Risky Undertaking (7 page)

Chapter Seven

Detective Sergeant Hector Romero drove his patrol car down a narrow gravel road bordering a bold stream. We were heading into one of the coves of the Great Smoky Mountains so sheltered that it only emerged from shadows a few hours a day when the sun climbed high enough to clear the ridges.

I'd grown up in the Appalachians, but the Smokies were a range unto themselves. The mountains were squeezed together like deep wrinkles on a prune. Botanists claimed the diversity of plants was unequaled by any other site of temperate climate in the world. With elevations ranging from under a thousand feet to over six thousand six hundred, the latitude equivalent was like driving from Georgia to Canada.

The Great Smokies are among the oldest mountains in the world, and during the Ice Age became the refuge of wildlife escaping the glaciers. They are a zoologist's dream.

They also separate humans into enclaves of hollers and coves—isolated from one another. The farther we followed the road, the fewer the mailboxes along the shoulder.

“Does Panther's grandmother live in the national park?” I asked. We had to be getting close to the edge of the Cherokee Qualla Boundary.

“No,” Romero said. “But her farm's adjacent to it.”

“Farm?” I looked at the steep ridges. “She must plow using a mule with short legs on one side.”

Romero laughed. “She's on in-between land. A bowl that's neither reservation nor national park. Land she actually owns and isn't part of the Cherokee's federal trust.”

As he spoke, the stream on our right branched away and the narrow wedge of flat land between the ridges widened into a small valley. The scruffy vegetation became green pasture and, behind barbed wire, several cows stared at us as they chewed their cud.

“What's the grandmother's name?” I asked.

“Emma Byrd,” Romero said. “That's Byrd with a
y
. She's Jimmy's maternal grandmother. Jimmy's mother died about ten years ago of breast cancer. His father deserted the family shortly after Jimmy's sister Skye was born, a good twenty years ago. Emma's pretty much raised both of them.”

The farmhouse sat on a shelf of land above the flood zone of the mountain stream. The gentlest slope of the surrounding ridge was behind the weathered structure, providing protection against excessive runoff during a torrential downpour.

The gravel road stopped at the base, leaving the final approach as a rutted dirt lane that rose to the front yard. There was no garage or discernible driveway. Several vehicles were parked haphazardly near the sagging porch.

Romero swung his patrol car around the right side where a rusted heating oil tank hugged a paint-chipped wall. He rolled down the windows before killing the engine. “Wait here,” he said.

The Cherokee left us, Tommy Lee in the front passenger seat and me behind the partition separating prisoners and officers. Instead of heading toward the porch, Romero lumbered to the rear and climbed makeshift cinder block steps to the back door.

“Why's he doing that?” I asked.

“Because he's smart. Friends are bringing in food so one or two people will be coming in and out of the kitchen. Hector will ask someone to let the grandmother know he's there without having to make a grand entrance. Then, together, they can decide how and where to answer our questions.”

I turned in the backseat for a better view of the vehicles in the yard. I expected Romero might ask visitors to leave, but after five minutes, no one had emerged from the house.

Tommy Lee opened his door. “There he is. Let's go.”

Through the front windshield, I saw Romero help an elderly woman down the cinder block steps from the back door. She was thin as a cat-o-nine-tails reed with flowing white hair that reached her waist. Her brown shapeless dress stopped a few inches above her tan moccasins. Romero summoned us with a wave of his broad hand.

“How do you want to play this?” I asked Tommy Lee.

“Let Hector set it up. Then just ask your questions and go with the flow. She's lost her grandson, and you've talked to more grieving families than Hector and me combined.

As we neared, the Cherokee woman cocked her head and her dark eyes scrutinized us.

Romero cleared his throat. “Emma, this is Sheriff Wadkins and his investigating officer, Deputy Barry Clayton. They're doing everything they can to find who killed Jimmy.”

“We're very sorry, Miss Byrd,” Tommy Lee said. “And we appreciate any help you can give us.”

“Let's walk.” Her words came out as a whisper on a single breath. Without waiting for us to follow, she started up the slope away from the farmhouse.

