Читать книгу Beyond the Cherokee Trail - Lisa Carter - Страница 16

Chapter 7

7

2018—Cartridge Cove

Linden steered her Toyota compact into the graveled parking lot of the white clapboard church. “What’s going on with you and Ross Wachacha, Gram?”

Marvela fingered one of the pearl buttons lining her pink cashmere twinset, her best attempt—after five discarded tries—to replicate the casual, outdoorsy wear preferred in the mountain community. She yanked down the visor and peered into the mirror. “You sure I look okay?”

“When don’t you look more than okay, Gram? And stop trying to change the subject.”

Marvela snapped the visor closed. “There’s nothing ‘going on,’ as you so decorously phrased it, between Ross and me.”

Linden aimed the car into an empty slot between a Ford Focus, and a mud-splattered, gun-toting, wide-body pickup that’d seen better days. A two-flag sporting pickup—reflecting the owner’s dual citizenship: Dixie and America.

“Haven’t seen the man since the summer we graduated from high school.” Marvela reached for the door. “And I have no intention, Smarty Pants, of telling you how long ago that’s been.”

“And you’d no idea he just returned to Cartridge Cove like you?”

Marvela flung the door open. “Pop the trunk, Honey Girl, so I can get the box of chicken. And I do not pretend to know what has got into you, Linden Birchfield. Such unspeakable rudeness to our guests this afternoon. You embarrassed the life out of me in front of my old friend, Ross.”

The undulating r-r-r-’s. Linden gritted her teeth. Subject evaded again.

She joined her grandmother at the open trunk. “I’ll get it, Gram.” She handed Marvela her keys.

Linden heaved the cardboard box lined with aluminum foil out of the trunk. The mouthwatering aroma of fried chicken permeated the air as the setting sun cast long shadows across the bustling parking lot.

Marvela slammed the trunk shut, and pressing a button, locked the Toyota with a beep. “This way.”

She followed as Marvela wove her way among the cars coming and going out of the church parking lot. Their progress slowed as Marvela introduced her “Honey Girl” granddaughter to old friends.

“This box isn’t getting any lighter,” Linden protested after the tenth such introduction. “And I thought this was a Cherokee event. You know,” she whispered in Marvela’s ear. “An Indian dinner.”

Marvela held the side door for Linden to pass first. “That’s what we call it because of the menu. Take out or eat in. But it’s always well patronized by every segment of Cartridge Cove society. Especially for a bi-ethnic cause like this one.”

“The volunteer fire department?”

Marvela nodded. “The firemen are frying trout caught right out of Singing Creek for the fundraiser, too. I bought supper plates for both of us. We’ll eat here so I can take my turn on the serving line.” She smiled. “It’s good to be part of a caring, close-knit community again. All the Cartridge Cove’s churches are helping out.”

Her grandmother called greetings to various female members of the Baptist, Methodist, and Hallelujah Community churches manning the stovetop and serving line.

“Imagine that,” Linden muttered to the boxed chicken. “All three of them.”

What she wouldn’t give for a little civilization right now?

A Starbucks. A mall. Linden sighed.

Marvela tied a navy blue chef’s apron around her svelte form. The apron read, Blue Mountain Majesties—God Bless America and Snowbird. The volunteer waiters sported similar kitchen attire in various red, white, and blue combinations. “Grab a plate, Linden. Go ahead and eat. Time for me to dish out the cherry cobbler.”

Eat? Alone? Surrounded by all these people she didn’t know?

Marvela deserted her for the long dessert table on the far end of the fellowship hall.

Linden picked up a tray, a white Styrofoam plate, cup and napkin-rolled bundle of plastic utensils. This was going to be about as much fun as a . . . ?

A case of indigestion.

She curled her lip as she glanced over the aluminum pans. One of the “helpers” slopped a serving of hominy onto her extended plate. Another added a piece of fatback.

“Don’t worry, Miz Birchfield . . .”

At the taunting familiar voice, she swiveled.

Walker Crowe leaned his elbows on the other side of the galley counter. “You look like you could use a little more fat on that Madison Avenue figure of yours.” Smiling, he straightened to his full height, looping his thumb into his jean pocket.

