Mystery of the Sassafras Chair (8 page)

“It is a pleasure to meet such a talented painter,” Mr. LeGrande went on. “Sometime I must do a special feature on you. At present, however, I'm working on a mountain series. Strange stories, legends, that sort of thing. Yesterday I was visiting the editor of the local paper, and I was told that one member of your family has come into possession of a most unusual chair. Would you mind if I took a picture of it?”

Odessa stood speechless for a moment. She glanced with stricken eyes at Timor, who was now standing beside her. Timor felt as if the roof had fallen upon him.

Suddenly Odessa smiled sweetly. “Why, Mr. LeGrande, I've no idea what you heard, but you know how silly most gossip is. People can start with nothing whatever and build up the most ridiculous tales!” She managed a very convincing laugh. “Really, I wouldn't waste any time on Timmy's chair, if I were you. It's just an ordinary chair.”

“But made of sassafras,” Mr. LeGrande persisted, with a slight tilt of his head. “Ah, that makes a difference! It is probably the
only
sassafras chair in the world. And everyone in these parts knows that sassafras isn't like other woods. Furthermore, I understand it was made by one of the most disreputable characters in the mountains, and that it arrived here in a very mysterious manner. Surely, Miss Hamilton, you'll have to admit that we have here the ingredients of a most extraordinary feature. It's something everyone would enjoy reading, and of course no publicity ever hurt a rising painter.”

“I—I'm afraid my father will have to be the judge of that,” Odessa answered. “Here he is now.”

Timor, glancing past Mr. LeGrande, saw the station wagon flash over the bridge and swing to a quick stop beside the yellow sportster. The colonel got out and stalked up to them with his head outthrust.

One look at him, and Timor's spirits plummeted. Though it hardly showed on the surface, he knew his uncle was seething with fury.

Mr. LeGrande was not immediately aware of this as he introduced himself to the colonel, but he soon realized it when he began talking about the chair, and mentioned taking photographs.

“Request denied!” the colonel snapped. “I'll not have you or anyone else taking pictures of that confounded chair. I heard enough about it when I was in town. Of all the ridiculous tales! How they ever got started!” He stopped, his eyes going flintily to Timor, then he said coldly, “I'm sorry, Mr. LeGrande, but I'll have to ask you to leave. I have private business to discuss with my family.”

Mr. LeGrande shrugged, murmured his regrets, and departed with a faint smile on his face.

In the cabin, Colonel Hamilton produced a folded newspaper and threw it on the table. “Read that,” he ordered in a tight voice. “The Tattler's column.”

The paper was folded back to the familiar column in question. Timor read it over Odessa's shoulder:

“
Here is a juicy bit that reached our desk just before press time. The story goes that a chair made of sassafras is really loaded when it comes to magic. If you don't believe it, ask one of our young summer residents. Seems he found such a chair in his room the other evening, and it told him all kinds of things we'd rather not repeat. Might be nice to have such a chair
—
were it not for the doubtful characters one might find sitting in it at midnight.
”

“Oh dear!” gasped Odessa. “How did that ever …”

“That isn't all,” grated the colonel. “Everywhere I went this morning, someone was talking or laughing about it. What I heard is past belief. Now I come home and find a prying newspaper hawk camped on my doorstep.”

He glared at Timor. “Young man, you've some explaining to do. Let's have it.”

Timor wet his lips. This was a showdown, and he could think of no way of escaping it.

“I—I guess it started with Brad James,” he began. “He—he's one of the deputies at the sheriff's office. Yesterday he overheard me telling Nathaniel Battle about the chair.”

“And what did you tell this fellow Battle?”

Timor swallowed. He felt a little sick. “Uncle Ira, I told him what I had to tell him. I mean, it was only the truth.”

“The truth about what?”

“The chair—and Wiley.”

“Just what
is
the truth?” the colonel demanded. “Out with it!”

“You—you wouldn't believe me if—if I told you,” Timor stammered.

“It isn't a question of what
I
believe! I know what I heard. Now I want the facts from you!”

