Lover's Knot (25 page)

“Some animal or t’other might get into it,” Marian warned. “You’re sure you don’t just want Caleb to carry it inside? It’s heavy as a sackful of rocks, and he’s strong.”

“I’ll find something to put the food in. I have a nice new trash can that nothing can get into. But there’s no room for that bag in my kitchen.”

“You’ll have lots of room once they finish, won’t you?”

Room enough for a freaked-out feline and a comatose canine? Room to hide one or the other from the two males in her life? Kendra wasn’t sure there was that much room in the whole world.

“I’ll be thrilled when the renovations are done,” she said, as Caleb climbed back into the car. “Come back for a tour when they’re finished.”

She watched as Marian turned the car and headed out the way Isaac had just gone.

Then, with no one to hear her, she began to laugh.

A
s expected, Dusty clearly had never received veterinary care, and after the first barrage of shots, Kendra left with a variety of treatments and the name of a groomer who could tackle the knots in the puppy’s coat. Rusty, a sleeker red-coated version of his sister, got the same treatment. Kendra told Caleb his portion of the bill would be fifty dollars. Like most kids, he had no idea what the trip had really cost and told her he would pay her as he earned the cash.

“The vet liked Rusty,” he told Kendra as she took them home. The two dogs were settled on the back seat. Rusty had given up trying to get Dusty to play with him.

Kendra wasn’t sure what the vet thought of Dusty. The puppy’s initial exam had turned up no signs of life-threatening infection or disease, which was a relief, although they had to wait for lab results. “She might perk up once she’s wormed” was the most she’d gotten out him.

Kendra’s only consolation was that Dusty seemed to be housebroken. Used to living outside, the pup preferred grass to Kendra’s floors. Still, Kendra knew better than to risk an accident while she was away. After she dropped off Caleb and Rusty, she made another trip to the home improvement center and ordered a roomy doghouse. The young man in charge promised to deliver it on his way home that afternoon.

She was dressing to go out again when he arrived. The young man and a friend had brought a bale of straw for the floor and chicken wire for a fence around it. Once the setup was complete, she tipped them generously. They had placed it behind some trees on the side of the house where it wouldn’t easily be seen, although she knew better than to think Isaac wouldn’t notice if the dog barked. She would need another plan for that.

Installed in her new home, Dusty lay down on the ground outside the arched door and went to sleep.

The next pet wasn’t as easy to please. Ten, who hadn’t taken well to his newest quarters, tried to make a break when Kendra opened the door to feed him. She managed to shut the door in time, but she pondered her options. One, let the cat out and hope he wouldn’t destroy the room while she was gone. Two, keep him inside with no food.

Ten’s expression was the cat equivalent of a dirty old man’s. She was positive he was leering at her.
Let me out of here, baby, and just see what I can do
.

She laughed. “I’m a heck of a lot bigger than you are, buddy. I’ll step on you if get out of line.” She opened the door and stood back. He streaked under the sofa. The Road Runner of cartoon fame was slow in comparison.

“Well, you’re clearly on the road to recovery, aren’t you.” She set a fresh bowl of food on the floor beside the cage and another of water. She pulled out the litter box and emptied it, filling it again and stashing it in the corner.

“When you’re ready to brave your new world, tough guy, everything’s here for you.”

Back in the bedroom, she finished getting ready for another trip. Tonight was the bimonthly meeting of The Way We Were, the organization Hank had told her about. Kendra’s research had turned up an active group whose goal was to make certain their story was told with honesty and integrity. They had already been instrumental in the removal of an inaccurate and unflattering interpretive display at the park visitor center.

To prepare, she’d called the contact number listed on their Web site and spoken to a young woman named Jennifer, who told Kendra that her great-grandfather, Aubrey Grayling, would be at the next meeting. Mr. Grayling was a rich source of information about the area called Lock Hollow. The name was familiar to Kendra. Aubrey Grayling was on her quilt, as well as on the list the ranger had given her. It was the best luck she could imagine.

The meetings were held in different locations, and luckily this one was only an hour away, at a church outside of Luray. Kendra had asked Cissy if she wanted to come, but Cissy and Zeke had made plans to visit his cousin who lived nearby. “They have a little boy Reese’s age,” she’d confessed. “Last time Reese sat on his chest and decorated Ryan’s face with chocolate pudding.”

Kendra had tried not to laugh. “An artist in training.”