Romero looked at us and shrugged. He fell in step behind her.

We entered the woods on a well-worn path that arced to the right in a gradual ascent above the stream. We hiked in silence, like one of Tommy Lee's Vietnam patrols, with the war veteran bringing up the rear. After a quarter mile or so, the trail leveled onto a natural terrace created by the underlying rock formation. Two dwellings perched near the edge. One was a single-story rectangle with bark-covered walls and a thatched roof that extended about six feet beyond the front to form a porch. The second was a conical structure of clay that looked more like a beehive than a house.

Emma Byrd stopped in front of them.

“Jimmy lived here?” Romero asked.

“Yes,” the old woman replied. She pointed with a slender hand to the more traditional building. “Here when it's warm.” She gestured to the circular one. “And in the asi when it's cold.”

Asi. I wasn't familiar with the term and made a mental note to remember it.

“Come. We can sit in the shade.” Emma Byrd walked to a split-log bench that ran along the front wall to the right of the door. Two plastic chairs faced it. She and Romero sat on the bench. Tommy Lee and I took the chairs.

“This is good,” she said. “Better to talk about Jimmy here than in my house.”

“I agree,” Romero said. “May my friends ask you some questions?”

Her thin lips formed a wry smile. “Isn't that why we climbed here?”

Romero nodded, and then turned to me.

I leaned forward, striving to show sincerity without escalating the encounter into an interrogation. “We're trying to retrace Jimmy's activities yesterday. See if there was anything unusual that might explain what brought him to the cemetery.”

“Nothing would have brought him to that cemetery.” Emma Byrd looked at Romero. “Not at night.”

“Did you see him yesterday?” I asked.

“Twice. Breakfast and dinner.” She bit her lower lip in an attempt to stave off her rising grief. She gazed down the trail. “Jimmy could smell my cooking no matter which way the wind blew.”

“Did he seem particularly troubled at either meal?”

“Troubled? You mean was Jimmy upset?”

“Yes. Or behaving differently.”

The old woman stared up at the porch's roof. Her fingers drummed against the bench. Romero, Tommy Lee, and I sat waiting, listening to the arrhythmic tapping. Two minutes passed.

“He was happy.” She whispered the words to the air above me.

“Happy?”

Her dark eyes focused on me. “Yes. At breakfast and supper.”

“And normally he was unhappy?”

She shook her head and the long white hair rippled like a windblown cape. “Happy in the sense of contented. Unhappy in the sense of agitated, obsessed with his fight against termination.”

“Preservation, not termination,” I said.

Emma Byrd glanced at Romero. “Did he hear that from you?”

The policeman shook his head.

“Jimmy spoke the words to me,” Tommy Lee said. “At the site of the remains we unearthed in Laurel County.”

“And when he blocked Eurleen Cransford's funeral procession,” I added. “What's it mean?”

Emma's lips tightened as if holding back a flood of words. Then, in a even cadence, she said, “Kill the Indian and save the man.” She looked at Romero and tears trickled along the crevices of her cheeks. “But they killed the Indian and the man.”

Romero put his arm around the old woman and took a deep breath. “It's OK, Miss Emma. I'll explain it.” He turned to Tommy Lee and me. “Most in the white world don't know termination was the code word for the government's policy of driving out all vestiges of Indian heritage. The goal was forced assimilation and the abolishment of reservations. In short, civilize the native people that white society viewed as savages.

“Schools were built where Indian children were forbidden to speak their native tongue or practice traditional customs. In a generation or two, the Indian within would be eradicated, and what was left would be an individual swallowed up in mainstream culture.”

“Kill the Indian and save the man,” I repeated. “I thought that was from the late 1800s.”

“It was,” Romero said. “But the policy officially flourished from the 1940s through the 1960s when the government dissolved recognition of numerous tribes and gave states the responsibility to govern the former reservation lands.”

“Were the Cherokee terminated?” I asked.

