The Rosewood Casket (5 page)

He wished he had been around just a hundred years ago: yesterday in geologic time, but in some ways an eternity ago. There were no starlings here then.

Daniel Boone had never seen a starling.

Clayt tried to picture the mountain as it would have been in 1761. First, he had to imagine being able to see for ninety miles into the distance instead of the paltry twelve miles of visibility you got in clear weather nowadays. Air pollution had shrunk the vistas as surely as clear cutting had felled the forests. Ninety miles. What could he see from those high meadows with such a range? Asheville? The Virginia Blue Ridge? He could not even imagine such wonders.

In 1761, there had been elk and buffalo in the North Carolina / Tennessee mountains, now remaining only in the place names: Banner Elk, Elk River, Buffalo Mountain. And over in Mitchell County there was a community called Pigeon Roost, named for the great flocks of passenger pigeons that were also gone forever. They had looked like large blue-tinged mourning doves darkening the sky in their flight, millions of them at once. They had been the most populous species of bird in North America. The last of them died in 1914—blasted into oblivion in less than two hundred years by hunters who slaughtered them by the ton, and then would not believe that the birds were gone forever. “They have flown away,” people said. “They’ve gone to Australia.” Now there was hardly anyone alive who had even seen one. Here and there a sad bundle of feathers gathered dust in a museum—all that was left of a mighty species.

Clayt looked out at the distant hill, silvered with the bare limbs of maple trees, and wondered how it would have looked in Boone’s day. There would have been chestnut trees on the hillsides then. Until sixty years ago these sprawling giants of the forest, with trunks twenty feet around, soared up into the sky a hundred feet or more, but they, too, were gone, killed by the fungus from an imported plant. The last of the great chestnuts had died in the thirties in these mountains, but Clayt saw their remnants sometimes in the deep woods, the bodies of fallen giants rotting away into compost in the green silence. Much of the mountains was national forest land now. He wondered if the government’s attempts at preservation would change anything in the overall process of destruction.

A single starling swept past Clayt Stargill, and he waved his hand to frighten it away. It spoiled the scene for him. Still, who was he to say that the bird did not belong to his Appalachia? As much as he longed for the mountains of his pioneer ancestors, he knew that the land had always been in the process of change, and that every species, past and present, was, at some point, an interloper.

He smiled at his own hypocrisy, condoning some species and excluding others, based on his whims. In fairness he had to admit to himself—and to those who went on his wildlife walks—that the Kentucky bluegrass was as much an interloper as the starlings, but it was a pleasant addition, and because it had been established a century earlier people had forgotten that it was not native to North America. Bluegrass is English timothy, used in straw form by pioneers as a packing material to protect their trade goods. When bits of seed escaped from the packs, they sprouted along the trails, and thrived in the new environment. If you banished the starlings from your perfect world, the bluegrass, too, must go.

What time would he call “real,” anyhow?

The mountains looked frozen in time, so immutable were they within the span of man’s lifetime, but he knew that they had changed many times over the millennia. Mountains had risen up, been ground down into dust, and rose again when the shoulder of Africa butted the Old Red Sandstone continent, making dents that were the peaks and valleys of the southern Appalachians. These mountains had once been higher and grander than the Rockies, but they were old now, headed once more toward the dust. Those young, jagged mountains were not his, though. They belonged to a tropical time, when warm fern wetlands stretched across Kentucky and West Virginia, laying down the deposits of vegetation that would turn into coal over the succeeding millennia.

Twelve thousand years ago, then. When the Ice Age had retreated back to the North, and perhaps human beings settled in the mountains for the first time. Wonderful creatures walked these hills then—the shaggy elephants called mastodons, American lions that would dwarf their modern African cousins, saber-toothed tigers, sloths bigger than pickup trucks, bears double the size of today’s grizzlies, birds of prey with wingspans of twenty-five feet, musk oxen, and camels, and horses. Perhaps among this bestiary were the inspirations for the legends of monsters in Cherokee lore. What a wild and magical place it must have been in that springtime following the Ice Age.

