In a Dark Season (14 page)

But when Ben and Amanda had returned to the kitchen to get the coffee and the herbal tea Amanda preferred, Laurel whispered urgently, “Was it male or female? Old or young?”

Phillip lowered his voice. “Dr. Alvarez said she couldn’t tell till she got the remains to the lab. Some of the bones”—he lowered his voice still more—“had been gnawed. And a few were missing.”

Laurel, as enthralled as her mother had been, nodded slowly. “So they don’t know anything about who it was.”

“Nope, no idea.” And then, vaguely aware that he was showing off a bit, he added the sole piece of information the forensics expert had let drop. “Dr. Alvarez did point out something that could be useful in identification somewhere down the road. The right leg had sustained a double fracture maybe a year before time of death.”

From the kitchen came the sound of shattering glass followed by Ben’s quick “No worries! Just one of the cheap wineglasses.”

Lost in speculation, Laurel paid no attention to the sound but pointed a finger at him. “You know who they ought to talk to about those bones? That guy who lives in that old brick building by the railroad track at the bridge. He pretty much watches everything that goes on in that area. And he’s been there
forever—
I bet he’d know
something.”

Like mother, like daughter.
Phillip had to restrain himself from saying it aloud. Instead, he assumed an air of deep interest. “What’s this fellow’s name?”

“I have no idea. Everyone just calls him the Troll.”

The Drovers’ Road V

The Wrestling Match

The Professor turned away from the noisome bucket in the corner of the cell, carefully doing up his trouser buttons.

So the damsel Luellen tempted you with her white skin and golden hair and her father’s wealth. And you pledged to marry her in December, meanwhile anticipating your union and enjoying her favors. Forgive my impatience, but what of this fiery-eyed Belle Caulwell you spoke of so feelingly? I collect that she was the wife of the innkeeper Gudger—why then was she known as Caulwell? Were they, indeed, wed? Or was it, perhaps, a less formal union?

They was wed, all right. Lydy pulled the thin blanket around his shoulders and settled himself more comfortably on the plank bed. Belle had her a piece of paper that the preacher and some others had put their names to, sayin that she was Ol’ Luce’s rightful wife. She just wouldn’t go by the name of Gudger—said hit was an ugly-soundin name, like walkin in the mud.

An unconventional woman…and one with strong opinions, I see. And when she eventually returned home, it was to find you ensconced in the bosom of her family…

Naw, I was gone when Belle come back.

The Professor’s eyebrows lifted but he remained silent. Lydy took the dipper gourd from the water bucket, sipped, wiped his lips, and resumed his tale.

It happened this-a-way. Back in August, afore the drives started, they was a train of wagons headed for Warm Springs that stopped at the stand for a night. The wagon boss, a feller named Baylis Martin, was a particular friend of Ol’ Luce and after supper they got to drinkin together. Whilst they was puttin down the applejack, they got to talkin about wrasslin matches they had seen and the money they had won bettin on them. And then Baylis went to braggin on this one driver of hisn, sayin as how ain’t nare one yet ever bested Red Will.

Ol’ Luce tips his chair back against the porch wall and says real easy-like, I got a gold half-eagle says young Lydy there can whup yore man.

Done, says Baylis, and hit was settled betwixt them to hold the match right then and there, as the wagons had to be on their way at first light. In no time atall, the drivers had cleared a spot in front of the house, making sure there weren’t no rocks, and drivin in four postes. They wropped a stout rope all around them postes to make a ring and by the time me and the other feller had stripped to the waist, ever one at the stand was circled round that ring.

The sun had slipped behind the mountains just a little while since but they was still light a-plenty for wrasslin. I didn’t figure hit to take too long, for I had always been accounted a good catch-as-catch-can wrassler back on Bear Tree, where I had learned enough tricks to let me beat fellers bigger ’n me. I knowed those tricks and what’s more, I had bulked up considerable with all the good food that Luellen had been feedin me the past few months.

Red Will was a short, heavyset man with a long red beard. He ducked under the rope and stood in the center of the ring, still gnawin on a beef rib from supper. He looked over at me as I come into the ring, tossed the bone away, and grinned wide. I still remember how there was a little piece of gristle caught on his left eyetooth and how his two front teeth was bad chipped.

He come at me in a bull’s rush afore the word had been given, but his hands bein greasy, I slipped out of his grip and took him down with a leg around his knee. I was hoping to pin him quick and so end it, but he pushed free and got me in a choke hold. The crowd was whoopin and hollerin and Ol’ Luce was lookin fearful for his five-dollar gold piece.

Red Will’s elbow was squeezin my neck tighter and tighter. I knowed that I could break loose but I also knowed I couldn’t last out a long match with such a big feller. I would have to make a move right quick or be beat.