Had he just complimented her? Or insulted her?

She glared at him to be on the safe side. But she’d misjudged his evening assignation. He wasn’t on a date. He’d come to volunteer like Gram.

He held out a ladle filled with boiled potatoes. “I’d offer you some potatoes, but I think you have enough starch in your system.” Mischief gleamed from his eyes.

Pasting a fake smile on her face, she glanced from side to side to see if anyone was watching before she stuck her tongue out at him.

He chuckled. “Glad to see you took my advice and came tonight.”

She rolled back her shoulders. “I didn’t take your advice.”

He raised an eyebrow into a question mark.

“I-I,” her hands gripped the cafeteria-style tray. “I simply accompanied my grandmother.”

He rolled his tongue in his cheek.

She clenched her teeth, wondering what it’d take to wipe that arrogant, patronizing smirk off his face. But mesmerized by his sensuous mouth, she licked her lips at the same moment the most obvious solution to accomplish such a feat occurred to her. Her breath hitched.

Although that might lead to more than she bargained for. She flushed. He laughed out loud.

Could he read her mind? Or just her body language?

He pointed to the hunk of bread. “Bean bread. Lesson number two. Corn meal cooked with pinto beans and then wrapped with cornhusks to boil like a dumpling. Produces a solid cake.”

She levied her tray against the counter and dropped the “biscuit” with a resounding thud onto the plate.

Walker gave her a lopsided smile. “Most people season this Cherokee staple with grease.”

“The fatback, I’m presuming?”

He folded his arms across his chest, lowering his eyes to half-mast.

“An acquired taste, too, I’m assuming?”

He grinned. “Kind of like me. We Cherokee grow on you once you get to know us.” He rested one hip against the counter separating them.

Was he . . . flirting . . . with her?

Flustered, she tilted the tray, causing the plastic utensils to slide forward. She made a wild grab for them but knocked her empty cup into the pan of creamed corn. She sighed.

Leaning closer, he fished the cup out of the corn. “Or maybe just me you might grow fond of.”

She quirked an eyebrow to indicate the likelihood of that happening. He handed her a new cup.

Linden pointed at a pan of greens. “What’s that?”

“Something we call ramps. A wild spring onion.”

“O-k-aa-ay.” She extended her tray to him.

Walker shook his head. “Because I like you and you’re new around here, and because we have to work together this week, I’m going to steer you away from this traditional favorite.”

He liked her?

She felt the pink working its way from beneath her denim jacket. A quivery feeling had taken hold of her kneecaps.

“You eat this and everybody in a five-mile radius will know it for the next day or so.”

“Oh.” That’s what he’d meant.

Feeling like a fool, Linden half-turned to go. “Right. Thanks for the tip, Mr. Crowe.”

His face fell. “I didn’t mean . . .”

She picked up the tray.

“I was just teas—Wait.”

She paused midstep.

He swallowed. “I thought we could do some fieldwork on the mountain after church tomorrow. No need to put it off.”

Linden’s neck burned. You’d think she’d been born a redhead. “Good idea. Get it over with.”

His cheeks puffed, splotching. “I didn’t mean—” He raked a hand over the top of his head.

“Now you’re going to have to wash your hands again, Crowe.” She gave him her best Madison Avenue smile. “Lesson number three? Two o’clock?”

A glint of something sharpened in the fathomless depths of his dark eyes. “Lesson three. Two o’clock. You got yourself a date, Miz Birchfield.”

She sniffed and moved toward the table loaded with tea pitchers. His mocking laugh echoed behind her.

With a great deal of relief, she spotted Quincy—newly PhD-endowed Dr. Sawyer, an American Indianist anthropologist—chomping on a chicken thigh. Hips swinging—she so hoped that obnoxiously-pleased-with-himself Walker Crowe was watching—she flounced over to Quincy.

Flounced? She crinkled her nose. This was what a week keeping company with Marvela and by extension, Miss Ophelia, produced.

She plunked her plate on the laminate tabletop. “Quince.”

A goofy smile lit his face at the sight of her.

Some of her ruffled female feathers settled. At least one man appreciated her finer qualities.

