South River Incident (7 page)

I opened my eyes, hoping I
hadn’t progressed to swaying with the rhythm of Billy’s hands. It just felt so
good!

“You’re not interrupting
anything,” I said as I gathered my wits. “Billy was trying to help me rid
myself of some pent-up tension.”

“Jack just called and said
he couldn’t make it for Thanksgiving. Dennis has come down with the flu. Mom’s
pretty upset. She’s downstairs cooking up a storm and so far everyone has
cancelled.”

“We’ll be here for dinner,
I promise you,” Billy said, and then winked at me. “We don’t want your mom to
eat alone.”

I hadn’t really discussed
any specific plans for Thanksgiving dinner with Billy because he had told me it
was a big Blackhawk celebration. Every family member would attend. He hadn’t
invited me to go with him so I didn’t invite him to eat with us. I figured we’d
do our own thing. 

“That’s right,” I added,
following Billy’s cue. “We’ll be here.” 

“What about Cole? Is he
coming?” Claire asked.

“No, Claire,” I puffed. “I
don’t think he’s going to be able to make it.”

Billy and I stole a glance
at each other. We both realized that Cole was a done deal. Billy was fed up
with him, and I could no longer love a man I couldn’t count on.  It was over,
and life would go onward.

“I see you’re packing. Are
you going to move now?” Claire asked.

“Yeah, this is the perfect
time,” I said. “Some of the snow has melted, but it’s going to get ugly again.
Billy says the weather changes so fast that you’d better go while you still
can. We’ll make the move now and be back in time for dinner tomorrow. What time
is dinner?”

“It’ll be around
noon
.”

Claire smiled and turned to
leave. She had a strange look in her eyes. “The two of you belong together
regardless of what you think. I’m sure you don’t see it, but I do.”

I stumbled all over myself
after Claire left the room. Billy wasn’t doing too badly himself. The idea of
the two of us being a pair was not only ridiculous, but was just not going to
happen. We ignored her statement and continued with the task at hand.

“What do you want to take
with you?” Billy asked, scanning the room.

“Let’s see,” I said. I
looked around the room again. “I want to take my computer, stereo, the TV set,
and my clothes. That’s about it, unless...”

“You won’t need to take the
bed unless you want to. All the bedrooms still have a bed and dresser. There’s
a couch and a couple of chairs in the living room and a dinette set in the
kitchen. Everything else is pretty much gone. We left the bare essentials in
the kitchen: pots, pans and utensils. The beds have sheets and bedspreads and
the curtains are still there. That’s about it. You’ll see for yourself when we
get there.”

“The bare necessities sound
perfect to me.”

By
five o’clock
, we had
everything I owned packed in my Jeep, with the exception of my computer table.
Instead of taking it apart, we left it in one piece and put it in the back of
Billy’s truck. It was made out of paperboard and if it got wet while we were in
transport, it would be dead meat. But for $49.95, who cared?

Mom and Claire cried when
we pulled out of the driveway. As usual, they were so emotional. They both
could cry over the silliest things.

Much of the snow had melted
by the time we left Mom’s house in
Dogwood
Valley
. Gullies of water had accumulated in areas, and the
South River
was
running at its peak. I wondered if the residents weren’t in danger of flooding
from the snow that had melted off the mountain tops. Billy says that happens
quite often. Several inches of snow accumulating in a quick period of time, and
rising temperatures soon thereafter, could result in devastating floods. Yet,
this didn’t seem too bad.

I drove away with a good
feeling in my heart. I was about to embark on another one of my adventures on
the road of life. It could only get better, or so I thought.

I
followed Billy
out
of Stanardsville into
Charlottesville
, eventually coming to the entrance of the Blackhawk
property, several miles deep into
Albemarle
County
.

Bear Mountain Road
was the main road into the Blackhawk compound. It
traveled for miles, twisting and turning, leading to the various homes of
Billy’s brothers and sisters, until it reached the circle of Sam and Sarah
Blackhawk’s house. There, the road turned around and led back out. Billy had
once told me that Chief Sam Standing Deer planned it that way. He was the chief
and he wanted to be at the end of the line. I guess that way he could watch
over all his children. Every time he and Sarah left their house, they would
have to pass by their children’s homes.

Billy’s parents owned a few
thousand acres of land. Many years ago, they divided some of it into parcels
for their children, giving each one several acres in which to build a house for
their families. And, of course they all did. Unfortunately, not all of them
remained as a family on the Blackhawk compound. Billy and Ruth divorced five years
ago. Daniel has three ex-wives and five children, but his son, Greg is the only
one who still lives with him at their family home. Jonathan built a small cabin
and lives there alone. Sarah and Beth also have places of their own to come to
when they want to get out of the city. They live in the city because neither
one of their husbands wanted to live out in the wild
.
It was also a
career decision. Sarah is a lawyer and Beth is a financial advisor.

Now I had joined the
Blackhawk tribe. Almost. I was about to move into their territory. I didn’t
know too much about the Cherokees, but from what I’ve seen on TV, they were a
tight community. Would they see me as an outsider?

