Lovely In Her Bones

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

MILO HAD RUN a hundred yards up the path before he realized that he was staking all his troops on one hunch. Suppose that Elizabeth had not gone to Amelanchier’s cabin? He could not afford to be wrong. He also realized that sending four men to confront a woman in her eighties was an embarrassing form of overkill. He motioned for the others to stop.

“What’s wrong?” demanded Jake, over the sound of Dummyweed’s gasping.

“I think we should split up, in case she went somewhere else. Why don’t you and Coltsfoot check the site?”

“Why should she go there?”

“I don’t know. To look for more evidence around the graves, maybe. Anyway, we ought to check it out.”

“What about you?” asked Jake, cutting his eyes toward Comfrey.

“I’ll risk it,” said Milo, catching his meaning. “If you don’t find her, come up to the cabin.”

As they drew nearer to the mountain clearing, Comfrey caught up with Milo and signaled for him to walk quietly. They went the next hundred yards in silence, easing from one point of cover to the next. Milo noticed that Comfrey had not brought his rifle.

“Why are we hiding?” he whispered. “Do you think she’d shoot us?”

Comfrey shrugged. “She’s an old woman. If she’s protecting our people, ain’t none of us safe up here.”

Milo was shocked. “But you’re her son!” he protested.“Couldn’t you pretend you’re up here on a friendly visit?”

“I don’t know how well she sees at this distance these days, and I ain’t about to bet my life that she’d recognize me. Especially if she’s already het up over something. I’ll do this my way, if it’s all the same to you.”

When they reached the sourwood tree at the edge of the clearing, Comfrey stopped, studying the cabin. “You wait here and watch me. If I get to the porch okay, I’ll give you a signal and you get up there as quick as you can.”

Milo tried again. “She’s a little old lady,” he said, feeling foolish. “Aren’t we overdoing this?”

Comfrey looked at him with a troubled expression that means that a mountain person is about to say straight out something difficult for him to express. He decided against it, though, grinned and answered: “Boy, you remind me of the fellow who mistook a coral snake for a scarlet king and died a wiser man. Now stay here and keep your head down!”

As he watched Comfrey creep through the fescue grass, Milo tried to view the whole thing as a scene from a war movie. He knew that if he let his mind dwell on Elizabeth, or on the possibility that they were too late, his reactions would be thrown off, which might undo any chance they had to save her. As if in slow motion, Comfrey passed the woodpile and the dogwood tree, until at last he reached the porch, mounting it not by the front steps, but by a practiced roll around one of the support posts. Milo, who expected to see him ease toward the window, was surprised to see him crawl toward the wooden door instead.

This guy really is a pro, he thought, when he realized how much safer it was to listen than to look. A moment later Comfrey gave him an okay sign of circled thumb and forefinger, motioning him forward.

“She’s alive,” thought Milo, darting from cover.

His next conscious moment was hitting the porch at a running jump while Comfrey kicked open the door to the cabin.

Milo saw the cramped room, its hand-hewn furniture wedged between cardboard boxes of letters from tourists and piles of packaged herbs. At a plank table in the middle of it all sat Elizabeth, sipping tea from an earthenware mug. When she saw Milo panting in the doorway, she raised her eyebrows, inquiring sweetly: “Return of the ogre?”

“Are you all right?” Milo blurted out before he realized that she obviously was.

“Certainly,” Elizabeth informed him. “Amelanchier and I were just talking about… herbs.”

Milo looked at the old woman, whose initial look of surprise had subsided into wariness. “How do, Comfrey,” she said crisply.

“We got to talk, Mom,” he muttered.

“I reckon you should have thought of that some time back,” his mother remarked. “Bit late in the day for it now.”

Elizabeth set down her mug, sloshing a bit of tea on the table. “By the way, Milo, you were right about the measurements. I did them wrong.”

Milo glanced uneasily at Amelanchier. He didn’t see a weapon, but anything could be concealed in the clutter of the room. “We’ll talk about that later. You have to leave now.”