No. He would not have known the land here as it was then, a spare, frozen place, forested by spruce and fir trees that tolerated the cold better than the oaks and hickories of this warmer time. Although the glaciers were retreating by then, twelve thousand years ago, the highest points of the southern range would have been a tundra zone, with ground that seldom thawed, and unceasing winds that withered all but the hardiest of plants. Those harsher, younger mountains did not stir his blood, despite their wonders—tigers and wooly mastodons in a kingdom of ice. He had no place in that world.

He always came back to 1761.

The land would be familiar to him in its eighteenth-century guise, but cleaner, truer to its own spirit, unspoiled by the invaders: settlers and starlings.

CHAPTER TWO

The history of my going home and returning with my family forms a series of difficulties, an account of which would swell a volume.

—DANIEL BOONE

Charles Martin Stargill clicked off his cordless phone and set it on the sofa beside him, but he didn’t pick up his guitar again. He just sat there for a few minutes, gazing at a framed picture of himself and Johnny Cash without really seeing it, as if he were still listening to a disembodied conversation. He was still lost in thought when Kelley came into the room, bringing the beer he’d asked for.

“What’s the matter, hon?” she said, but he just sat there, looking like a pole-axed steer, and then she saw the phone on the sofa beside him, and thought, “Uh-oh,” hoping that the bad news, whatever it was, wouldn’t cloud the rest of their day. Charles Martin Stargill might have a trademark smile in his publicity photos, but when he was offstage and out of the spotlight, he could be moody, and sometimes downright rude if you didn’t stay out of his way.

In the few months they had been together, Kelley had grown used to the dark silences; she had even seen rages that the country music fans wouldn’t have believed. Not that she would ever tell them. She never talked to the press. That was the fastest way to stop being close to a performer. No way did she want to go back to five bucks an hour and a one-room apartment with two locks on the door and walls like a paper napkin. Charles Martin’s house was no Graceland, that’s for sure, but he had twenty acres and a pond with a little waterfall at one end and goldfish as big as your hand swimming around in it. The first time they visited him there, Kayla had thought it was Disney World.

Kelley thought he was still more country boy than country music star, and she liked that about him. Sometimes he had an innocence that almost matched Kayla’s, and sometimes he was tougher than wet leather. The first part made her like him, and the second part made him rich. She wasn’t with Charles Martin just for his money, though. She hadn’t even known he was somebody important when he first asked her out. He just seemed like a nice, straightforward guy who wasn’t out for what he could get.

So far things were working out better than she’d expected, men being what they were. Charles Martin was moody, sometimes, sure, but Kelley knew that people in the music business are under an incredible amount of pressure, so his bad nerves were understandable. He didn’t do drugs, or beat up on her, or on Kayla, who was six. He just needed his space from time to time, especially when he was writing his songs, and they had to respect that. Kelley tried to smooth his path as best she could, so he wouldn’t end up the way Elvis did.

Charles Martin didn’t exactly act like a daddy to Kayla, but he treated her with courtesy, and listened to her just like she was a grown-up, which was more than you could say for her real daddy, who sent a check every couple of months but never remembered her birthday. Kelley wasn’t sure if things were going to work out permanently between her and Charles Martin Stargill—she never did have much luck with men—but for now she thought they were as much of a family as she could hope for.

Charles Martin was still staring off into space, so she set down the beer in front of him and tried again. “If the phone is bothering you, I could take it out of here. Are you working on a song?”

He shrugged. “I was, I guess. It’s gone now. That was my brother Clayt calling from up home.” He gave her that smile he wore when he lost the Country Music Award. “At first I thought he wanted to borrow money but that wasn’t it. He said Daddy is in a bad way, and that I should come home.”

“Oh, Charlie, I’m real sorry.” Kelley was relieved but she was careful not to show it. This kind of trouble was something that they could share, not like business worries, when he would shut her out, saying she didn’t understand and she had to let him weather it on his own. Family troubles were something women understood better than men. She remembered how hopeless her grandfather had been when Mamaw died, and she thought, “I can get Charles Martin through this. He’ll need me,” because men couldn’t cry, and they seemed to have absolutely no idea what you were supposed to do as one of the bereaved. They just stood around like children waiting for food to be put in front on them, and having to be told every single thing, like what to wear to the viewing.

