Hope Callaghan - Garden Girls 03 - Smoky Mountain Mystery (6 page)

Determined not to ruin their adventure, she made an effort to patch things over. She forced a smile and held the door for the other two.

The clerk stepped up behind the counter.  “Back again?”

Gloria shook her head.  “We never left.” She set the Mason jar down on the small counter.  “Is there anyone here that knows the history of the old moonshine distilleries in the area?”

The man nodded.  “I could probably help you out.  Lived here all my life.  My great-granddaddy was a bootlegger.”

Gloria tapped the top of the jar.  “Any idea where we might find this old distillery?  I did a little research and it’s from Blue Valley moonshine here in Cross Creek.”

The man carefully picked up the jar and flipped it over.  “Well, I’ll be darned.  I didn’t know there were any of these old jars left.” He turned it back over and gently set it back down.  “Yeah.  I’m not sure what’s left of the old place.  Haven’t been up there in years but I can tell you how to get there.”

Their first big break!  Gloria nodded.  “Yes, please!”

“It’s out on Thornbush Road.” He pointed out the door and motioned to the left.  “Go out to the stop sign. Turn left.  You’ll go a spell down this road and then you’ll see a big oak tree on the right.  Cross over a narrow wooden bridge that covers the creek.  After the creek, there’ll be a fork in the road.  Veer to the right.  The road’ll turn into pretty much a dirt path.  Keep going for another quarter mile and you’ll see the old Henderson barn straight ahead.”

Gloria grabbed the moonshine and headed for the door.  “Thanks for your help!”

The man watched the three women as they made their way out the door.  “Just be careful out there,” he warned.  “Some of the locals say the old place is haunted.”

Margaret closed her eyes.  She wished she hadn’t heard that last little bit.  “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” she whispered loudly.

“Don’t be such a scaredy cat, Margaret.” Liz pulled her keys from her purse.  “I’ll drive.”  She pointed at poor Anabelle parked next to Liz’s shiny car. “I don’t want to end up stranded on the side of the road in your bucket of rust.”

Gloria refused to let Liz get under her skin.  “Fine with me.” She was perfectly happy to let Liz take her fancy new car out on the back country roads.

“Mally’s coming with us.” It was a statement, not a question. No way would Gloria leave her dog behind.

Liz shrugged.  “Suit yourself.” She actually didn’t mind.  She secretly really liked Mally.  At least she didn’t argue and fuss at her like her owner! 

The women piled into the car and headed in the direction the nice man in the store told them to go.  He was right on.  Twenty minutes later, they hit the fork in the road and began the slow drive down the small, rutted path.  The road, if you could even call it that, was barely wide enough to allow Liz’s car to squeeze through. 

Overgrown bushes and thick brush crowded the narrow opening.  More than once, Gloria heard the scraping of sharp, prickly bushes against shiny, expensive metal.  Judging by the clenched teeth and hissing breaths Liz was exhaling at a rapid rate, Gloria knew she was fit to be tied.

Liz squeezed the steering wheel in a death grip, her knuckles turning white from the pressure.  “I hope we’re almost there,” she gritted out.

Margaret had been strangely quiet during the entire car ride.  She suddenly spoke up.  “This place is giving me the willies.  It probably is haunted.”

They rounded a small bend in the rutted road and came into a large clearing.  Up ahead was a towering, two-story barn.  The barn leaned precariously to the left.  It looked like it could easily tumble over if a good, stiff wind came along. 

Liz stopped the car and shut off the engine.  “I’m not driving any further,” she announced.  Gloria couldn’t blame her.  Plus, what if they got stuck?

The three women and sidekick Mally made the short hike to the barn in no time.  The closer they got, the more dilapidated and rickety it appeared.

Margaret was bringing up the rear, in no real hurry to get any closer to the place.  “What are we looking for?”

“Some kind of buried or hidden treasure,” Liz replied.

Gloria turned to Liz.  “And how did you find out about it again?”

“From Aunt Ethel,” she explained.  “She’s dad’s younger sister.”