Timor closed his eyes and gave a silent prayer. Then he drew a deep breath and straightened. “The other night I thought I heard Wiley trying to call me, but I couldn't see, or even hear him plainly till he sat in the chair. There's something special about that chair, because when Wiley sat in it he became as plain as day. He's trying to find Mr. Battle's box, and—and he wanted me to help him. So that's what I've been doing.”

Colonel Hamilton stared at him in stark silence for long seconds. Then a strangling sound came from his throat. Suddenly he rasped, “Of all the crazy nonsense! This is positively ridiculous! It's the most utterly and completely ridiculous yarn I've ever heard! Tim, I thought you had a good head on your shoulders, but something's either wrong with it, or you've turned into a liar. I prefer to think you've had a halucination.”

Timor said stubbornly, “I can't help what you think, sir. I know what I heard and saw. Anyway, what's wrong with Wiley trying to get me to help him—especially if I'm the only person he's able to get in touch with? Just because we're in America where people don't …”

“Stop it!” roared the colonel. “I've heard enough! Not another word out of you about that rascal Wiley or the chair.”

“But …”

“Take that thing out of the house and get rid of it!”

“B-but it's my chair! Wiley made it for me. He—”

“You heard me!”

“Daddy, please,” Odessa pleaded. “It's Timmy's chair. It isn't right to make him—”

“You keep out of this,” the colonel snapped. “If Tim doesn't get rid of that chair this minute, I'll take it out myself and break it up and burn it. Tim, I've given you an order. How long is it going to take you to obey it?”

Trembling, Timor ran to his room. He picked up the sassafras chair and carried it outside. Blindly he went stumbling away with it through the trees.

Once, far behind him, he heard Odessa call, but he did not stop. He plunged on, dragging or carrying the precious chair through thickets and over rocks, hardly noticing or caring where he went so long as he put distance between himself and the cabin. A great deal of distance.

When he halted at last, panting with exertion, he could hear only forest sounds around him. There was no level place to put the chair, so he let it lay where he had stopped, and slumped down beside it.

Now what should he do?

He couldn't leave the chair here in the woods, uncared for. As for returning to the cabin and facing his uncle …

“I won't go back,” he muttered. “I won't do it.”

At least not today. Tomorrow, maybe, after he'd figured a few things out. If he got hungry, he could find food in the woods. Old Wiley had taught him something about that. But how was he going to manage to stay in touch with Nathaniel?

Suddenly Timor realized how foolish he had been. Instead of running away blindly, he should have crossed the bridge and headed for the Forks. The proper place for the chair was at Nathaniel's shop. It would be safe there, and he could stay with Nathaniel till the box was found.

All at once he sat up, thinking of Wiley. Wiley's time would be up tomorrow. How could they possibly find the box so soon? But somehow it must be done. Tomorrow was Saturday, and in a few more days—unless they could locate the box—Nathaniel would lose everything. Nathaniel, and the Connors too. He had never met the Connors, but he felt sorry for them.

Timor got to his feet. The thing to do, he decided, would be to hide the chair at a convenient spot near the road, then hike to the Forks. He and Nathaniel could pick up the chair later in the jeep.

Only, where was he now?

He turned slowly around, trying to get his bearings. He couldn't be very far from the cabin, perhaps only a few hundred yards. Had he gone upstream? No, he must have taken the path that led to the spring, and left it somewhere when the going got too steep. The creek, surely, would be down the slope on his right.

Somewhere he could hear water running. Strangely, though, the sound seemed to be coming from his left.

Again he turned around. From where he stood the ground sloped away in two directions, then shot up on all sides to heights unseen through the dense forest growth. He could not recall ever having been in this spot before. But surely that must be the familiar creek he heard. He hoisted the chair upon his back and began making his way downward toward the sound.

A few minutes later he stopped, bewildered, blinking at a small waterfall that came tumbling over a ledge. From it a tiny stream gurgled away through a dark tangle of rhododendrons.

Hadn't Wiley once mentioned a waterfall somewhere over beyond his shack? This must be it. But where was Wiley's place from here?