In wrasslin, round here most anything goes short of eye-gougin and ear-bitin. What I done to break free and put the big feller on his back was said by some to be an old Injun trick and by others to be unfair. I had learnt it from an ol’ boy I used to go huntin with now and again.

Hit was a surprise to that red-bearded feller when he found hisself flyin over my head. He hit the ground like a big oak fallin and I was about to fling myself on him when I seen his left leg was twisted under him in a way that weren’t natural. He let out a great howl and the referee stepped in and motioned me back.

Goddammit, Luce, Baylis hollers. That leg’s broke. Who’s gone drive Red Will’s hitch? I ain’t got nare extry man with me.

I could see that Ol’ Luce was of two minds about the whole thing. He pocketed the gold piece that Baylis had slapped angry-like in his hand but he passed the jug to his friend and patted him on the back.

Now Bay, don’t take on so. You leave your man here. Lydy’ll go in his place. Come winter, him and my gal is goin to wed but hit might be as well was he to see a little of the world afore he settles down.

He turned to me and said, Son, you stay with Baylis as long as he needs you. Just see you’re back here in December.

And so I come to take to the Drovers’ Road.

Chapter 16

Talk to the Troll

Monday, December 18

O
h, hell! Not
again!”

At the other end of the bridge, warning lights were flashing and barrier gates were beginning their creaking descent. Resigning herself to a lengthy wait, Elizabeth slowed the jeep to a crawl. A wailing whistle announced the arrival of three locomotives at the head of the seemingly endless 7:40 a.m. freight train.

No other vehicles were on the bridge and she pulled close to the tracks to watch the many-colored freight cars roll by. The proliferation of graffiti
tags, that’s what they’re called,
was astonishing.
The sophistication of some of them!
Elizabeth marveled.
But however can they paint those intricate designs on the run?
Her inner eye summoned up a lone teenager, pierced, tattooed, and clad in the regulation baggy jeans and hooded sweatshirt, wielding a can of spray paint with each hand, all the while casting nervous glances over his shoulder.

As the train flashed by—boxcars, tankers, flatcars, coal cars—carrying the cryptic tags far and wide, Elizabeth thought of dogs, lifting their legs on automobile tires in what she presumed was canine certainty that now their territory would be extended to wherever the marked tire rolled.

An imposing blue-and-white tag caught her eye.
THE MOST DETERMINED
, it read, and the skinny teen of her imagining raised both cans in a victory salute as he completed his work and darted into the shadows, just ahead of two husky, sweating security guards who lumbered after him, waving futile truncheons.

The cars rolled on with their hypnotic clickety-clack, picking up speed till the graffiti became a dizzying blur of shape and color. Abandoning her attempt at reading the tags, Elizabeth turned her attention to the railroad itself
—the road of rail. According to Nola’s manuscript, the tracks were laid right on top of what used to be the Drovers’ Road.

Her gaze followed the path of the train as it disappeared around a bend, heading for Ransom and, beyond that, Asheville. The history of this old road, as related by Nola’s manuscript, was fresh in her memory, and where the present train chugged and hooted, she imagined a broad path, churned to mire by the passage of hundreds of hogs kept in check by drovers whose long, red flannel-tipped whips cracked, urging the weary animals toward the next stand.

And before it was the Drovers’ Road, it was the Catawba Trail, running all the way from Georgia to Tennessee, so Nola’s notes said. The Indians used it for hunting and trading.
The vision of the muddy road and the drive of pigs faded, replaced by copper-skinned, buckskin-clad hunters, creeping single file along a narrow but well-trodden path. In her mind she saw the man in the lead raise his hand to signal a halt as a giant buck crashed out of the undergrowth ahead.

And before there were people,
Elizabeth mused, deep in the romance of the past,
it was probably an animal trail—maybe a migration route. There were buffalo around here a long time ago, weren’t there?

The train had slowed to a crawl now.
Nola said that this part of the Drovers’ Road was called the Buncombe Turnpike and it ran from Greeneville, South Carolina, to Greeneville, Tennessee. Who was Greene, anyway? Popular fella. A general or something, the manuscript said. And then the railroad came and the Dixie Highway followed along part of the same route, going through North Carolina from Michigan to Florida.

One of her neighbors
was it Odus?
had described the Appalachian exodus to Detroit, where there was work in the car plants.
“Law, Miss Elizabeth, come time school let out for the summer, they’d be a big old Greyhound bus, just a-waitin’ at the schoolhouse door to carry them young uns straight to Dee-troit. Hit was a sight on earth, some of them young uns they’d come out that door with their graduatin’ paper in one hand and a grip in t’ other, climb aboard that ol’ bus and never look back.”