Billy turned left at the
third graveled entrance. Tree limbs recently laden with heavy snow hung over
the path, scraping the sides of my Jeep as I followed. I hit every pothole in
the road before finally coming to a stop in front of a house sitting at the end
of the path. I parked alongside of Billy’s truck and got out. There was a crisp
nip in the air as a cold gust of wind hit my face. The ground was saturated
with the melting snow.

I had heard so much from
Billy about this place and now I was going to live in it. When it first came
into view, it looked like just an average, two-story log house set back in the
mountains. Once inside, I realized it was far from average. It had once been a
home and would be again.

I sat the box I was
carrying down on the floor and looked around, scanning the room. I shivered at
the chill in the house.

The living room, dining
room and kitchen were one big open space. To my right up against the wall was a
large stone fireplace that looked like it had seen many fires, and had been the
gathering place for Billy’s family on a cold winter’s night. A sofa with its back
to me, sat in front of the fireplace, and a small table sat empty in front of
it. To my left was a dinette table and chairs nestled in the middle of a modern
looking kitchen. A utility room was off the back of the kitchen. Straight
ahead, a hallway in the middle led to the back half of the house, and the
master bedroom to the right. The stairway to the second floor ran along the
side to the left of the hallway, and a guest bathroom was to the left past the
stairs. All the floors were hardwood. 

“Billy, this is nice.”

“As you can see there’s not
much furniture,” he apologized as he wiped his wet shoes off on the doormat,
and then closed the front door. He walked over and sat a bag of my junk down on
the kitchen table. “I’ll bring in some more stuff while you have a look
around.”

“No,” I said, locking my
arm in his. “I want you to give me the ten-cent tour. It would make it more
special coming from you. This is your house.”

“Okay, if that’s what you
want,” he said. He smiled that charming smile of his and took on a proud air as
he gave me the grand tour of his house. He took me upstairs first and showed me
the two bedrooms where his sons grew up, and the bathroom in the hallway they
had shared. By the time we had made it through the master bedroom downstairs,
he was clearly shaken. I saw a tear in his eye.

“Does it bother you to be
here?” I asked.

“Not so much anymore,” he
managed to say before he walked off into his own little world.

I hated to see him hurt
like that so from that moment on, I decided I was going to put the joy back
into his place. I was going to change his last sad memories into new, happy
ones. Billy might not have Ruth anymore, but he had me, and I would be his
friend till the end.

It didn’t take long for us
to get the rest of my stuff inside. I didn’t have much. Within an hour, I had
my clothes pretty much unpacked and stored in the one dresser in the master
bedroom. A few boxes lined the wall and would stay there until I could figure
out what to do with them. The only other piece of furniture in the room was a
bed made of pine in the shape of a box, resting on four short legs.

It felt funny moving into
Billy and Ruth’s house, but if I was going to live here, I had to get past that
feeling. I just hoped that I didn’t have dreams of him when I slept in their
bed. That would be weird.

Billy had a fire going in
the fireplace, and I could smell coffee brewing when I walked out of the
bedroom.

“Where did you get the
coffee?”

“It’s the one thing I keep
here. Sometimes I have to come out to the house to make sure everything’s kept
up, and I’ll have a cup of coffee while I’m here.”

I heard a rumble in the
background. “What was that?”

“It’s the gas heater
kicking in. I just turned up the thermostat. Usually I keep it at fifty-five
when it gets cold, just so the pipes won’t freeze. But now that you’re here,
you’ll need for it to be warmer inside. I figured the fire in the fireplace
would be a nice touch.”

“You know how I do love a
fire. It makes a house so cozy.” I walked over to the fireplace and rubbed my
hands together, leaning into the fire.

“Here,” Billy said as he
handed me a cup of coffee. “Drink this, it will warm you up.” His fingertips
touched mine.

I touched his hand and
said, “Billy, your hands are freezing. Sit by the fire with me.”

We sat down on opposite
ends of the hearth and drank our coffee.

Gradually, I got this warm,
peaceful feeling. I knew I was going to love this place. This was going to be
my home.

“Well, if I’m going to live
here, I have to have more than coffee. Didn’t we pass a country store on our
way in?” I asked, breaking the silence.

Billy’s cell phone rang. He
reached under his coat and whipped it out. 

“Hello, Billy Blackhawk...
Yes... Hello, Mom. We were just having some coffee... Okay, if that’s what you
want. We’ll be right there.”

He folded up the phone and
shoved it back under his coat.

“Was that my mother? We
haven’t been here...”

“No, that was my mom. She
wants us to come up to the house for a few minutes. She has to know everything.
You know how mothers are.”

“How did she know we were
here?”

“She probably saw us when
we came in. Remember, she’s higher up than we are. She can see every car that
comes and goes.  And believe me, she doesn’t miss much. My father—being a
full-blooded Cherokee—can smell us coming a mile away.”

