TREASURE KILLS (Legends of Tsalagee Book 1) (29 page)

“Yes,” Sunny said, not taking the humor. “I’ll try to help direct that energy into a positive force.”

“It’d be best if you stayed inside your house after we get there. Coons won’t come around if there’s a lot of human activity.”

“Not a problem,” Sunny responded.

Hayward pulled the RV to a spot directly behind the barn on the other side of the rail fence. “Let’s eat first, before dark,” he said to Soc. Then we’ll set our bait in the barn.”

After their microwave dinners, Hayward pulled a folded piece of yellowed buckskin out of a paper sack and held it up. It was about three feet by two feet with dark red hand-written words on one side. “You done an outstanding job making this look authentic. It really looks old,” he said to Soc.

“Used bloodroot for the ink,” Soc said. “Had an old jar of it in my cellar in case I needed some war paint.”

“Yes, sir. Really fine,” Hayward said. He spread the buckskin out on the RV’s dining table and read the words:

The Eagle looks upon the killer of nine cliffs

Where the bear foot bends the river.

There the Forest Demon protects his cave.

“I brought a rusty old tool chest I had out in my garage,” Soc said. “That’ll fit right in it.”

“Good, good,” Hayward said. taking another long draw off his can of Diet Coke. He belched and said, “Well, let’s set this varmint trap. Then all we got to do is wait.”

* * *

As the top of the sun disappeared below the western horizon, and the first arc of the full moon started to push up in the east, Punch twisted the cap off his second longneck of the evening. He’d picked that to be his beverage of choice to go with his macaroni and cheese dinner.

He settled into his chair, macandcheese and beer in hand, grabbing the TV remote. His evening was pretty much planned: first he’d watch a couple re-runs of
Cops,
then he’d switch to Tru-TV to watch
Wildest Police Videos
, topping it off with the latest episode of
Law and Order
. He didn’t expect any trick-or-treaters out his way, but bought a sack of miniature Snickers, just in case. Besides, they were his favorite.

Punch’s old mobile home served as kind of a way station for him during those periodic disenfranchisements with his womenfolk. White Oxley, on his way to the casino, saw Punch’s pickup parked in front of the trailer, and pulled in behind it. White knew his friend had been down in the dumps lately because of all his female problems, so he thought he’d see if Punch wanted to go with him, thinking maybe an evening of gambling would cheer him up.

“Hey, White,” Punch said with a mouth full of macandcheese. White had knocked twice and let himself in. “What’re you doing here?” Punch asked. He turned back to the TV to watch a police chase.

“I’uz headed on down to the casino. Thought I’d see if you wanted to go along,” White said. He wandered over to the fridge and plucked out a beer.

“Naw, I’m staying in tonight,” Punch responded. “‘Sides, I’m kinda tapped out.”

White almost said he would loan Punch a stake, but then thought better of it. “Boy, I know how that is,” he said. Plopping onto the couch, White turned to watch a cop give a road drunk a sobriety test, and said, “This looks pretty excitin’.”

Punch snorted and nodded, taking in another spoonful of macandcheese. He finished his beer and got up to go get his third, offering White another on the way. Not wanting to appear un-neighborly, White accepted.

When Punch returned, a commercial had come on where two guys—each having a three day growth of beard and hair that looked like it had been combed with an eggbeater—traded banter with a drop-dead gorgeous and buxom blonde tending bar. In the background, equally young and slender and cleavage-exhibiting women smiled and danced with other scruffy-looking guys.

White, his left leg slung on the sofa, his right booted foot planted on the floor, watched raptly while holding his beer bottle two inches from his mouth. “Wonder where that place is?” he asked. “Don’t believe I
ever
been in a bar with that many perty women all at wonst, even in Dallas.” He chased the thought with a sip of beer.

Punch snorted, and took a draw on his own. He belched. “Nope, me neither,” he said.

“Them boys better watch out, though,” Punch added, pointing the neck of his bottle toward the TV. “Too many women can cause you a whole lot of trouble.”