She wondered if he was taking it hard, or if he was just shocked by the news. He had never talked much about his folks back in east Tennessee, and there had been no calls or visits that she knew of in the months they’d been together. He had a brother at Fort Campbell, but the two weren’t close, as far as she could tell.

Kelley knew little more about him than the sugared biography printed in the souvenir program for his concerts:
A true son of the pioneers, Charles Martin Stargill hails from the coves of east Tennessee, where his forefathers settled in the late seventeen hundreds. He was raised on the family farm with his four brothers, taking part in church and community singing, and he worked as a logger and a truck driver before coming to Nashville with a guitar and a dream.
… The article was interspersed with black-and-white snapshots of Charles Martin: a five-year-old with a grin and a beat-up ukelele; a scowling teenager, holding a chainsaw; and his first publicity photo—the one he called his Buck Owens yard sale picture—looking rawboned and awkward in a white-fringed cowboy outfit.

Kelley sat down beside him, and put her arms around him. “I’m really sorry to hear about your dad,” she said. “I guess you’ll want to leave tonight.”

“Don’t guess I got much choice. I just hope it’ll be over before the tabloids get wind of it. I don’t want the funeral turned into a circus.”

Kelley didn’t see why the media would care about the natural death of a minor celebrity’s elderly father, but she knew better than to argue with a performer’s ego. “Were you close to your dad?”

Charles Martin shrugged. “I believe I sent him every single article I was ever mentioned in, hoping he’d be impressed. Bought him a Rolex the Christmas I signed with MCA.”

Kelley thought about his answer for a moment, and instead of what she had been thinking, she said, “It’s a shame you couldn’t get home more often.”

“Yeah, well, we got along better at a distance. It will be strange to have us all together again. First time I’ve been back since Mama died.”

“This will mean changing your schedule around. Do you want me to call Mr. Iselin for you?”

“No. I need to talk to Ray myself.” He smiled a little and patted her thigh. “Why don’t you go pack the suitcases, honey?”

She was going with him. She nodded, not smiling back, and started toward the bedroom. Charles Martin called after her, “You know what to pack, don’t you?”

Kelley nodded. “Your good suit and dress shirts, silk ties, Italian loafers, and some around home jeans and stuff, right?”

He smiled again, but not like anything was funny. “Not for Wake County, darlin’,” he said. “I tried that a time or two, and learned my lesson. The homefolks don’t like to see the local celebrity dressed like a regular guy. They like to be able to point me out at the grocery store or have their picture taken with me on the street, and have everybody know I’m a country singer just by looking at me. Famous people are no fun if they’re ordinary. Pack the buckskin shirts, the concho belt, and the stuff I wear for daytime interviews.”

Kelley started to ask him another question, but he had picked up the phone and was already punching in numbers. That was it, she figured, and she was worried. Going home was going to be another performance, and she didn’t know who she was supposed to be.

*   *   *

In Cincinnati, Robert Lee Stargill came into the kitchen after work and found his wife sifting flour, with tears rolling down her plump cheeks.

It was early evening, and Robert was still wearing the sky blue jacket and string tie that were his uniform at the car dealership where he was assistant sales manager. Lilah Rose occasionally suggested that he try a new look—a nice conservative black suit was her latest recommendation—but Robert refused to alter his appearance. “This is how people expect a car salesman to look, Lilah,” he would tell her. “If they came on the lot and I was dressed like a college professor, they’d be afraid I’d look down on them when they had to ask for a five-year loan to get the payments low enough. They’d think I’d sneer at the junker they brought to trade in. They’d shy away, and buy the car from somebody else—somebody younger, most likely. I know I’m no fashion plate in this old jacket, honey, but it’s the right thing to wear. It makes people feel a little bit superior to me, no matter how little they have, and that’s good for business.” All that was true, but so was the fact that he rather liked the sky blue jacket.