Forbidden Ground (25 page)

“It scares me that little brother Brad has everything to gain if I don’t own the mill and the house. I think he’s listening to Lacey too damn much. A man sleeps with a woman, his defenses go down.”

Kate wondered if that was why Grant had not tried to take her to bed, even when she knew he wanted to. Because then he’d have to give in to her desires, too, and that included not only him, but the mound.

26

K
ate waited in the house with Velma while Keith, Grant and Jace took flashlights outside to survey the site where the big oaks had been cut. They came back in and slumped at the kitchen table while Velma put huge dishes of homemade strawberry ice cream in front of each of them.

“No coffee this late,” she said. “Trees cut or not—police work or not—people need their sleep, or they just crash and burn, and caffeine will get us all wired.”

Grant glanced Kate’s way. He felt as exhausted as she looked, completely drained physically and emotionally. But he dug into his ice cream.

“Gabe’s gonna be shocked at what’s happened since he’s been gone,” Jace said. “It’s been a dead end—didn’t mean to word it that way—on Paul Kettering’s death. Todd’s fall, an accident, far as I can tell.”

Keith nodded and reached over to pat Jace on the back. “Maybe Paul’s was, too, though I hear his wife doesn’t want to accept it. Maybe he just lost it, went berserk for some reason. Then the tree trunk he was carving fell on him.”

Kate groaned inwardly. She’d meant to stop by Nadine’s tonight to buy that very sculpture, but she would first thing tomorrow. She pictured Paul’s fine carving of the Adena shaman. Carson had claimed that the earrings and the face of that well-known Adena figure and the Toltec face he’d seen in Washington had strong similarities. She needed to check that online tonight, however tired she was.

Everyone thanked Velma for the ice cream. Jace promised he’d be back first thing in the morning to check for truck tracks and hoof prints. Grant huddled with Keith for a while, evidently consoling him about the trees.

* * *

At Grant’s house, they got out of the truck in front of a pitch-black house. “I usually leave lights on,” he said, “but we left in such a rush.” He got his rifle out of the truck and put his other arm around her shoulders as they started to walk in together, but he pulled her to a stop. “What’s that sound?”

She cocked her head. It was a warm, windy night with leaves rustling, but that hum was not the trees, not an animal sound. “I think it’s far away.”

“Or maybe just out in back. Weird. Let’s go in, but I won’t turn on a light.”

They went into the dark house and locked the door behind them. Their eyes adjusted to the dark as they hurried into the living room to peer out the back. Inside, the sound was muted but still there, a hum, a buzz. Singing? Chanting? Gooseflesh popped out on Kate’s arms, and her insides cartwheeled. Out by the mound?

The mound seemed aglow with wan lights. Moving lights! It flashed through Kate’s mind that maybe Carson had a dig team out there, working at night. On important or dangerous digs, that had been done. But the lights were mostly atop the mound and seemed so otherworldly.

“What in the...?” Grant said. “And don’t tell me it’s Adena ghosts, though that mound’s haunted me for years.”

He grabbed his rifle again. With her right behind him, he strode for the back door.

Chills shot down Kate’s spine. The sound was like a hollow drumbeat. And some sort of wind chimes? Singing, too. She almost, finally, believed in ghosts. That she’d find the shaman Beastmaster dancing atop the mound and the entry shaft open like a throat that had disgorged its dead. No matter what Grant said, whatever the odds or barriers, she had to get in that mound once and for all. Or else she would run screaming through this forest and through life like Grant’s poor grandmother, who’d thought that spirits were after her. Was she—were both she and Grant—losing their minds?

They started to climb the side of the mound as they had a few days ago to see if gold stars lay atop it. And then she had a premonition of who and what this might be.

They peered over the top of the mound. Bright Star! Bright Star was dancing with three women—Grace was one—while at least twenty others knelt in a circle around them, all holding candles within paper shields and humming. Muted shadows dipped and danced, too. At first, the two of them just stared aghast as Bright Star’s voice—musical, almost magical—chanted, amid drumbeats and gentle chimes. “Dead goats to deathly shadows, but my sheep won’t go below, for in my light they glow...” On and on, chanting insane words within the rapt circle of people.