White took that as a cue, thinking maybe his friend wanted to talk about it. “So how you and Jo Lynn and Galynn and Sunny getting’ along?”

Punch drained his beer bottle. “Me and Galynn is doing good, I reckon. No more than I see her. I think she still takes her momma’s side on most things, though. They’re a lot alike in some respects.” He got out of his chair, heading again for the fridge. “Ready for another?” he asked White on the way.

“Naw, I’m good,” White said.

“Jo Lynn, now; that there’s another story. Being around her is sorta like sittin’ inside this frigerator. I can’t seem to communicate with her no more.” With a fresh bottle of brew in hand, Punch slammed the refrigerator door and headed back to his chair. “I just don’t understand that woman. We agreed a long time ago that it’d be awright to see other people.”

“She agreed to that, did she?”

“Well, hell yeah. That’s why we got dee-vorced the second time. I figured if she didn’t agree with that, she’d’ve married me again by now.” Punch shook his head and turned his bottle up at his mouth. “It ain’t like I ain’t asked her again plenty of times.”

White raised his eyebrows and scratched his head behind is right ear. He and Punch had been over this same ground several times, but he just couldn’t seem to make the boy understand that women didn’t think like men. Like most things with Punch, it took several shots at it to get something to sink in, if at all.

“In a single state,” White said in another attempt to pass on sage advice about women to his friend. “...women may say it’s okay to date other women, but they don’t really mean it. You give it a try and see where it gets you... with both women.”

“I dang sure know that’s right,” Punch said.

But White didn’t want to try to reason with Punch on this. The boy just didn’t seem capable of grasping the concept of fidelity. Besides, he had always thought Jo Lynn was too good for Punch, anyway.

“Well, what’s the deal with you and Sunny?” White decided to move on past the un-resolvable Jo Lynn issues. He knew Punch and Sunny had been on the outs for a while, too. “You ain’t cheated on her, too, have you?”

“No, I ain’t. But only because Jo Lynn won’t let me. Now I
really
don’t understand
that
woman...Sunny, I mean,” Punch lamented. “All I ever been is nice to her. Maybe I teased her about her weirdo ways a few times, and such, but that was all just in good fun. Besides, I always brung her presents after she let me know when it had went too far.”

Punch stared blankly at the TV and continued to shake his head. “As women go, she’s much harder to figure than Jo Lynn. One day she’s all over me like a rat on a Cheeto, and the next she’s treating me like I’m a dog turd.”

White tried to think of something to say. He had to admit, though, even with all Sunny’s strangeness, he probably could see more of her side than Punch’s...especially, the dog turd part. Finally, all he could come up with was, “Let’s have another beer.”

Both men sat in silence for a while, just watching the tube. Well into the episode of
Law and Order
, and three beers later, Punch suddenly blurted out, “She don’t seem to take the Hill Man serious, neither.”

White, a little beer-buzzed and dozy, jumped, not completely comprehending what Punch had said. “Who don’t?” he asked.

“Sunny,” Punch answered. “She thinks all them goings ons at her place was me playing a joke on her.”

“Well, what do you expect?” White said, twisting up from a reclining and into more of a sitting position on the sofa. “You’ve always tried to scare her with Hill Man stories. And then that night you went out there thumping around in her barn like a durn fool.”

“That was the only time I ever done that, and I admitted it to her. But them other times, I didn’t have nothing to do with it. No sir. You saw the tracks. You, yourself, said it was the Hill Man.”

White yawned large, and rubbed his hand across his lips and cheeks. “Well, I don’t know, he said. “It could’ve been. But, then, it could’ve not been, too. There weren’t much evidence but that one footprint.”

“Well, what about that time her cellar was broke into, and all that kimshine, or whatever the hell it is she calls it, was drunk and that jug of hers broken. You think I done that?”

White yawned again and looked at Punch, this time with a little more interest. “Guess I didn’t know about that one,” he said. “What’s kimshine?”