I guess Billy sensed from
the look on my face that I believed his every word. He smiled at me and said,
“I was just kidding. He can’t smell any farther than half a mile.” He then
laughed one of those belly laughs. “God, you’re so gullible, Jesse. What am I
going to do with you?”

Sarah Blackhawk greeted us
at the door. “Come on in,” she said. She ushered us into the big family living
room.

A fire was blazing in the
fireplace while Chief Blackhawk was stretched out next to it, asleep in a
recliner. He didn’t budge.

Sarah’s an all-American
white woman and their marriage is still the talk of the tribe. She raised their
family against many obstacles, and has been a good wife to her husband while
still managing to keep her own identity. She was very proud of this. She was
small in size, but to her family, she was larger than life. Nothing meant more
to her than them.

Billy and I took off our
coats and sat down on the sofa. We looked like two little kids waiting to be
punished for something we knew nothing about. We were the innocent ones.

Sarah didn’t waste any
time. She sat down in the overstuffed chair across from us, leaned forward and
said, “I got a call from Cole about an hour ago. He said the sheriff was
looking for Jesse. She’s wanted for questioning in a murder case. He wanted to
know if you two were here.”

“What did you tell him?”
Billy asked.

“I told him I hadn’t seen
you because at the time I hadn’t. But when I went up to the stables to check on
the horses, I saw your truck and that red Jeep of Jesse’s in front of your
place.”

“Why didn’t Cole call Billy
on his cell phone if he was looking for us?” I asked her. “Did he forget the
number?”

Billy looked at me and then
back at Sarah. “We talked to the sheriff this morning and he said...”

“There’s been a new
development in the case. Cole says they have an eyewitness that puts Jesse with
that woman the day she disappeared.”

“That’s crazy! I don’t even
know the woman! I’ve never even met her!”

“That’s what you say,”
Chief Blackhawk said as he came to life. “But beware, the white man has his own
set of rules. You have to live by these rules. You must prove yourself. Your
word is but a speckle of dust on a ledge. It means nothing. There is no trust
in the white man’s world. There is no honor. It is so sad.”

“What do you mean?” I asked
the chief. “Are you saying it doesn’t matter that I’m innocent?”

“That’s exactly what I’m
saying. You must find the truth before the lies find you. It is your only
chance.”

I looked at Billy. He
seemed to understand exactly what his father was trying to convey. He stood and
grabbed my arm, pulling me off the couch.

“Let’s go, Jesse,” he said.
He bent down and kissed his mother good-bye. “Thanks for calling me. And before
you ask, yes, Jesse’s moving into my house. I hope you’ll welcome her.” That
was all he said, and she didn’t ask any questions. She hugged me.

“Things are really getting
crazy,” I said as we left the house and headed down the driveway. Billy’s brow
was creased and the way he gripped the steering wheel led me to believe that he
was really worried.

“We’re going back and put
your Jeep in the garage.”

“What garage? I didn’t see
a garage.” 

“It’s behind the house,” he
said. He made the turn onto the road leading back to my new home.  He seemed to
drift off for a second. “You know, I never did build that breezeway Ruth
wanted.” He turned and smiled a sad smile. “She always wanted a breezeway from
the garage to the utility room. She said she hated that walk in the winter. It
was too cold.”

“I have a garage! That’s so
cool!” I tried to make light of the subject. “Maybe this spring you and I could
do that breezeway. I know a few things about building. Jack taught me.”

“Yeah, I remember you
telling me something to that effect.” He gave me one of his funny looks. “We’ll
see.”

“I know a lot more than you
give me credit.”

“I’m sure you do,” he
laughed. His expression turned serious. “Actually, you’re exactly like I
expected you to be. When we met, I knew more about you in the first ten minutes
than you do about yourself right now.”

“Oh, bull.”

“For example,” he
continued, “I know that you’re tough on the outside, but soft on the inside.
You act like you don’t care about anything, yet I saw how you freaked out when
Thor was bitten by that copperhead.”

“It wasn’t Thor, it was
Athena.”

“You cried for two solid
hours.”

“I did not! You’re full
of...” I stopped dead. Cole’s olive green Jeep was parked in front of the
house. “What’s he doing here?”

As soon as Billy shut the
engine off, Cole walked out from behind the house. He was dressed in Army
fatigues, sporting that familiar badge pinned to his waist, and a gun strapped
to his hip. The first thing I noticed was that he wasn’t wearing a coat.

I leaped out of the truck
and ran to him.

“Are you nuts? Where’s your
coat?” I cried. “Don’t you know you could freeze to death out here?” 

Billy walked up and held
out his hand in his usual manner of greeting. “How’s it going, buddy?”

“I’ve had better days,”
Cole said. He stared at the two of us. “Come in. We need to talk.”

“Sure, let’s go inside.” Billy
turned and led the way.

Cole and I followed.

“Your mom said you decided
to move out. What prompted that?” Cole said to me as we made our way up the
walkway to the porch. “I thought Claire was going to move in here.”