And, despite the loose-fitting gowns of the women, they all looked pregnant. Yes, even Grace looked pregnant, though not many months along.

Kate glanced at Grant’s profile. Eyes wide, he looked stunned, but he was angry, too. She reached for his arm, but he scrambled up to more level ground and started shouting. “You’re trespassing, Monson. Sorry to interrupt the séance or party, but those candles could light this foliage on fire. I’m going to ask you to leave my land now or else I’ll have you arrested!”

The sounds halted. Bright Star looked as if he’d been shaken awake or slapped out of a trance. Could this man—all these people—be on drugs? Before Grace and the two other women who had been dancing around him could turn away, Kate glimpsed gold stars on their chests. Bright Star had lied. He always lied, so how deep was he into enslaving these people?

He came forward, walking unsteadily. For once, he was dressed all in black, more like his people. “Ah,” he said, his voice still holding its singsong quality. “I see you have the woman with you, Mr. Mason. Everyone—” he turned to call behind him “—guard your flames. And you two,” he said, turning back to Grant and Kate, “guard yourselves from evil. You never know when you will join the lost pagan dead. What a good lesson to see the goats like the Adena separated under the soil from the sheep like my flock.”

“That’s a good way to describe your people,” Kate said. “Sheep. Maybe sheep to the slaughter if they stay with you.”

“Always the wayward woman. But I will prepare a kingdom for mine own.”

“On the old grounds of the lunatic asylum, you mean,” Kate countered. “That sounds like your sort of Eden.”

“Back to the bus, back home!” Bright Star called out. People rose and began to file quietly down off the mound, near where Kate and Grant had climbed up. He turned again to them, leveling a look of pure menace at each of them.

“I see you have a weapon of war, of destruction in your hands, Mr. Mason, owner of this place of pagan imprisonment. And you, woman, always the soul of a heathen. Death can come like a thief in the night, so beware you don’t join the heathen dead—both of you.”

When he stalked off, tears streamed down Kate’s face, but she wasn’t crying. She was hysterical with laughter and disbelief. “Back to the bus?” she spit out. “All that pseudo-religious mumbo jumbo to those poor robots—sheep—then back to the bus? And he sees himself as their Messiah. Jesus talked about separating the ungodly goats from his precious sheep. But then, back to the bus...”

Grant put the rifle down, gave her a little shake and pulled her into his arms. “You’re losing it,” he told her. “But I don’t want to lose you. Kate, we’re both punch-drunk from exhaustion—too much of everything.”

She locked her arms around his back, pulling him tight to her. “But he’s so unreal, so ridiculous, isn’t he? I feel like
Alice in Wonderland
and I’m going to wake up soon.”

“It’s a nightmare, not a dream. And talk about curses—he’s it. Come on. I’ll watch the mound from inside the house, and tomorrow’s another day. We both need some rest.”

She hated letting him go. Despite the fact that, in a way, he was her worst enemy, he was also her love. They climbed carefully down from the mound, but Kate tugged him back just to take a look at the entry. She wanted to be sure Bright Star’s cult members hadn’t opened up the entry. No, it looked naked but still sealed. That was another reason she had to get inside to do a controlled, scientific dig. She could just see Monson’s maniacs—and that included her cousin Lee and poor, pregnant Grace—coming back here to defile the remains of ancient people’s lives. And hers and Grant’s.

* * *

It was a pretty crazy idea, Kate thought late the next morning on her way to Nadine’s house, but what if Bright Star was behind the tree thefts? He had members of his group who did manual labor of various kinds, including Lee. If he stored cut-up trees on his piece of property, he had guards watching for strangers day and night. They had some horses and other animals on their grounds. Perhaps he knew Grant would go out looking for Keith’s trees and that would leave the mound available for their—whatever rite that was she and Grant had witnessed last night.

Talk about nightmares! Last night, falling exhausted in bed while Grant kept watch out the picture window, she had dreamed Grant was dancing with her, watched by the Adena, and then he’d put a Beastmaster mask on his head and led her down, down into the dark depths of the mound.