It was impossible to guess. This was such strange up-and-down country, full of hidden coves and little twisting valleys that ran in every direction. Wiley had cautioned him about going on hikes and straying too far from any familiar area. “Take the wrong turn,” Wiley had once said, “an' a feller can get himself lost in no time. 'Tain't like the flat lands down on the coast. Up here, once you lose sight of the main valley, you ain't got no roads or nothin' to guide you. It's mainly national forest, an' some of it's mighty wild.”

This part of it looked very wild, and it seemed incredible that he could be so near his uncle's place and not know where it was. In his flight he must have taken too many turns and come farther than he'd thought. He placed the chair on the edge of a mossy log, so that it sat level, and looked at it with sudden hope.

“Mr. Pendergrass?” he called.

After a few minutes of calling and waiting, he knew it was no use. Anyway, how would Wiley know where to find him? If the old man had to use shank's ponies and hitch rides to get around, he was probably miles away.

Timor sat down in the chair and tried to think. Wouldn't the sun give direction? He glanced up through the green tangle, but all he could see was a tiny patch of darkening sky. It looked like rain.

Well, there was another solution. Water runs downhill, and Wiley had said if you followed any stream long enough you were bound to come out near a road. And didn't all the streams in this area run into the same creek? Of course!

With the chair hoisted on his small shoulders, the back of it resting on his head, Timor began following the curving stream. He had to stay on the slope well above it to avoid the tangles, and the going was hard and painfully slow. There was no trail, and the ungainly chair was forever bumping into trees and shrubs. More than once, as it became heavier with passing time, he considered leaving it under a tree and returning for it later. But that would never do. If he lost it, he might search for days without finding it.

Timor did not have a watch and it was hard to judge the creeping hours, but finally there came a moment of exhaustion when he felt he could go no farther. He dropped the chair and sank down beside it, shivering in the drizzling rain that was beginning to fall. It had been chilly when he got up this morning, and fortunately he had put on a heavy shirt. Yet it was little protection against rain.

“
Hari busuk!
” he muttered, lapsing disconsolately into Malay with an expression he used only when everything had gone wrong. Why hadn't he headed straight for Nathaniel's? How foolish he'd been! It was getting late, and he would soon be soaked through. Where could he spend the night?

Then, above the slow patter of rain dripping from the leaves, he became aware of another sound. A distant rushing …

Abruptly he was on his feet again, tugging at the chair. Minutes later he went scrambling down over a jumble of moss-covered boulders, dragging the chair behind him. The rain was increasing, but he hardly noticed it. Before him was the creek, and directly on his left where the tiny stream entered it, was an immense yellow rock with a log across it.

Timor gave a sigh of relief. This was a spot he remembered well, for he'd fished here often last summer. It was all of a mile from his uncle's place, though little more than a hundred yards from old Wiley's shack.

8

Seng Hunter

W
ILEY'S SHACK was a one-room affair with a small porch in front that faced the creek, and an open shed on the side that had been used as a workshop. So thick was the growth around the place that a chance visitor could approach within a hundred feet of it and hardly suspect its presence.

Timor, stumbling along the overgrown path at the rear, reached the shed first and set his precious burden down by the workbench. For a moment he stood leaning wearily against the bench, so thankful for having reached his haven that he was hardly aware of being soaked to the skin. Then a sudden fit of shivering reminded him that the day—what was left of it—was turning colder by the minute. He'd better get inside and build a fire.

From the shed a small door opened into a corner of the shack. He tried the latch, and found it was securely barred on the inside. He hurried around to the porch and tried the heavy front door. It too was barred. For an instant he wondered how Rance Gatlin had entered—for surely the deputy had broken in somehow. Hadn't Gatlin mentioned that, in searching for Wiley's keys, he'd found none inside the place?

Timor shook his head, and began groping under the steps. Finally his exploring fingers closed upon a short but heavy piece of wire with a hook at one end. On the porch again, he thrust the hook into an all-but-hidden crack in the wall, turned it carefully, and drew it out. The hook brought with it the end of a rawhide thong. A quick jerk of the thong, a pressure on the latch, and the stout door creaked open.