Not that she cared if Walker Crowe appreciated her qualities.

“How’s your head?”

Museum curator by day, avid downhill skier in season. He’d admitted the proximity of the ski slopes north of Asheville as much as anything had enticed him to the area.

Quincy shrugged. “I’ll live. Proves what Mom said all along about my hard head.”

“I see you replaced your glasses, too.” She reached for her shoulder bag and withdrew a manila folder. “Look what I found in this diary from 1838.”

His baby blue eyes almost bugged out from behind his retro black, horn-rimmed glasses. “A diary? Let me see . . .”

“Didn’t bring it with me.”

His shoulders slumped.

“I’m reading through it when I get the chance. I’ll pass it on soon as I’m done. I wondered with your ancestry database if you could find some info about the people I’ve run across in the diary.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched his doctoral candidate assistant—on loan from the Western Carolina Archaeology Department’s satellite office in Cherokee—stroll over to the counter Walker worked and . . .

Her eyes widened as the tawny-complexioned Emmaline threw her arms around Walker Crowe’s neck. Comprehension dawned. The Emmaline, her stomach clenching, he’d spoken of being late to pick up.

Linden’s fingers clawed the folder.

“Careful, Lin. You’re going to crush whatever you wanted to show me,” Quincy warned.

She thrust the packet at him and cut her eyes around the room. No one but her seemed to think it unusual Emmaline Whatever-Her-Name-Was had just . . . just . . .

Whatever you called that sort of public—and totally inappropriate in her opinion—display of affection.

Quincy removed the daguerreotype. “Wow.”

Everyone continued with their own conversations as if such carryings-on were commonplace with the likes of Walker Crowe and his . . . girlfriends.

Which perhaps, for all Linden knew, they were.

Not that she cared.

Not that his relationships were any of her business.

Maybe he was like The Jerk.

“These are great, Lin. Have you identified the people yet?”

She tore her gaze from Crowe and his paramour.

Paramour?

She grimaced. Maybe Gram was right. Maybe she did need to get out more if all she could do for entertainment was immerse herself in the nineteenth century world of a long-dead woman whose love life modeled her own.

As in lack thereof.

She bent over the picture of the family. The man she could tell even from the faded photograph was fair-haired and handsome, although his face wore a stern countenance. “From their clothing, I’d guess mid-nineteenth century.”

Quincy nodded. “Circa 1850s or pre-Civil War, for sure.”

She flipped the photo in his hand and pointed to the spidery, inked documentation on the back. “‘Home of Dr. Horace Hopkins,’” she read aloud. “The little boys are labeled—Gram thinks they range in age from eleven to four—Ethan, Caleb, Johnathan, and David. The man’s identified as Pierce.”

A trace of excitement laced her voice. “The diary talks about a Dr. Horace Hopkins, medical missionary to the Cherokee at the time of the Removal and his daughter, Sarah Jane. Maybe the woman in the photo is Sarah Jane.”

He whipped his iPhone out of his shirt pocket. “Horace Hopkins, you say.” He typed in the name. “Sarah Jane Hopkins what? You think she married this Pierce guy? Is that his first or last name?” He glanced at the photos on the table between their plates. “Doesn’t look too happy, does she?”

The sadness on the woman’s face pricked at Linden’s heart. About as happy as she’d look if she’d married The Jerk. For the first time, Linden thanked God she’d been spared that on top of everything else.

“I don’t know whether it’s his first or last name, although I do know that like Dr. Hopkins, he was a medical missionary, too.” She gave Quincy a brief recap of the story she’d gleaned thus far.

She examined the picture under the florescent lighting of the church hall. The photo depicted Pierce on a striped settee in an old-fashioned frock coat, vest, and starched cuffs. “At this point in my reading, I’m not even sure Sarah Jane ultimately marries this Pierce or not. The woman may or may not be Sarah Jane Hopkins.”

On either side of Pierce sat two of the younger boys—clothed in knickers and wide shirt collars. Behind the sofa, a boy leaned against the armrest. Another, the oldest boy, had his arm draped around the woman’s shoulders.