Kate hit her fist on the steering wheel as she missed the turn to Nadine’s road up the mountain and had to turn into a driveway, back out and retrace her path. She hadn’t meant to, but she’d slept in this morning. Grant had been gone when she got up, so it was late morning already, and she didn’t feel fully awake. So much was upsetting her. Everything about the mound and precious Adena artifacts, the fact Grant said he didn’t have them and asked her not to talk to Brad about it. And especially what she’d checked online before she collapsed into exhausted sleep last night. The Toltec sculpted head Carson had cited as a possible link did bear some resemblance to the Adena shaman Paul had reproduced on the tree-trunk statue she hoped to buy from Nadine. Again, she’d promised Grant she wouldn’t try to take it with her today but would wait for tonight so he could help her load it in her trunk. She couldn’t wait to put its picture on her website, right next to the Beastmaster’s mask she’d made, though there were only general similarities between those two. So far, she had as good a claim to the Celts as Carson with his Toltec theory.

She’d called Nadine to say she was coming and saw her looking out a front window, waiting for her. It seemed strange to go in the front door for once, instead of through the side entrance to Paul’s shop.

“Things are still in a mess, but an organized one,” Nadine told Kate as she ushered her in. Kate could see she’d lost weight. Her jeans were baggy, and she wore one of Paul’s shirts. “My sister’s been staying here, helping me pack things, donate things, mostly get ready to have my nephew list Paul’s remaining works for sale on that eBay website. She’s gone to the grocery store, but I’d love to have you meet her.”

“If the two of you could use extra help, please let me know. I’ll be here for at least a few more days. So your illness has not been making you too tired?”

“I’m taking my meds, and I work in spurts. Cry in spurts. My sister’s been a godsend, but I’m sure you understand that.”

“I do, indeed. I miss Tess and Char when we’re apart, which is most of the time. So you haven’t thought about moving closer to your sister—to your doctor in Chillicothe?”

“Someday maybe, but I just can’t leave this area right now, not after all these years and memories here.”

“Then would you still be interested in buying my sister Tess’s place? I’d be happy to show it to you, and she’ll be back this weekend.”

“Do you think she’d rent it? Then, of course, if she had a buyer, I’d move on.”

“She might. I can sure ask her.”

“Well, let’s take a look at that carving you want. Grant called to say the two of you can drop by tonight so he can help you move it. He worries about you, I think,” she said with a hint of a smile. “Here, coffee, while we sit down and chat in Paul’s studio. Cream or sugar?”

“No, this is fine, thank you,” she said, taking the mug. She smiled at the wording on the cup.
Paul Kettering Studio, wood carvings, au naturel.

Kate was surprised Nadine had to unlock the studio door. Inside, every sculpture was draped in cloth.

“I know it sounds strange,” Nadine said, taking a sip of her coffee, “but I don’t like his carved beings looking at me. They are all mythic, strange. I’ll proudly keep ones of plain old nature, but those fairy-tale types— Well, I’m relieved you want that Adena one.”

Kate doubled the price Nadine suggested. “It means a lot to me,” she explained as she took out her checkbook.

“Then you are getting something else with it,” Nadine said. “I almost forgot about this. Found it when I was going through reams of Paul’s sketches in his filing cabinet. He had the words
Adena artifacts
scribbled on it, so you might as well have it. Oh, and it was dated about twenty years ago, so he did it when he was in his teens. Now, where did I put that?”

Kate stared at the carving that was now hers. Maybe the sketch Nadine was searching for had preliminary sketches for the carving. That would be very special.

“Oh, here it is!” Nadine said. “Glad I found it because I’m wearing out again. Naps. I take a lot of naps. Here you are—yours!”

Kate took the sheet of parchment in her free hand and put her mug down with the other. She was shaking so hard she slopped coffee on the concrete floor. The pen-and-ink document dated twenty years ago was divided into four sections.

She gasped as she realized what she was looking at. On one quarter of the paper, Paul had sketched a leaf-shaped arrowhead that perfectly matched the shape and size of the one that must have been in the empty box Brad had buried. Beside that was an Adena ax head that would fit the form in the mica seam. Next was a drawing of an eagle pendant that would have been cherished by both the Adena and the Celts—by Carson’s Toltecs, too, no doubt.

But the most intricate drawing—though it was no doubt much smaller than actual size—had fine details, shading and crosshatching of its mica-chip skin and sharp horns. Glaring at her from the paper was the eyeless mask of the Celtic Beastmaster.