“What’s your hurry?” asked Amelanchier genially. “Stay to tea?”

“What?” asked Elizabeth. She kept shaking her head as if she were drowsy. “Why do I have to leave now, Bill?”

Comfrey glanced at her, then back at his mother. “I believe I’ll have a sip of that tea,” he remarked.

“I’ll fix you a cup, son.”

Comfrey picked up Elizabeth’s mug. “This’ll do me,” he said, sipping it.

Milo stiffened. “Is it poison?”

“The question is, with what?” grunted Comfrey. “I’d say foxglove, offhand.”

Elizabeth laughed, a faraway sound which seemed to echo back through her ears. “Don’t be silly! Wise Woman’s my friend… why poison me?”

If there was a reply to this question, Elizabeth did not hear it. She had slumped unconscious to the floor.

Comfrey Stecoah faced his mother with weary resignation. “Mo-ther!”

The succeeding hours were much easier on Elizabeth, who slept through them all, than on Milo, who did not. They had wasted precious time explaining the political nuances of the situation to Amelanchier’s satisfaction, so that she would tell them which poison had been placed in Elizabeth’s drink. That being accomplished, she had thrown in at no extra charge her opinion that they had about half an hour to get Elizabeth to a hospital if they reckoned to save her. It had taken thirty-eight minutes to get her there, even with Comfrey taking the winding roads at speeds Milo seldom tried on straightaways. After the breakneck speed of the first thirty-eight minutes, time slowed down for Milo into a malicious compensation of relative motion, in which seconds could be whiled away like afternoons, and minutes were enough time to read innumerable back issues of National Geographic. He waited; filled out forms for the gorgon at the front desk; called Bill; waited; drank seven cups of coffee; waited; talked to Pilot Barnes; waited. At last, someone wearing hospital greens and an expression of authority appeared in the waiting room and said that Elizabeth was sleeping, that her vital signs were stable, that she had come through the treatment as one would expect someone her age to. Milo waited for him to say flatly that she was going to live, but that, it seemed, was not done. “We’ll be able to tell for sure tomorrow,” was the best answer he could get. Milo wouldn’t leave. Jake appeared with a couple of hamburgers, which Milo may or may not have eaten. He didn’t know. He was glad to be able to sit there all night, awake, as if by doing so he was earning her recovery. And, if the worst should happen and she did not recover, at least he would be spared the guilt he had felt over Alex, the feeling of not having tried to make him live. Of course, he knew how silly he would feel about all of it later.

Two days later, Elizabeth, almost as pale as the pillow propping her up, frowned at the sheet of notebook paper in front of her.

Dear Bill,

I am in the hospital now, having been poisoned by a mass murderer. If you can manage to keep this fact from Mom and Dad, I will be grateful.

I should be out of here in a day or two, and I will come to stay with you then. I don’t think I will be quite sick enough to go home to Mother, who would probably sign up for a practical nursing course on the strength of this. I promise not to be too much trouble to you; however, the doctors say that on no account am I to do dishes, laundry, or housework of any kind…

Smiling at her ingenuity, she paused to await further inspiration.

From just outside the door, she heard a voice say, “Yes, she’s awake. I expect she’ll be glad to see you.”

Elizabeth stuffed the unfinished letter under her pillow and slid down into the proper attitude of convalescence. Through half-lowered eyelids, she watched Milo creep into the room.

“How are you?” he asked, taking the chair next to the bed.

“I tire easily,” she said faintly. She turned to give him a limpid gaze, and her eyes widened. “Oh, hell,” she said, sitting up. “You look worse than I do.”

“You’ve had more sleep,” he said, trying to smile. “Are you really okay?”

“I’m starving.” She nodded toward the clean plate on her breakfast tray. “Other than that, fine. But promise you won’t tell Bill.”

“He’s on his way up.”

With a sigh, Elizabeth pulled out the sheet of notepaper and tossed it into the wastebasket. “Well, he’s too late,” she declared. “I solved this murder myself!”

“Yeah, you did. I wish you had told me, though, instead of going off on your own.”

