang in her ears as she pushed past Drew to run to the tree. The woman screaming—it was her.
Drew’s iron arm hit hard around her middle, knocking the breath from her. When she fought him, he picked her up, draped over one arm while he dropped his shotgun with the other. Her rear and the backs of her legs pressed into his hips as he bent over to stop her thrashing.
“Jess, no, she’s gone! You can’t touch her, go to her. We have to stay away!”
“I have to see—”
“No closer. Crime scene!”
His words pierced her panic. Crime scene—crime. She sucked in a huge sob. Drew, steady as a rock, held her to him, wrapped in his arms. Finally, the trees stopped spinning. She almost regretted that her brain cleared.
Shock and horror had been easier than this smothering devastation.
Had her mother huddled there and died? Of an injury? Hiding from an animal attack? A human animal? Had she been murdered by a poacher?
“If someone killed her, I’ll kill them!” she cried so bitterly she didn’t know her own voice. She tried to wrench free of Drew again.
“Stop fighting me!” He sat her down tight against him, pulling his shotgun into his reach. At first she sobbed so hard she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk. Then, holding to him, she quieted. Drew still wasn’t looking at her, but, with his hand on the gun, scanned the area. “We don’t know for sure it’s murder,” he said, his voice raspy as if he, too, would cry. “She might have hurt herself somehow, then left those arrows to show a rescuer where she was and cut sang to hide under and keep warm at night. Stay here a minute,” he ordered and pulled away to stand and go closer to the tree.
“I’m not leaving her,” Jessie choked out, swiping at her slick cheeks with the sleeves of her jacket. “I’m not leaving her here alone any longer.”
Still looking around, then down at Mariah’s body, Drew held his breath and peered closer, then hurried back. “We need help, but cell phones and even my two-way won’t work from here. We’re going to have to hike back out, then get help to return for her body.”
“I said, no! We can’t leave her!” she said, scrambling to her feet. “I’m staying with her if you have to go for help.”
“Jess, this area and the other three sang sites have to be preserved the way they are, and I’m responsible for that. For more than one reason, I can’t leave you here.”
“I won’t touch her. I don’t think she got there on her own. Someone did this, and we’ve got to find out who.”
“Which means we’ll have to find out why.”
“Fear of a low sang count.”
“It may be more. But I repeat, I can’t leave you here. I’m going to have to be the one who secures the site. Can you handle a handgun, a repeat fire Beretta?”
She hated guns; she’d never fired any kind of gun, but she swiped at her tears again and told him, “I can handle anything I have to, to find who did this. I got us here, I can get out, then back again with help—if you’ll take care of her.”
Without a word, they hugged hard. She pressed her face against his shoulder.
“Jess, Jess, I’m so sorry. About what we’ve found, and that it took this long to find her. Yes, I’ll guard her. Still, in case someone’s hanging around here, I don’t want you walking out alone. But I don’t see another way.”
“I’m not scared,” she vowed as she stepped back from him. She glanced again at her mother’s hiding place while Drew took out the handgun and his car keys. “I’m just,” she told him, struggling for thoughts and words, “desolate but determined. If you can’t find who’s behind this, Drew, somehow, I will.”
Cassie met Tyler just beyond her front porch, where he’d driven his car around while she’d checked on Pearl. “I’d go back toward Bear Creek with you,” she told him, “but Pearl’s really tuckered out and says she has a stomachache. Got to get some mint tea in her.”
“It’s all right. Can I leave my camera gear with you, though? If I’m not weighed down, I can retrace our steps up toward Sunrise faster. I’ll feel naked without it, but if I
see the place where that thing was again, I’ll just mark the site and return later. It’s going to be too dark soon for taking more shots of the site anyway. I’d rather not leave things in the car.”