The woman’s hair parted in the middle of her scalp and pulled to the nape of her neck in the severe style Linden recognized from the antebellum era. The woman gazed into the camera, her beringed left hand resting atop the carved back of the settee. Her eyes caught at Linden, their expression wide, round, and . . .

Vulnerable? Or was Linden projecting her own sensibilities upon the woman?

“I’ll see what I can learn and get back to you.” He tucked the photo into the folder, handing it to her. “What’s your interest in this?”

She placed the folder into her purse and smiled. “You know me and one of history’s mysteries.”

He laughed.

“I’ll try to run that next donation to you tomorrow afternoon before my . . .” she grimaced, “. . . appointment if you think you’ll be there on a Sunday.”

He chewed his lip. “I’ll be there all right. Trying to erase the graffiti. Cleaning up the mess. Sheriff has no leads on what he calls a racial hate crime.”

“Who does he think is behind it?”

“Lot of mixed feelings on both sides about the changes the festival’s bringing.”

She frowned. “But you said skinheads. Surely not the Cherokee?”

“For political, tribal reasons, not everyone in the Cherokee Nation wants this reunification of the Eastern and Western bands. Nor are the descendants of the Appalachian land grabbers eager to revisit a dark time in the town’s history.”

An echo of Walker’s earlier words at Gram’s. Maybe this so-called partnership with Crowe wasn’t such a good idea. What did she really know about him, other than he was Ross Wachacha’s nephew?

Glancing around, she discovered Walker had disappeared from the fellowship hall while she and Quincy had their heads doubled over the daguerreotype.

Linden squared her shoulders, pushing down her apprehensions about Walker for the moment. This account with the town of Cartridge Cove was too important for her future to allow anyone to ruin the festival. “What’s the sheriff doing about it?”

“Everything he can. He’s understaffed. Extra patrols around the Center. But it’s a big county with lots of rough terrain. Even if they acquired a lead, fugitives have been known to evade capture for years.”

Her lips curved. “Snowbird Cherokee hiding from the federal soldiers, case in point.”

“Exactly.” Quincy gave her an adorable, boyish grin. “So I’ve reconciled myself to live at the Center 24/7.”

She nudged him with her shoulder. “Till the—”

“Excuse me, Dr. Sawyer?”

Linden looked up to find Emmaline glaring daggers at her over Quincy’s short-cropped straw-colored head.

Emmaline bared her teeth. “You must be Miss Marvela’s granddaughter. The PR woman who’s not from around here.”

Which, in Southern speak, sometimes translated to “not welcome around here, either.”

Linden pursed her lips. What did this girl have against her?

Quincy blinked owlishly at the curvaceous co-ed—displaying her charms in Nike shorts, running shoes, and a skintight t-shirt reading: Cherokee and Proud of It.

“Why, Emm—maa,” he stuttered and cleared his throat. His Nordiclike features shadowed in confusion. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”

Emmaline crossed her arms over her “pride,” and glowered at Linden.

His lack of recognition Linden’s fault? Go figure.

Uncrossing her arms, Emmaline pushed out her chest—on the off-chance Quincy, Walker, and every other male in the room hadn’t noticed already?—and jutted her hip. “Didn’t you mention you needed my help this evening cataloguing some recently donated items to the Center?”

“I-I,” His gaze ping-ponged between the women. “I did?”

Emmaline’s mouth flattened. “You did.” She slitted her eyes in Linden’s direction.

Linden shrugged. Whatever this girl’s problem was, next move Quincy.

He scraped back his chair. “Well, sure, Emma. If you say so.” He reached for the remains of his dinner. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, Linden.” Emmaline inserted her arm through the crook of his elbow.

Linden fiddled with the paper band encasing the napkins and plastic utensils. “Sure, Quince. Tomorrow.”

As Emmaline propelled him to the nearest trashcan, Quincy mounted one more feeble protest. “You know the Department won’t spring for overtime, Em.”

“No worries.” Emmaline tilted her head. “Working at the Center has other compensations, Dr. Sawyer.” She clutched Quincy’s arm tighter.

He furrowed his brow before nodding. “I understand. I guess.”

Biting back a smile, Linden somehow doubted he did.