Читать книгу Beyond the Cherokee Trail - Lisa Carter - Страница 12

Chapter 3

3

2018—Cartridge Cove

I don’t see why the tribe hired that white, big-city woman to promote what’s supposed to be a Cherokee event. Why not one of us?”

Walker yanked open the door of his gunmetal gray F-150 and slid in beside his uncle. Cranking the engine, he slammed the dinging door shut.

Hawk-faced, Ross narrowed his eyes. “Because she’s Marvela Campbell’s granddaughter, and the Campbells are one of us.”

Walker shoved the gearshift into reverse, gravel spraying as he backed out of the temporary lodgings his uncle rented. “White Appalachian, Indian wannabes—”

“The Campbells are good people. Marvela may be white, but she understands The People.”

His uncle Ross had gone ramrod stiff, his spine as straight as the career soldier he’d been before retirement last year. “Their roots are as deep in this town as ours. Preachers, doctors, teachers the lot of them.” He cocked an eye Walker’s way. “She could teach you a thing or two about community service.”

Walker shot Ross a suspicious look. “Sounds like you know her. And I thought her name was Birchfield.” The truck rattled over the wooden trestle bridge that straddled Singing Creek.

Ross gazed out the window. “Born a Campbell. Her daddy and granddaddy preached at the old church on Meetinghouse Road. After she left Cartridge Cove, she married a Birchfield.”

“Part of them Birchfields up Asheville way?” Walker crinkled his nose. “The timber people who almost stripped the mountains bare a hundred years ago?”

Ross glared. “You and your trees.”

“The Birchfields,” Walker gritted his teeth, “who hobnobbed with the Vanderbilts at the turn of the century.”

Walker threw up his hand to wave at Calvin Ledford closing the co-op craft gallery, probably on the way home to feed his belly. Too early in the year for many tourists—not that Cartridge Cove being so far off the beaten path exactly crawled with tourists even in the height of the season. Which was just how Walker liked it.

The peaceful mountain life he’d dreamed of while soldiering in the hot sands of Afghanistan would be irrevocably destroyed if his mother, the tribal council, and Marvela Birchfield had their way.

Walker grimaced. “She married the Birchfield who became a U.S. Congressman, didn’t she? What did she want to come back here for, you reckon?”

Ross averted his gaze. “Maybe she wanted to come home. After your aunt Bonita passed . . .” He sighed. “Maybe Marvela, like me after all my wanderings across the earth, just wanted to come home.”

Walker glanced over at the strange expression on his uncle’s face. A man who’d fought in Vietnam, Desert Storm, and every twentieth-century military conflict in-between. “You know her?” At Ross’s shrug, Walker prodded. “Know her well?”

Ross cleared his throat. “Knew her. A long time ago.”

Walker negotiated a curve, calculating his uncle’s age and Marvela Birchfield’s.

“Things were different then.” Ross folded his hands in his lap. “Summer after we graduated, Marvela and I met at the community gospel sing in Robbinsville. Dinner on the grounds. The one time Cherokee and non-Indians got together every year. Still do. She’d been reading that book by C. S. Lewis they made into a movie.”

“And?”

Ross shuffled his feet in the floorboard of the pickup. “I’ve always loved a good book.”

Walker raised his eyebrows, waiting for the rest of the story.

“She let me borrow it. Next week, the singing was held in her pappy’s church. Between singing groups, we talked about the book. The symbolism. The metaphors for life. The trials the children faced, and how in the end they triumphed over their own individual weaknesses to become the person Aslan knew they could be all along. You ever read The Chronicles of Narnia, boy? It’s a classic.”

“I saw the movie.” Walker clenched his hands around the steering wheel. “At the base.”

Feeling his uncle’s eyes on him, Walker dared not turn his head and witness the compassion he’d find there. If anyone would understand the kind of things you endured in the face of enemy fire, Uncle Ross would. But sympathy often undid him since he’d finished his tour and come home for good. And Walker was tired of being the object of everyone’s well-meaning pity.

The old man laid a gentle hand on Walker’s shoulder. “I don’t fault you, son. If anyone’s earned the right to live the rest of their life in peace, it’s a veteran.”

Ross smiled. The wrinkles around his hooded dark eyes deepened. Wrinkles earned over a lifetime of scanning distant desert and jungle horizons. And, juggling the responsibility of the lives under his command. “You’ve made your mom so happy since you’ve come home, come to the altar and been baptized a new man.”

“The old Walker wasn’t so great. Figured it was long past time for a change. Of heart. In direction. In everything.”

His uncle’s cheeks lifted. “Had a talk with God myself in a jungle in ’Nam. Until then, a more stupid, foolish young man you’ve never met in all your born days.”

“You, Uncle Ross?”

“Me.” Ross thumped his chest. “Don’t make the mistakes I did. Don’t try to run or,” he nudged Walker with his elbow, “hide in those trees of yours from life, love, and what God knows you can be.”