Yes, it was Odus who’d told her that story. He himself had gone to the big city, lured from the farm by the accounts of high wages.
“Didn’t stay but a day. I flat couldn’t stomach the water they had there—tasted just like that ol’ Clorox. Now that stuff’s fine to put in the wash and hit’ll flat cure foot rot in a cow but, aye god, I don’t want to drink hit, do you?”

So Odus had boarded the bus again for the long ride back to the mountains, where days were long, work was hard, and cash was scarce, but pure water bubbled endlessly from a mountainside spring above his house. Many others, not so fastidious where their water was concerned, had stayed, sometimes marrying Michigan-born spouses, but always determined to “come home” on retiring. In early June, when families and churches celebrated Decoration Day by cleaning graveyards and renewing the wreaths and floral displays on the graves, these transplanted natives would return in their big Detroit-made vehicles with Michigan plates, eager to reestablish old ties.

Back when I was growing up in Florida we saw lots of Michigan plates there too. Yankees escaping the cold winters to walk on the beaches with their chalk-white legs and black shoes and socks. And then in summer lots of Florida folks headed for the North Carolina mountains to escape the heat. And now they’re coming to get away from the hurricanes—building their second or third homes in these preposterous communities. A kind of folk-wandering that—

A horn’s indignant blast roused Elizabeth from her reverie. The train’s caboose vanished around a curve and the barrier gates stood upright. As she pulled forward across the tracks, she was surprised to see a crew of surveyors at work below the old stand under the observation of the grizzled old man her daughters had always called the Troll.

On the night before, when talk at the table had turned to the bones in the silo and Rosemary had excused herself, Elizabeth had followed her to the porch, concerned that the subject under discussion would inevitably awaken memories of the unhappy events they had endured together the previous year. But Rosemary had reassured her. “Really, Mum, I’m fine. I just wanted to see the night sky—it’s so gorgeous here.” Then, with a wry twist of her mouth, she’d added, “And sometimes family can be a little overwhelming when I’m out of practice.”

They had returned eventually to the dining room to hear Laurel, passionate as always, admonishing Phillip in ringing tones. “Talk to the Troll! He’s bound to have seen something—no, bad idea, not you. He’s pretty shy of new people and particularly men. But he’s really nice—I was painting down at the bridge a few years ago and he eventually got curious—ambled over to see what I was doing and actually turned out to be pretty chatty. He even invited me into that neat old building where he lives and gave me a glass of iced tea. Did you know that place was a general store years ago? There’s this big door on the side that used to open right to the railroad tracks for trains to offload supplies. He had a bunch of antiques in there—a fair amount of junk too, but some neat stuff.”

“Well, maybe it’d be a good idea—” Phillip had begun, but Laurel’s enthusiastic spiel had run on, stream-of-conscious fashion.

“—I could go talk to him myself but I’m heading back to Asheville early in the morning and I’ll be busy with a class for the next three days, then we have an open house at the studio. Maybe Mum could talk to him. She always waves at him when she goes by, so at least he’d recognize her. I bet Mum could find out if the Troll knows anything about the bones in the silo.”

And now, here was the so-called Troll, leaning against one of the junk cars that had found a final resting place in front of the derelict building. As she passed by him, Elizabeth slowed, lifting a finger from the steering wheel and nodding in the traditional local mode for greeting someone you recognized but didn’t actually know. Lifting his chin in acknowledgment, the Troll continued his rapt study of the surveyors.

The car behind her honked impatiently, and before she knew quite why she was doing it, Elizabeth pulled onto the shoulder and motioned the fuming vehicle around her. The monster SUV roared past, its driver glaring down at her in righteous indignation.

“Florida people!” Elizabeth muttered at the sight of the license plate.

Pulling her jeep farther off the road, she considered what to do. In the rearview mirror, she could see the Troll watching her. At his side sat one of the many cats that were always in evidence around the old brick building.

What now, Sherlock? You told Phillip you’d see if this guy knows anything about the silo.
Elizabeth looked over to the parking lot and the field beyond, where the old silo stood. No one was there but the structure was encircled with yellow crime scene tape. Fresh tire tracks crisscrossing the parking lot hinted at recent activity, unusual for this bleak season. Along the riverbank, leafless trees inked mysterious hieroglyphics on the lead-colored sky.
What now, indeed?

The rap of a knuckle against her window made her gasp: she turned to see the Troll’s black-framed glasses trained on her. His lips were moving and she punched the button to lower her window.

“…in need of assistance?”

Elizabeth blinked. “Excuse me?”