“Either that or she’s taking after one of those big old Japanese wrestlers. You know, the ones that look like they’re wearing diapers?”

Kendra was afraid she might never look at Reese the same way again.

The drive was pleasant, corn sprouting in roadside fields, bright blue chicory waving along the shoulder, small houses on hillsides sheltered by century-old trees. She could brave the Interstate now, but she still preferred taking her time. She wondered how much scenery had gone unnoticed while she pursued her career with single-minded intensity.

She arrived at St. Joseph of Cupertino with just a few minutes to spare. She found the basement meeting room, a pleasant space with blue industrial carpeting, acoustic ceiling tile and gray metal columns. Religious art adorned the walls, and folding chairs were placed between columns in front of a lectern with a small microphone. No one was yet standing in front to conduct the meeting, so she wrote her name in a guest book and took a nicely printed brochure. The meeting began before she could introduce herself to anyone. She counted eighteen others in attendance.

Like every meeting of its kind, the first part was business. Her mind wandered as the hospitality committee discussed cards to members who had been ill. She tried to guess which of the older men, three of them, might be Aubrey Grayling. She hoped it was the white-haired gentleman wearing red suspenders over a crisp white shirt. He had ruddy cheeks and laughed easily. She thought he might be willing to talk to her.

When the program turned out to be a presentation on an archaeological dig in Corbin Hollow, she was sorry Cissy hadn’t come along. The presenter told them a number of interesting facts about the way people there had really lived, including foods they had consumed, patent medicines they had used, even the toys their children had played with. The dig overturned the notion that all the people of Corbin Hollow had been so isolated and backward that they had needed the government’s intervention to bring them into the twentieth century.

Afterward, she listened with interest to the discussion. Several attendees were descendants of Corbin Hollow families and repeated tales they’d heard while growing up. One had brought a large photograph of her family’s farmhouse, which she held up for everyone to see. Lilacs and snowball bushes in front of a wide front porch, two stories covered in clapboard, with a stone chimney rising above them. A house no different from many in rural Virginia.

The meeting ended with an invitation for the attendees to stay and chat over coffee and cookies. Kendra stretched before starting toward the table set up with a coffee urn and platters.

Almost immediately, she was greeted by a pretty young woman in her late twenties, with blond hair sleeked into a high ponytail and a friendly smile. “Are you Kendra Taylor?” She stuck out her hand.

“You must be Jennifer.” They shook.

“Paw-paw’s looking forward to meeting you. That’s him sitting over there.” She pointed.

Kendra saw that the man with the suspenders
was
Aubrey Grayling. “I’m so glad he came.”

“He doesn’t get out much these days, but these meetings mean the world to him. He turned ninety-two last month, but he’s still sharp as a tack. Especially when it comes to things that happened when he was young.”

“Most of the adults who lived in the mountains before the park are probably gone now, aren’t they?”

“That’s right. Most of those coming to our meetings were pretty young at the time their families were evicted. Though you’d be surprised. We’re hardy stock. Paw-paw’s not the only one in his nineties.”

“My husband’s grandmother would be eighty-nine, if she were still alive.”

“Come talk to Paw-paw and see what he has to say.”

Jennifer introduced Kendra to a couple of other people before she led her to the row of chairs where Aubrey was sitting. He had just finished a conversation, and the seat beside him was now empty. Jennifer gestured for Kendra to take it. “Paw-paw? This is Ms. Taylor, the woman I spoke to. Remember me telling you about her?”

Aubrey looked at his great-granddaughter fondly. “You think I’d forget something like that?”

“Just reminding you. I’ll leave you two alone now.”

Aubrey Grayling looked younger than ninety-two. Hardy stock indeed, and a tribute to Darwin. Kendra supposed that for many years before penicillin, tetanus shots and central heating, only the strongest had survived in Virginia’s mountains. His hair was thin but still covered most of his head. His eyes were a blue so pale and cloudy that she suspected cataracts. She wasn’t sure how well he could see.

“So, Ms. Taylor, tell me why you’re here again?”

She wasn’t sure, but she suspected he knew
exactly
why she was there. “Call me Kendra, Mr. Grayling.”

“Then I’m Aubrey.”

“I guess Jennifer told you I’ve recently discovered that my husband Isaac is the grandson of a woman who might have lived in Lock Hollow.”

“Well, that’s right. She did now.”