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “Do you? I thought you didn’t want to hear anybody’s problems.”

Milo reddened. “I don’t understand live people.”

“Yes, and aren’t you proud of it! If you’d spend half the time making an effort to understand them, instead of bragging that you can’t, you’d be better off!”

“Yeah… well… I’ll try.”

“Good. You might start by remembering that live people have feelings. If you hadn’t been so sure I was screwing up your precious data, maybe I could have talked to you.”

“Yeah. That’s what Jake said. He said to tell you he’ll be in to see you later. He and Mary Clare are clearing up at the church.”

“Mary Clare is back?”

“Yes. She came back yesterday, and if you had waited-” He decided not to start that again. “Anyway, those papers she unearthed confirmed our findings about the Cullowhees. It seems that some judge’s daughter who was into local color interviewed one of them in the 1870s, and she got the whole story.”

“So they won’t get the land,” said Elizabeth sadly.

“Well, actually, it seems they will.” He explained Comfrey Stecoah’s politics. “He just got a letter from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and they’ve scheduled a hearing to discuss tribal status.”

“Does the bureau know the truth about them?”

“Not yet. But I think Comfrey is right about their reaction. This morning the Asheville Citizen ran a story about Amelanchier being charged with murder, and in the middle of the story they explained about the Cullowhees’ not being Indians.” He paused for effect. “The headline read: Indian Healer Charged with Murder. Of course, most people will remember the headline and forget the truth buried in paragraph five.”

Elizabeth sighed. “So they’d have gotten the land anyway. Amelanchier didn’t have to protect the secret. She’s going to prison for nothing!”

“Don’t count on it!” said Milo bitterly. He would never forgive the old woman for the murder of Alex. “She spent about twelve hours in jail, and I’d be surprised if she ever saw the inside of one again. By eight yesterday morning some hot-shot lawyer from Atlanta was up here taking her case for free. He specializes in minority rights. Also in movie rights, from what I hear.”

“Well, she is an old woman,” Elizabeth pointed out. “You couldn’t put her in the penitentiary. Is there going to be a trial?”

“Oh, sure! Everybody is looking forward to that. Half the Cherokee Wigwam Motel is already booked up to newsmen. They’re comparing this to the trial of Geronimo.” He shook his head sadly. “I’ll tell you who is going to jail, though. Bevel Harkness.”

“Really? Is he the one who broke your computer?”

“Yes-and he swears Amelanchier put him up to it, too. She must have tried that before resorting to murder. But that’s the least of Harkness’ problems. I doubt if he’ll even be tried for it.”

“Why not?”

“Because when Pilot Barnes went out to arrest him for breaking and entering, the strip-mining company was out there on the Harkness farm. They were scheduled to do a test strip on his land.”

“That isn’t illegal, is it?”

Milo shrugged. “It’s not what they arrested him for. You see, while he was arguing with Pilot over being arrested, the bulldozer turned up a skeleton.”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “The ringer?”

“Pilot says there was a deputy’s badge alongside it. He came to the hospital yesterday and asked me to help Dr. Putnam with a positive I.D. We still have to check dental records, but we’re already sure it’s the sheriff’s nephew.”

“It seems I missed most of the excitement while I was camping at death’s door,” said Elizabeth dryly.

“You provided a lot of it, too,” Milo told her. “We were pretty worried about you.”

“Good.”

“How did you like the dig?” asked Milo hesitantly. “I mean, aside from the… ah… unusual circumstances?”

“I think I’d like to try again,” said Elizabeth softly.

Milo understood her to mean more than her choice of careers, but he decided not to press his luck just then. Before he could phrase another question on the subject, the nurse appeared in the doorway carrying an arrangement of flowers.

Elizabeth looked questioningly at Milo, who coughed and said: “Jake is bringing one from me.”

“It isn’t from Bill,” she said thoughtfully, taking the envelope out. “I know him better than that.”

Elizabeth took out the card, read it, and looked up at Milo with a puzzled frown. “Milo, who is Duncan Johnson?”