Mystery of the Sassafras Chair (4 page)

“Well, if you only stayed a minute in the store, you must have started back to your truck at the same time Mr. Battle's robber ran out the back of his gem shop. Didn't you notice anything?”

“Timmy, I didn't see nobody till I got halfway back to the truck. Then I heard a feller yell out, ‘Stop him! Stop him!' I didn't recognize the voice, it was so hoarse, but when I looked about quick I seen one of them deputies comin' round the side of the diner. So I started runnin' faster.”

“But—but why did you run, Mr. Pendergrass? You weren't guilty of anything, were you?”

“Timmy, I had to get away from there fast. I
had
to. Like I said, there's complications …”

Old Wiley's voice was getting weaker. Timor said, “Can you talk a little louder? I can hardly hear you.”

“My juice is runnin' low … gotta sign off till tomorrow night. Timmy, go see Nathaniel … first thing. Remember … we only got till the end of the week …” Wiley's voice died.

“Mr. Pendergrass!” Timor whispered urgently. “Where are you?”

There was no answer. He turned on the light and looked at the chair.

The sassafras chair was empty. Old Wiley had faded away completely, leaving a dozen important questions unanswered.

4

Nathaniel

A
SUDDEN DISCORD of static, voices, and twanging mountain music from the kitchen radio brought Timor out of a sound sleep. He rolled over and raised up on one elbow, rubbing his eyes while he sniffed the drifting aroma of breakfast bacon. Sunlight, slanting through the window, touched the carved back of the sassafras chair, making the yellow wood gleam like gold. The chair seemed almost alive. In fact, it was actually glowing a little.

Timor sat up and stared at it. Had he really talked to Wiley Pendergrass last night—or was it only a dream? If it had happened back in Malaya, he realized, he wouldn't have questioned it. But this wasn't Malaya.

“Timmy!” Odessa called. “Aren't you ever going to get up? Breakfast is ready.”

“Coming,” he called back.

He spun out of bed, swiftly drew on his clothes, and hurried to the bathroom to splash water on his face and comb his thick unruly hair. It couldn't have been a dream, he told himself. I really
saw
him and
talked
to him—and he was sitting right there in the chair when Odessa entered the room …

In the kitchen Odessa greeted him with a cheerful “
Tabé
,” and added, “are you going sketching with me this morning, Timmy? If you are, you'd better get a move on—or have you other plans?”

Sketching? It was one of the things he'd looked forward to all winter, an entire summer drawing the tangled tree and rock shapes that so fascinated him here. Odessa had majored in art at college, and she'd had her first important exhibition during the winter. Odessa painted, and she was wonderful; but his own interest was decoration and design. Everything in life had to be designed, and to learn design you must start with nature …

“Sketching?” he repeated absently. “I—where's Uncle Ira?”

“Daddy got up early and went fishing.” Odessa looked at him curiously. Suddenly she said, “Timmy, is anything wrong? Is it the—the dream you had last night?”

“I wasn't dreaming,” he replied. “And I've got to see Mr. Battle. It—it's terribly important.”

“What's the big rush? Can't it wait?”

He shook his head. “We have only three days.”

“Three days for what?”

“To find that box.”

“You mean the
peti blik
—Mr. Battle's tin box? Who says you must find it so soon?”

“That's what Wiley—I mean, I—”

He stopped, confused, conscious of a sudden quietness in Odessa, a sharpening of the dark eyes that were now intent upon him.

“Timmy,” she said slowly, “haven't we always been close—like brother and sister? You don't have to keep anything from me. Last night I know you thought you were talking to Wiley Pendergrass, because I heard you. Sit down and eat your breakfast and tell me about it. And don't worry about Daddy—I packed a lunch for him, and he won't be back till late this afternoon.”

“All right.”

He sat down and told her about Wiley and the chair. “You don't have to believe me,” he finished, “but that's just how it was.”

Almost in slow motion Odessa took her seat across the table from him. As he saw the look in her eyes, Timor's spirits fell.