“And you lived there?”

“I did. For the first twenty-two years of my life. I was one of the last to leave. Until they came in and burned our family store right in front of me. Had to be sure we didn’t come back, they said.”

His expression was still pleasant, but she could only imagine the emotion behind his words. “I don’t think you can really get over something like that,” she said.

“You figure it’s best not to gnaw on it too much. You try to find a life somewheres else. I did, after a while.”

She noticed that he hadn’t asked her the name of Isaac’s mother. She waited to see if he would continue.

“I knew Leah Spurlock,” he said after a brief silence.

So he
had
remembered Leah’s name. But just to be sure he knew details, she told the story again—inheritance, quilt, trip to the park. She left out the cave.

“A ranger gave me a list,” she finished. “Leah and Jesse Spurlock were on it. That’s how I found you.”

“I knew them both. And Leah’s sister, Birdie. Birdie Blackburn, she was. Even prettier than Leah, some thought, though I never did. She never did marry. She lived with Leah and Jesse on account of her being crippled.”

Clearly Kendra had stumbled on a wealth of information. “So Leah’s name was Blackburn before she was married.”

“That would be right.”

She filed that away. “All this came to light because the quilt I mentioned is identical to—” She backed up. “First, do you know about the bodies they found in a cave in Lock Hollow?”

“I heard tell of it.”

She waited, but obviously that was all he planned to say. “Well, the quilt I mentioned? The one Leah left my husband? It’s nearly identical to the one they found there. Or as far as we can tell from what’s left of it.”

“Now ain’t that interesting?”

“And the quilting pattern is a map of Lock Hollow. Except for one thing. Two lines cross at that cave, almost as if Leah was marking the spot with an X for someone to find later.”

“Now that hardly seems likely.”

“Aubrey, would you know anything about this? Would you have any idea who those bodies were? Because I think Leah was trying to tell some kind of story, and maybe the bodies are the final paragraph.”

There was a long pause, as if he was considering what she had said and searching his memory. But when he spoke, he surprised her.

“I read the newspaper. Or did, when I could still see good enough. I’d read it from cover to cover near to every day. The
Richmond Times-Dispatch
, the
Washington Post
.” He smiled. The teeth weren’t his own, but they were good ones. “I paid attention to just about everything I read. And I used to like the articles I read by somebody with your name.”

She sat back. This was a man who had probably never had the wool pulled over his eyes. “I do write for the
Post
, but this is personal.”

“I always say you can pinch the wings off a butterfly, but that don’t turn it back into a caterpillar.”

Since she’d thought about pitching a series of articles to her editor, she couldn’t lie. “I don’t know what I’ll do once I have my answers. But surely there can’t be anybody left who would be hurt if the truth came out now.”

“Well, that would depend on the truth, wouldn’t it? But it don’t matter. I’m just having fun with you. See, I don’t know a thing about those bodies. Not one blessed thing. Or could be I misplaced what I did know. If I’d known about the bodies back when, maybe I’d remember something to help you, some little detail I forgot ’til now. But you don’t remember what’s not important.”

How was she reading the eyes of a man who was nearly blind? She was almost positive Aubrey Grayling was not telling the truth.

She tried a different tack. “Can you tell me about Leah, then? I can’t figure out why she went all the way to Toms Brook, and alone, besides. Do you remember? Or what happened to her husband? Why he wasn’t with her?”

Aubrey shook his head. “Can’t rightly say. See, at the end there, it was pretty bad for everybody. People coming and going, the government sending workers to make threats and buy people out. I was awful busy just trying to find a way to stay myself. We didn’t live so close together, you know. People just up and left, and nobody heard from them again. Some went this way, some that.” He lifted his frail shoulders. “Up and gone.”

She sat back and pondered this. She was face-to-face with a master storyteller, only she couldn’t get him to tell the stories she needed to hear. She realized she had gone for the big facts before he trusted her. Her personal stake had clouded her judgment.

“Well, that’s too bad,” she said. “I feel like Leah wanted Isaac to know something. But I think she also wanted him to know her better.”

“Might have,” he agreed.

“Are there any Blackburns or Spurlocks living? People who knew her well? Or their descendants?”

“I couldn’t say. So many are gone now.”

More stonewalling. In fact, Aubrey was building the wall of secrecy so high she was afraid she wasn’t going to be given so much as a peek over it.