Walker stiffened. “Mom’s been blabbing to you, too, hasn’t she? About the Sheriff’s offer? He’s concerned over the vandalism and the attack on the Center. Hotheads on our side are threatening retaliation, too. But I told her and I’m telling you, I’m done with violence. Give me those trees and a clean mountain breeze any day.”

“Love’s so wasted on the young and foolish.” His uncle’s lip curled. “Those trees. Don’t you find bark a little rough for cozying up to sometimes? Especially when it’s cold outside?”

Walker rolled his eyes. Just what he needed. A lecture on love from his elderly uncle. “Did the committee bother to investigate this Birchfield granddaughter’s credentials?”

“Sure. We’ve got her résumé on file. Considered the references she provided.”

“Notoriously unreliable. Did you run a background check or—?”

Ross’s bushy eyebrows furrowed. “You talking a criminal background check?”

“Yes, I am. What do you know about this woman?”

Ross drummed his fingers along the armrest. “Graduated from UVA with a communications degree. Worked for a New York City firm for three years before leaving and returning to Raleigh to start her own PR company.”

Walker pivoted. “Why’d she leave? Fired?”

“You read the papers lately?” Ross sniffed. “Oh, I forgot. Your generation only gets its news from the Internet. Laid off in a sluggish economy, not fired.”

“Laid off? You know that for sure?”

“Her former boss spoke highly of her work ethic and character. We examined her portfolio and the ad campaigns she created. Not that we needed those other references. Marvela Birchfield’s was plenty.”

Walker resolved to do a Google search on this Birchfield granddaughter as soon as he got home.

“Do you know Marvela Campbell, boy?”

Walker cut his eyes over to his uncle at the wistful note in his voice. “Just in passing. From church. She’s only been back a few months, but keeping the local carpenters in business remodeling that house of hers.”

“She’s still a stunner, I’ll bet.”

Walker shrugged. “I guess. She’s old.”

Ross punched him in the muscle of his arm.

“Ow!” Walker took one hand off the wheel long enough to rub his arm.

“I repeat, love and I don’t know what-all,” Ross’s nostrils flared. “Is so wasted on the young.”

Passing the Mercantile and his mother’s quilt shop, Walker veered onto a side street that jutted off Main and into a recently blacktopped driveway. He stopped the truck beside the shaded, deep porch that ran the length of the three-story Victorian home.

Walker shifted the gearstick into park. “Yeah, it’s the ‘what-all’ that gets me every time.” He opened the door and thrust his jean-clad legs over the side.

“Don’t you dare . . .” Ross growled.

Walker swiveled.

Ross’s face flushed to an interesting shade of apoplectic purple.

A sudden sympathy for the Vietcong caught in one of his uncle’s crosshairs surfaced in Walker’s mind.

Ross stalked over to the driver’s side—pretty good for a man of his advanced sixty-plus years, Walker reckoned—and jabbed a pointy brown finger in the region of Walker’s ribs.

Walker inhaled. Sharply.

“Don’t you dare, young man, embarrass me in front of Marvela Campbell. You hear?”

What in the Snowbird had gotten into the old guy?

“I hear.”

But he didn’t have to like it.

***

“Sarah Jane, the daughter of a medical missionary to the Cherokee . . .” Linden flipped back a few pages and huddled closer to the late afternoon sunshine streaming through the attic window. Dust motes danced in the air.

“Uh-huh.” Marvela rummaged in the trunk.

“She mentions a green trunk.” Linden raised her head. “Like the one you’re determined to excavate today. But it says here,” she tapped Sarah Jane’s journal with her finger. “The trunk, if it’s the same one, belonged to a Cherokee girl named Leila Hummingbird.”

Marvela’s penciled brows inverted into a V. “Never heard of her. And I assure you, neither the Campbells nor the Birchfields have a drop of Cherokee blood in them, although not for lack . . .”

Crouching once again, Marvela plunged the upper half of her body inside the trunk and emerged with several sepia-toned daguerreotypes in one hand.

Linden smiled. “Wouldn’t it be something if there was a false bottom to the trunk and more treasures yet to be revealed?”

She returned to her perusal of the journal. “Sarah Jane drew a picture of the quilt she mentions in the diary. A pattern called Carolina Lily.”

Marvela foraged around, one hand inside the depths of the trunk’s confines. “Old North Carolina pattern. With the local connection you’ve discovered, maybe we should include that pattern alongside the others planned for the Cherokee Quilt Barn Trail.”

“Wait . . .” Marvela grunted. “Found . . . something . . .”

Linden scanned the drawing. “I like the quilt guild’s idea to paint local barns with quilt squares. And featuring patterns associated with this part of North Carolina and the Cherokee is even better.”

Marvela set her jaw as she thrust both hands around the perimeter of the trunk bottom. “Irene Crowe’s spearheaded that committee.”