“Timmy,” she said finally, “I know you're like Nani; it's something you can't help. When we were in the East, I never doubted her when she told of happenings like that. But I was much younger then, and things were different out there. Timmy, we're in America now.”

He clenched his hands. “What difference does that make?”

“Please don't act hurt. Being in America makes a lot of difference. Things are more, well, real here. It's mainly a matter of beliefs.” She paused, and added quickly, “Oh, I don't doubt that you
thought
you saw Wiley in the chair. But if the chair has anything special about it, why didn't
I
see Wiley? If, as you say, he was sitting right there in front of me when I came in …”

He clenched his hands again, trying desperately to think of some way to explain. “Maybe,” he said, “it's a little like being able to find water with a forked stick. What's the word for it?”

“Dowsing,” she told him.

“Well, you know some people can do it, and some can't. Remember last summer when Wiley cut a forked witch hazel stick and showed us how to dowse? He said we could even find gems that way if we had the power. And I—I found some.”

“I remember. It didn't work for me, although it seemed to for you. You did find a few sapphires in the creek that way. But as Daddy said, it was probably just an accident. After all, the creek
is
full of little sapphires, and you can always find a few if you search hard enough.”

He looked at her miserably. “Dessa, don't you want to help me?”

“Of course I want to help!” she assured him, smiling suddenly. “I'm on your side, although I may not look at things the way you do. If you feel so strongly about Wiley, you certainly ought to do something about it. You really want to talk to Mr. Battle?”

“Yes. Just as soon as possible.”

“All right. Finish your breakfast, and I'll drive you to the Forks.”

They spoke little on the ride down the valley. At the Forks, Odessa parked the station wagon near Grosser's store, and they sat a minute looking curiously at the cluster of buildings in front of them. Timor felt his first misgivings. It had been a month since the robbery. What if the thief had been some stranger passing through? How could anyone possibly hope to locate him now? But no, reason told him; it couldn't possibly have been done by a stranger …

“It had to be a local person,” he said, thinking aloud. “Someone who knew what was in the box, and where to find it.”

“I hope you're right,” Odessa told him, “but be careful what you say to Mr. Battle. About Wiley and the chair, I mean. You don't want him to think you're a little queer.”

“I'll watch it. Aren't you coming in with me?”

“You'll do better without me. Anyway, I need a new broom for the cabin. While I'm shopping, maybe I can get better acquainted with Mrs. Grosser and learn a few things.”

Timor, visualizing the burly and tight-lipped Mrs. Grosser, could not help smiling. Ask any of the Grossers a question, old Fritz, young Sammy, or his mother, and all you ever got was a shrug or a grunt, especially if you were one of the summer people.

“Well, at least I'll try,” said Odessa.

They got out. Timor watched her enter the store. Then he drew a deep breath and headed nervously for the new log structure beyond the diner.

No one was in the front of the little shop when he entered, but he could hear a discouraged pounding coming from the back room. At least to Timor's ears it sounded discouraged. The place, he saw, was still unfinished inside. His glance took in the clutter of boxes filled with mineral specimens and souvenirs, the bare shelves, and the empty showcase. Was Nathaniel Battle packing up to leave? It looked that way.

He cleared his throat. “Mr. Battle?” he called.

The pounding stopped. A very lean, very brown, and very intense looking young man in rumpled khakis appeared in the opening at the left of the showcase. Black eyes in a face like an angry hawk's looked down at him.

“Yes?”

In spite of the eyes and the sharpness of the voice, Timor's uncertainty vanished. He felt a kinship with Nathaniel Battle. And because his mind worked in odd ways, he suddenly found himself saying, “Wiley told me a lot about you. You're half Cherokee, aren't you?”

It wasn't at all what he had intended to say, and he knew it was impolite. But the words were out before he could stop them.

“I am,” replied Nathaniel, almost angrily. “What about it?”

“Then we're almost alike,” said Timor, smiling. “My mother was Indonesian. I'm Timor Hamilton.”

“I'll be jiggered!” Nathaniel came from behind the showcase and extended a lean brown hand. “Pardon me for snapping at you. I'm half Irish, you see, and this morning the Irish has got me down.” He paused. “So your name's Timor. H'mm. That's the Malay word for east.”