Resisting the impulse to punch the window button again as a faint odor compounded of alcohol and unwashed clothes crept over her, she listened in bewilderment as the question was repeated.

“I asked if you were in need of assistance, Mrs. Goodweather. Allow me to introduce myself.” The Troll tugged the greasy leather bomber cap from his head and sketched a courtly bow. “Thomas Walter Blake the Fifth, at your service.”

Behind the thick lenses, bloodshot gray eyes twinkled in private amusement as Elizabeth, her mouth open but wordless, continued to stare, bewildered. Then, abruptly recollecting her mission, she cut the car’s engine off, the better to hear and be heard.

“No thanks, I’m fine. I was just…well, I was wondering about those surveyors up there. But how do you know my name? You called me—”

“I called you Mrs. Goodweather. That’s correct, is it not?”

“Yes, but—”
Who
is
this guy? Not what I expected, that’s for sure. Sounds educated and, now that I see him up close, he’s not as old as I thought. And I’d better stop thinking of him as the Troll. His name is—oh, hell, why don’t I ever pay attention to names? He said it was Thomas something something the Fifth. I think.

“I met your daughter Laurel a few years ago. Quite a talented artist. Her work at that time put me in mind of Gauguin. A charming young woman—we had quite a discussion, if I recall correctly, about the early Impressionists and the Fauves. Of course, I’d seen her coming and going with you and your other daughter for years. But I hadn’t known your names.”

A little smile lifted the corners of the man’s mouth. “Goodweather—a propitious cognomen indeed. Do you know, Mrs. Goodweather, I’ve taken quite an interest in your Laurel.”

“Phillip, I swear, when he said that, it sent a chill over me. I just stammered out something about being late for an appointment and got out of there. Laurel said he was a nice harmless old guy, but you know how utterly naïve she is. There’s something weird about him—he looks like a bum and smells like a drunk but he talks like a…like a bloody college professor.”

She had driven, far too fast, up the winding road to Dewell Hill, pulled over into the parking lot of the old church, and called Phillip on her cell phone.

“So I got no information but now I’m wondering if this Troll guy has ever been under suspicion.”

“Because he said he’s taken an interest in Laurel?” Phillip’s voice sounded amused and this annoyed her.

“Not just that, because he’s always
there—
near the silo where the remains were found, near the house where Nola jumped…”

“And near the old bus, where the rape was supposed to have taken place. Okay, sweetheart, let me talk to Mackenzie. He probably knows all there is to know about this guy—count on it. I’ll get back to you tonight.”

On her return trip, several hours later, Elizabeth slowed her grocery-laden car as she neared the bridge. The surveyors were still at work around the old stand, but the Troll was nowhere to be seen. Elizabeth studied the dilapidated brick building that was presumably his home.
Or his lair.
Once a prosperous mercantile concern, the business had closed long before she and her family had moved to the county.
Birdie said she used to shop there in the forties but it closed when the passenger trains quit running. And that old guy has been hanging out there—I guess living there—as long as I can remember.

She cast a dubious eye at the rusting cars and trucks resting on blocks in front of the old building. The sight of an enormous tabby cat perched on the hood of a battered old pickup should have been reassuring but instead seemed somehow ominous.
As if it’s lying in wait for someone.

The building’s ground-floor windows were covered with plywood, but a curl of smoke from a stovepipe protruding from the flat roof hinted at warmth within. At one of the upper windows, a movement caught her eye, a figure moving past the glass.

He’s completely harmless, Mum. Just an old guy who’s kind of sad and lonely.
Isn’t that what Laurel had said? Still…

The phone in the house was ringing as Elizabeth climbed the steps, lugging four overflowing canvas grocery bags. Hurrying for the door, she grimaced to hear the ring stop abruptly. But then the door opened and Rosemary, phone in hand, said, “It’s for you, Mum—Sallie Kate.”

“Merry Christmas and fa, la, la, la, la, Elizabeth honey! Have y’ all got that big old tree up yet? I was at the fillin’ station when Ben and that pretty lady of his pulled in with it in the back of the pickup. Lordy, it looked as big as the trees they use at the White House! Good thing you have a cathedral ceiling.

“Listen, honey, Harley and I have to go out of town—Harley’s mama’s taken the notion that this is her last Christmas and she’s fussed and carried on till the whole family has to be there. Of course, she did the same thing two years ago. Then she got to feelin’ some better and by the time Christmas rolled around last year, she felt
so
much better that she went with a pack of her widow friends on a tour bus to Vegas for the holidays. But now she’s back in her ‘O Lord, take me now’ mode, rollin’ her eyes and clutchin’ at her heart every whipstitch. She can’t fool me, though. Harley’s sister told me the old bat’s signed up for a cruise to Cancun in February.”