“Dad had a sister?”  He’d never once mentioned having a sister.  At least not that Gloria could remember.  Of course, much of her father’s childhood had never been talked about.  For some reason, it had always been somewhat of an off-limits subject in their house.

“How did she manage to track you down?”  Gloria asked.  There were way too many pieces of the puzzle still missing. 

Liz was getting exasperated.  “What is this?  20 questions?”

Gloria was a little ticked herself.  “Just trying to figure why on earth we’re here, that’s all.”  She clamped her mouth shut as she remembered her vow not to get sucked into a pointless argument. 

Liz stopped abruptly.  It was time to come clean.  “Listen, somehow Aunt Ethel managed to find me.  She’s been sending me mysterious letters for a few weeks now.  Something about some sort of treasure that’s buried or hidden on her farm and asked if we,” Liz pointed at Gloria, then herself, “wanted to come down and search for it.  And if we found anything, she’d give us a cut.”

Liz went on.  “I wasn’t sure you’d even agree to come so I made it sound like I might be in some sort of trouble,” she confessed.

Gloria came to an abrupt halt.  She turned and glared at Liz.  “So you lied to me to get me here!??”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” Liz admitted.  She finally explained the rest of the mystery.  “The last thing Aunt Ethel sent me was some train tickets so I headed down. When I got on the train, this waitress gave me a brochure for the Clingman’s Dome clue.  When I got to the Dome, the ranger gave me another one for the Distillery and finally, the guy with the guitar gave me the jar of moonshine. But then I was stuck,” she finished.

“So we were supposed to go together but you decided that
you
wanted to solve the mystery first.” Gloria summed it up.  That part made perfect sense.  Liz trying to best her, once again.

That meant that Aunt Ethel left the clues for them … Still, it all seemed rather odd. Gloria started walking again, mulling over what Liz had just told her.

The weeds surrounding the barn were tall.  Some of them taller than Gloria herself.  She peered into the thicket, praying she wouldn’t step on a snake or some other mountain critter that might be lurking nearby.  Mally, on the other hand, was loving it.  She kept pulling on her leash, trying to drag Gloria through the brush to heaven only knew where.

Up ahead was a weedy path that continued on up the hill, past the barn and out of sight. 

Liz stopped dead in her tracks.  “Did you hear that?”

Margaret clutched her arm.  “Hear what?”  Her eyes darted around the field frantically.

“That noise.  Like a low growl,” Liz whispered.

Mally suddenly froze.  Her head was high, her ears perked up and her tail pointing straight out. She heard it too. 

Gloria glanced around fearfully as she inched closer to the others, certain some wild creature was stalking them through the brush.

Margaret’s face lost all color as she envisioned coming face-to-face with a vicious mountain lion.  “I’ll just wait in the car!”

Before Gloria or Liz could reply, Margaret made a mad dash back to the car.  Gloria watched her move with lightning speed down the narrow path.  She’d never seen Margaret move so quickly in all her life. 

She turned to Liz.  “You want to get out of here, too?”

Liz shook her head sharply.  “No way.  I didn’t come this far just to put my tail between my legs and scurry home.”  She turned to Mally.  “No offense.”

She took a cautious step forward.  “I’m not leaving until I at least look in that barn!”  For all the false bravado she attempted to portray, Gloria knew her sister well enough to know she was scared out of her mind.

Even though her sister was a royal pain in the rear, no way could Gloria allow her sister be eaten by wild animals.  She and Mally reluctantly followed her forward in the direction of the barn.

The sun was sinking low in the sky, casting an eerie glow across the side of the faded red facade.  The barn doors were long gone, leaving a large, gaping hole where any number of critters with sharp fangs and even sharper claws could easily come and go. 

Liz was already inside the barn by the time Gloria caught up with her. 

Gloria glanced back in the direction of the car.  Margaret was sitting in the passenger seat.  She gave a small wave in her direction before disappearing inside the sagging heap. 