“Sure. ’Course, I can keep your stuff,” she promised, realizing that her anger at him was gone with the wind. She took the camera and bag of equipment he handed her, pulling the strap of the heavy bag up over her shoulder. But she worried about him going back into the woods without her. “You sure you remember the way?” she asked as she went out toward his car with him. “It’s easy to get lost if you’re not used to the area. Now, if you don’t see the sheriff’s SUV or Jessie’s car—a blue Miata—don’t you go traipsing into that forest, you hear?” she demanded, realizing she was starting to sound as if she was talking to Pearl. “The sheriff’s armed, I’ll bet, so—oh, what’s all this?” she asked as she bent down to poke her head in the passenger side of the front seat of his car and saw a pile of dark clothes on the floor.
“I didn’t mean to leave that there. A couple of costumes I thought someone could wear for a photo.”
“Like who? Me and Pearl? Old-fashioned outfits, right?” she asked, touching a black bonnet and stroking the big, furry coonskin cap.
“I thought a sort of Daniel and Rebecca Boone photo in one of the little graveyards around here might be good. I gotta go, Cassie. I just hope the sheriff doesn’t think I’m nuts. I guess the photo could be of some strange-looking tree or even a black bear standing on a stump to reach something, which made it look taller. Maybe, if I can find the exact spot, we can figure it out, Sheriff Webb and me.”
“I didn’t mean it, about not working for you anymore. I guess Appalachia is fading away.”
“But with you,” he said, bending forward to glance out at her as she moved away from the car, “it’s never seemed so real and vital to me. Don’t worry about me. I think I remember the path and, if I don’t see their vehicle, I won’t hike in.”
He pulled out so fast his wheels spit dirt. She watched his rental car bounce down the bumpy lane and disappear. It had touched her heart how concerned he’d seemed about her friends, how anxious he was to tell them something strange might be in the woods. Besides, Mr. Tyler Finch of New York City had called Miss Cassandra Keenan of Deep Down, Kentucky, real and vital. Somehow, those were the two prettiest, sexiest, soft-soap words she’d ever heard.
Left alone with Mariah’s corpse, Drew said an awkward prayer for Jess’s safety and for his own strength to solve this case. It was only since he’d felt so alone, in the midst of his old hometown, that he had started to pray again like his mother had taught her sons. Then, taking advantage of the sinking sunlight, he carefully examined the area for any clues they might have missed.
Considering the position of the body, he figured it was pretty much in the center of the three sites with the sang berries pointing like arrows this way. He had to face it, the evidence so far suggested Seth Bearclaws. But he couldn’t fathom the man doing this, not unless he’d snapped. Seth had always seemed odd but nonviolent, and Drew was certain he had admired Mariah. But then, she was one who took living things from the forest, and Seth deeply resented that. If that was a motive, could Cassie be in danger, too?
Although Sam was his number one person of interest, that didn’t clear Vern. Besides, Vern evidently liked the old
Cherokee just a little less than he liked the new sheriff, and was clever enough to set something up to shift the blame. All that aside, it was still possible that Mariah’d had a heart attack or seizure. She could have left signposts so someone would find her, then crawled into this huge tree trunk for shelter where she died. Without moving the ginseng plants, he couldn’t be sure, but he thought there was blood on her skin. He was tempted to uncover the corpse, but he’d need corroboration from others—damn, he hoped Sheriff Akers brought a camera—before any of the evidence was moved. Then he’d have to wait for the coroner’s report.
“Sorry I didn’t find you sooner, Mariah,” he whispered. “I’ll try to help Jess, but she’s probably going back to the other life you gave her.”
For once, the woods kind of spooked him. He kept his hands on the shotgun as he paced the perimeter of the area, unsure what he was looking for, especially since rain and blowing leaves had evidently obliterated any footprints from the day Mariah disappeared.
His foot snagged something on the ground; he jumped back, thinking it might be a snake. Damn, Junior Semple’s varmint sticks had made him edgy. But it was a short belt or piece of black leather, lost or hidden under the leaves about fifty feet from the hollow tree that had been Mariah’s forest coffin these last four days.
He lifted it with the shotgun muzzle. Had it come from a weapon or even a camera? Some kind of a restraint? A dog’s collar? The kind with a computer chip or homing device embedded in it? Maybe one like Vern told him Peter Sung’s special hunt hounds wore, so he could follow them when they chased bears.