“No. Terminations were done on a tribe-by-tribe basis and had to move through Congress and court challenges. A backlash built, the American Indian Movement coalesced around the common interests, and the documented effects of termination on education and health care proved devastating, the exact opposite of what was promised.”

“The termination policy was terminated,” I said.

Romero pulled his arm away from Emma, and she wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

“Yes,” Romero said. “Thanks to Richard Nixon.”

“Tricky Dick?” Tommy Lee scowled. “What was in it for him?”

Romero shrugged. “I guess he had enough Vietnam War protesters on his hands without adding Indians to the list. And the states didn't want responsibility for the tribes, especially with no federal funds. So, Nixon changed the policy from termination to self-determination.”

The history lesson still didn't give me the answer to my question. “Then why would Jimmy say preservation?”

Emma Byrd pointed a finger at me. “Because self-determination is leading us to our self-termination. Jimmy fought not only against forces without but also forces within. Whether it was your cemetery or a tribal council meeting, Jimmy made no distinction. He saw no shades of gray when it came to preserving and protecting the spiritual core of the Cherokee people.”

“And yet, yesterday, he was happy,” I said. “Contented. Why?”

“I don't know,” Emma Byrd said. “And if I'd asked, the very question could have broken his mood. It was enough that he was happy.”

And less than twelve hours later, he was dead. I thought about the information Romero shared at the police station. “Miss Byrd, we understand that your grandson went home after eating supper with you.”

“Yes. He left a little before nine. Skye stayed longer.”

“Your granddaughter, Jimmy's sister?”

“Yes.”

“Anyone else?”

“No. Sometimes Eddie Wolfe comes with Skye. He's her boyfriend, but last night he was working second shift.”

“Where?”

“Some box factory near Murphy.”

“That would be about forty-five minutes away,” Romero said.

“OK,” I said. “Miss Byrd, it looks like there's no road up here. Where did Jimmy keep his truck?”

“Down at my house. He parked it off to the side.”

“And he didn't drive off after supper?”

She shook her head. “I saw his flashlight from the kitchen window. He was going up the trail.”

“Did you hear his truck start later that night?”

“No, sir.”

I wondered how good was the old woman's hearing. I turned away from her and looked down the trail. “Would you have?” I asked softly.

She laughed, and I knew she'd seen through my little test.

“Yes. Unless he rolled off before turning on the engine.”

“Rolled off?”

“My house is up on a hill. He parks on the slope so the truck can coast down to the gravel road. Then the sound is masked by the stream.”

“Why does he do that?”

“Jimmy knows—” Her breath caught for an instant. “Jimmy knew I'm a light sleeper. He always rolled off after ten.”

“And when he came home?”

“He'd leave the truck at the bottom of the hill. I'm an early riser so I'd usually see it the next morning. Only this morning it wasn't there.”

“Emmama!” The cry came from the trail.

I turned in my chair and saw a young woman bounding up the path like a deer. When she drew closer, I recognized her as the woman who came with Jimmy and the other man the morning Howard Tuppler examined the Cherokee remains. She stopped at the corner post of the porch roof, holding onto the bark-covered pole for support while she caught her breath.

Emma stood. “What is it, child?”

“They said Hector Romero turned you over to some off-reservation policemen.” She stepped forward, pointing her finger at the Cherokee detective. “What'd you do? Wait till you saw me leave and then sneak up the holler?”

Romero got to his feet. “Calm down, Skye. These men are investigating Jimmy's death.”

The woman looked at Tommy Lee and me. “The same men who warned Jimmy off that cemetery? The foxes are investigating the henhouse.”

Tommy Lee and I rose together. The scar on his cheek twitched as his jaw tensed.

“We informed you and your brother of the law,” he said. “We protected those remains. Now we're exercising the same efforts to find who killed your brother.”

Emma Byrd stepped in front of her granddaughter. “I asked them to come up here. It's where I want to talk about Jimmy.”

Skye Panther's stony face crumbled. She reached out, pulled her grandmother to her, and then pressed her face against the old woman's thin neck. The muffled sobs pushed us back and we gave them space.