Linden thumbed through the book. “Here’s another quilt of a Cherokee Rose pattern. The Campbells or Birchfields own any quilts, Gram?”

“Only the ones my granny stitched during the Depression. Not a Carolina Lily or a Cherokee Rose among them. I’ve given a Sunbonnet Sue to Quincy for the display on white Appalachian history in Cartridge Cove. Hope it wasn’t damaged in the attack.”

Linden glanced at her watch. “Don’t forget that ga-gadoo—”

“Ga-doo-gee is an old custom. The Cartridge Cove Community Development Club has embraced gadugi as part of its mission to foster a Cherokee spirit of goodwill. They chop firewood in the fall for the elderly. Help the needy. Raise money for the volunteer fire department and local athletic teams.”

Marvela’s once pristine French-manicured nails scrabbled across the trunk upholstery. “Irene’s son, Walker, rotated into club leadership this year. He’ll supervise the actual painting of the barns if, between the two of you, you can get those stubborn old coots—Cherokee and non-Indian alike—up the mountain to agree to having the quilt billboards affixed to their property. Almost . . .” She heaved and pried. “Almost . . .”

“Shouldn’t we wrap it up here?” Linden frowned at the current state of her own appearance. “It’s going on four now. But you know me with a book . . . I lost track of time. You, too, once another adventure has gotten hold of you, Gram.”

A ripping sound.

“We’re on Cherokee time here, darlin’, not like New York.” Marvela fell back upon her designer-clad haunches. But in her hand she gripped a small, oval portrait of a beautiful Cherokee woman.

“Ta-da!” she crowed. “Maybe that Leila Hummingbird you mentioned?”

Laying the journal aside, Linden caught the sound of a vehicle door slamming. She scooted closer to examine the oil painting.

She whistled in admiration. “Sarah Jane was right. If this was Leila Hummingbird, she wasn’t only beautiful, she was drop-dead gorgeous. Would you look at those cheekbones?”

Marvela wasn’t listening, though. She’d returned to her trunk diving. “And what do we have here?”

Clutching a wad of cotton batiste, she rose, one hand gripping Linden’s arm for support. “These knees aren’t as young as they used to be, my darlin’ girl.”

Marvela unfolded the yellowed fabric. Two silk ribbons dangled. “A bonnet?”

Linden’s fingertips brushed the once-starched cap.

“Oh.” Marvela’s eyes widened. “It’s—” She jerked the tiny hat behind her back.

At a sudden, quick memory, the familiar weight settled upon Linden’s chest. A smothering ache. She tried, like all the other times, to swallow past the lump. But she swayed against the attic wall, the breath knocked from her lungs.

Her grandmother’s strangled voice filtered through her suffocating grief. “Linden, honey, I would’ve never pulled it out if I’d known . . .”

Linden inhaled and exhaled, fighting past yet another trigger, struggling to execute the breathing exercises her father swore in his considerable medical experience would help. But despite long years of counseling and medication, they never did.

“I-I can’t—” Linden dodged her grandmother’s outstretched hand. “I can’t stay here. Why did I think I could do this? Do anything ever again?”

Marvela blanched, as ashen as she’d been while prying Linden’s fingers off the sides of the hospital bassinet with its IV lines and electronic monitors. “Linden, don’t . . . You’ve come so far. Made so much progress.”

Linden darted for the stairs. “I need some air. I need to—”

If she didn’t escape, she’d either retch or hyperventilate. Her feet pounded down the steps and onto the second floor landing. The mauve tones her grandmother adored—aka Barbara Cartland gone American Victorian—blurred as she lurched toward an exit.

Recalling the incessant beeping in the neonatal ICU, Linden clapped her hands over her ears as she stumbled down the main staircase toward the ground floor. Images flooded her mind. And the final, droning flatline of her nightmares.

As long as she worked until she collapsed into bed each night, as long as she filled her days with New York’s subway sounds or the blaring horns of Raleigh’s rush-hour traffic, the white noise held those other sounds at bay. Preserving for Linden whatever sanity yet remained.

Why had she come to this godforsaken place with nothing but the chirping of birds to drown out what she’d spent ten years trying to forget? Why Cartridge Cove, where nothing but the wind moaned? With nothing but reminders of those desolate days after the small coffin had been lowered into the ground. Reminders of a lost time when no one could console her.

Dashing through the foyer, she stifled a sob. Who was she kidding? She was the godforsaken one.

Hot tears burned. Everything her fault . . .

White-knuckled, she grabbed the brass handle on the oak door, flinging it wide. And in her near-panic, she hurtled across the threshold and smack into a mountain whose hand was upraised in the motion of knocking.

Linden bounced off him and into the doorframe. She screamed and the mountain yelled in surprised unison. Clutching her racing heart, she took a swift look at the scowling, immovable obstacle in her path.

A Snowbird Cherokee mountain.