Jessie alternated between fast walking and loping, at least until she got a stitch in her side and had to slow down. Light bled away under the heavy canopy of trees. By the time she got Sheriff Akers and some others out here, they would need lanterns. But she’d still find the way to lead them to the scene. She would not leave Drew or her mother out in the black depths of the forest all night.
Though she kept putting one foot before the other, she was shaking all over. If she had to shoot Drew’s gun, which she carried out rather than in her backpack, she’d never hit her target. But surely, whoever had hurt—murdered—her mother must have fled long ago. Fled, like her thoughts…Her mind wandered, taunting her with longing and regrets.
“Please never forget or doubt how much I love you, honey,” her mother had said when it was time for her to leave with Elinor that first time, the morning after she’d been caught with Drew. It had been coitus interruptus, she’d heard Elinor whisper to a friend later and then had to look that up in a dictionary. Actually, Jessie realized now, as her thoughts came all jumbled and jagged, it was lifus interruptus. Her entire early life had been shattered when she was forced to become someone else. After that, even on visits to Deep Down, whether with Elinor or alone, nothing was quite the same. Nothing was right here ever again, maybe because, once she was through the rough patches with Elinor, she felt guilty about loving her new life.
And now this. This final, brutal, horrible parting. Why hadn’t she told her mother how much she loved her, too?
Suddenly exhausted, thinking she might become sick, Jessie stopped and leaned against a tree. She could hear
Bear Falls rushing over rocks, rushing on, like her life. She got hold of herself and pushed on.
Deeper, darker, the forest closed in around her. Childhood fears came back to her. She was Little Red Riding Hood hoping no wolf was stalking her, and the setting reminded her of the Grimm Brothers’ tales of giants and ogres and beasts. But now the stories seemed real.
She saw she’d wandered slightly off the path, but got back on, checking for the tenth time to be sure she had the key to Drew’s Cherokee. Drew. Drew Webb was back in her life. Was that only because they were forced to work together on this? When they found how her mother had died, who was at fault, would they be parted again? Her childhood home and the land in Slate Creek Hollow was hers now, but her life was in Lexington and in her lab. All those wilting ginseng leaves and plants heaped over her mother, as if for a funeral pyre. She had been wondering for weeks if she should test sang leaves to see if they could produce ginsenosides, just like the roots did. Leaves would be easier…cheaper and—
She heard the loud crack of a limb. Where? What did that? It took something with great weight.
She glanced quickly behind, around. Shifting shadows, shuddering limbs and leaves. Quickening her pace again, she pressed her hand with Drew’s key against her side and put her finger gingerly on the trigger of the gun. He’d given her hurried directions, though she still hadn’t told him she’d never shot a gun. He’d said a round was in the chamber and that it wouldn’t misfire. That she wouldn’t have to cock it—just pull the trigger. That she had fifteen shots. What else had he said?
The wind picked up as if the woods were breathing; the
breeze lifted her hair and dried her tears. The once familiar forest seemed to close in around her; the tree trunks rushing at her. Her footsteps through the leaves sounded incredibly loud.
Did she hear footsteps besides her own? Surely, nothing echoed in here like that. Footfalls, only in her fears. Folks said that certain places were haunted. She’d never heard tales of ghosts in these woods, but Seth had said many of his people had died marching through here on their brutal Trail of Tears. Had Sam chosen the place his people had faced death to kill a white person in revenge? No, too far-fetched. Too—demented. But was he? If someone had harmed her mother, he had to be deranged.
Dusk suddenly descended as if a lid had been closed on a box. Now, maybe she heard a deer shuffling through the leaves. She glanced back and gasped. In the last shreds of thin, setting sun through a pass in the mountains, dark, demon eyes glowed at her. A shrill cry escaped her, and she saw a raccoon skitter away. Like cat’s eyes in the dark, those of coons and deer reflected light, that was all, that was all.