The inside was in worse shape than the outside, if that was even possible.  A large copper-colored cylinder filled up one whole section of the barn.  Beside it was an old wooden barrel.  Right next to that was a larger wooden barrel with a small faucet jutting from one side.  Lining the back wall of the barn were two long rows of glass bottles, all different sizes and shapes.  If Gloria had to guess, this was probably the original moonshine equipment.   

She spied Liz poking around some bales of hay stacked in the far corner of the barn, opposite the moonshine equipment.  Liz glanced back at Gloria. “Don’t just stand there!  Help me search!”

“What’s goin’ on in here?”  A raspy voice demanded from somewhere behind them.

Gloria twirled ‘round just in time to catch a glimpse of a small bent figure standing in the center of the open doorway.  At first, Gloria thought the figure was leaning on a cane. She quickly realized it was a shotgun. 

Liz jumped back and inched closer to Gloria.  Taking that as a threat, the shadowy figure perched the gun on one shoulder and pointed it directly at the girls.  “What’re you doin’ back here in my barn?” the menacing voice growled.

Liz found her voice.  “We’re looking for Aunt Ethel.”

“Humph!  Who’s looking for Aunt Ethel?”

Liz clutched Gloria’s arm tightly.  “M-me and my sister, here.  Gloria,” she added.

The shotgun dropped down.  The figure hobbled forward a few steps.  “You must be Liz, then.”

The color returned to Liz’s face as she released her death grip on Gloria and took a step forward.  She lifted a hand to shade her eyes.  “Is that you, Aunt Ethel?”  It was hard to see anything with the setting sun blinding her.   

“Yep, that’d be me.  Took y’all long enough to get here,” she grumbled.

She motioned a bent arm in the direction of the door.  “C’mon.  Let’s get up to the house and visit for a bit.”

Gloria and Liz looked at each other in disbelief.  “House?”

Aunt Ethel didn’t bother waiting for a reply as she stumped out of the barn, using her shotgun as a crutch.  Gloria prayed that thing wasn’t loaded and going to accidentally go off if old Auntie lost her balance.

Gloria followed her out of the barn.  She waved a hand at Margaret who was still waiting inside the car.  She could’ve sworn Margaret was shaking her head.  She shrugged and turned to follow the older woman up the hill.  If she truly was her dad’s sister, the woman had to be in her 90’s by now.  Even though she had a noticeable limp, she was getting around pretty darned good for her age.  The girls had to hustle just to keep up with her. 

Over the top of the hill was a two-story, southern-style plantation house. Gloria could tell the house had been white at one time.  The paint had peeled off in a bunch of places, exposing the weathered wood boards underneath.  The place had definitely seen better days but Gloria could imagine that it was probably a stately, grand home at one time.

Ethel climbed the front steps and opened the front door before ushering them inside. She pointed at Mally.  “You can come, too.” 

Margaret must’ve changed her mind.  Gloria turned around just in time to see her huffing and puffing up the small incline. She reached the porch and grabbed the handrail to steady herself.  “You were just going to leave me back there?”

“Who’s this?” Ethel eyed Margaret suspiciously.

“Our friend, Margaret.” Gloria replied.

Aunt Ethel gave her the once-over.  Deeming her not interesting enough to waste another second on, she waved her inside the house as well.

The floors groaned loudly as the girls followed Ethel down the narrow path to the kitchen, dodging boxes and bags and towering stacks of old newspapers.  The front room was crammed to the ceiling.  It must have taken decades to accumulate all the piles of junk.

They made their way into the kitchen, which wasn’t nearly as cluttered.  The cabinets and cupboards had seen better days, for sure.  The style screamed the 60’s but it was clean.  Since the 60’s style was making a comeback, it almost looked retro. 

“Have a seat,” Ethel offered.  “Can I get you a cup of tea?”

Gloria still wasn’t 100% convinced this woman was on the up-and-up.  She quickly shook her head.  “No thanks.” 

Liz and Margaret followed suit as they shook their heads in unison.

Ethel lifted a kettle from the stove and poured steaming water into a chipped teacup. She dropped a Lipton teabag inside and made her way over to the table.  She plopped down in the chair opposite Gloria.