“How did you know?” Timor exclaimed.

“Ought to. I was stationed out there with an army detachment. They spoke a different language everywhere I went, but I found if I learned a little everyday Malay I could get along all the way from Singapore to New Guinea.” Nathaniel paused again, and raised one eyebrow. He said quietly, “Something tells me you came here to talk about Wiley.”

“Yes, sir. Do—do you really believe he robbed you?”

Nathaniel looked at him sharply. Slowly he shook his head. “My eyes told me he did. Other eyes insisted he did. But this part of me,”—he placed a finger over his heart—“this part of me says he didn't. Wiley was my friend. He lent me money to help me get started here—sold all his ginseng, and even borrowed some extra; I suspect it was from your uncle. Anyway, how could a friend like that turn around and rob me?”

“He couldn't. Not Wiley.”

“I'm glad to hear you say that, Timor—or do they call you Tim?”

“Nearly everyone calls me Tim.”

“O.K., Tim. Anyway, I've been doing some thinking since it happened, keeping my eyes open and my mouth shut. If I didn't have to be out of here next week …”

“Next week!”

“Yes—unless I can raise a lot of money in a hurry, Or find what was stolen. Nearly everything I owned—and a lot I didn't own—was inside that tin box. I suppose you know what it held.”

“The paper said it contained one of the most valuable sapphires ever found in the mountains, as well as a lot of other gems.”

“That's right. The other stones were mine, but the sapphire wasn't. The owners—they're the Connors who have that new mine south of here—the Connors turned it over to me to cut, and then sell for them.”

“You—you cut stones, Mr. Battle?”

“Of course. You can't tell anything about a sapphire until it's cut; this one had a star. Tim, we seem to be two of a kind, so why don't you call me Nathaniel?”

Timor smiled. “Thank you. I will.”

“As I was saying, I had a buyer for that sapphire, a gem specialist I've sold a lot of things to. He was driving in that night to look at it.” Nathaniel paused, and his lean jaws knotted. “If I don't pay for that stone, other people are in trouble too. The Connors, mainly. They still owe for their property, and now they could lose it.”

“Then—then we've got to find your tin box,” Timor said. “And I think we can.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because—” Timor hesitated. “Because of something that's happened. I, well, for one thing I know that Wiley was in the back of Grosser's store at the time you were being robbed.”

“How did you ever learn that?”

“Well, Wiley—” Timor stopped and bit his lip. Something made him ask, “Do you believe in magic, Mr. Battle—Nathaniel?”

Nathaniel Battle raised one eyebrow. “I can take it or leave it, although I've seen some odd things in these mountains. What kind of magic are you talking about?”

“Magic in woods. Sassafras especially.”

“That's different. There are people around here who wouldn't cut a sassafras tree for anything. I'm one. Wiley was another. Come to think of it, Wiley had a piece of sassafras he'd found somewhere; he told me last winter he was making a chair out of it for a friend of his. Was it for you?”

Timor nodded. For a moment they were silent. Then Nathaniel said softly, “That must be a mighty special chair, Tim.”

“It is. I—I found it in our cabin last night after we arrived. It was put in my room the night before by somebody who had Wiley's key to the place. We know that because Mrs. McBane was driving by that evening and saw a light on, but she didn't think anything of it at the time because she thought we were there.”

“You've talked to the old battle-ax?”

“Yes. First thing when we reached town yesterday.” He told of his inquiry at the sheriff's office, and of discovering the chair after Rance Gatlin had left the cabin.

“Go on,” Nathaniel urged. “I know there's more.”

“You won't think I'm just—just telling you a tale?”

“I won't know what to think till I hear it.” Nathaniel looked at him earnestly. “Tim, if you weren't Wiley's friend, I wouldn't be talking to you this way. Sure, I'm educated and I held a commission in the army; around here I'm supposed to be level-headed and straight-thinking. But when it comes to some things I'll admit to you I'm pure Indian. So, what about this chair Wiley made?”