“Aw, hell, I don’t know,” Punch said. He’d twisted his face up in a look of disgust. “Some kind of bad smelling concoction she’d made up. I think she said it was Chinese or something. Just another one of her damn witch’s brews. She put it out in her cellar in a big jug to let it cure, or whatever.

“Anyways, one night something broke into the cellar and ate it all, then busted the jar, along with some of the shelves in there. From what I could see it was the work of the Hill Man. Stole one of her genomes, too.”

White, his drowsiness starting to win out over his interest again, said with a slight slur, “What’s a genome?”

“Oh, they’re them concrete statutes of pointy-headed little men. She thinks they got some kind of magic to ’em. Sticks them all over her yard.”

“Uh huh,” White said. His eyelids started drifting south.

A full minute went by before Punch spoke again. “You know what I think,” he said.

“Zzzkrak! Huh uh,” White said. He blinked and wiped away the small stream of drool that had come out from the left corner of his mouth.

“It being Halloween, and all,” Punch continued. “I think the Hill Man ought to pay Sunny another visit.”

White, mostly awake now, said, “Whadda ya mean?”

“I’ll show ya,” Punch got out of his chair and weaved his way to the rear of the mobile home.

White watched him for a second or two then turned his attention to the TV. The local news had come on, and the comely anchorwoman led into a story about the mayor wanting to increase the city sales tax. White grabbed the remote and switched it over to ESPN where he found the tail end of a college football game between two obscure schools from the east. White took a sip of his now tepid beer, and switched over to the History Channel.

“RRRAAARG!” Punch growled from the kitchen area.

White turned to look at Punch and jumped. “Sum uh buck!” he said.

Standing to his full six foot two inch height, his arms raised above his head like a challenging bear, Punch appeared completely covered in a camouflaged suit. Long strands of camo material and straw hung from every part of the garment, head to toe, many with bits and pieces of leaves and twigs sticking out of them here and there. White could barely see Punch’s face behind an olive green mesh covering it. The overall appearance made Punch look taller, wider, and bulkier. To a non-hunter, and in the dark, he would look like a faceless hairy Big Foot.

“What the hell are you doing?” White asked, his eyes still a little wide.

“It’s my ghillie suit. I bought it before the start of deer season,” came Punch’s muffled reply.

“I know what a ghillie suit is,” White said. “I’m just wondering what in the hell you’ve got in mind doing?”

“I’m going to go out to Sunny’s at about midnight and give that little girlie a scare.”

White stared at his stupid ghillie-suited friend, and started slowly shaking his head from side to side. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” he said.

“Why not?” Punch asked.

“Well, for one thing she’s got a big damn pistol. She’ll probably shoot your dumb ass.”

“Oh, hell,” Punch said. He pulled the bulky ghillie suit head cover off. “I seen her shoot. As long as I stand on the broad side of her barn, I’ll be safe.”

* * *

Artie regretted saying what he’d said, but in the heat of the moment, he just blurted it out. What he’d said wasn’t that big a deal... he didn’t think, but it may have been a smidge thoughtless. He was just joking around, sort of.

They’d just finished up a late dinner of Chinese brought back from town after Artie picked up Galynn. There’d been a Halloween carnival at her school, and as a faculty member, Galynn had to stay and work it, dressed up in a witch’s costume. The conversation had started out casual and slow—Galynn was weary from the evening’s activities. Artie had asked her how the carnival had gone, and that led into a discussion about how some kids are little hellions even with their parents around. Somewhere in the middle of his lo mein, the conversation drifted to Galynn’s parents and their prolonged estranged relationship. Galynn said she didn’t understand why her dad had taken up with the likes of Sunny, and at that point Artie expressed his opinion that Punch was an idiot.

Galynn didn’t say anything after that; in fact, she got real quiet and picked at the dish of rice and sesame chicken with her fork. Artie had continued his assessment of Punch’s mis-doings and small mental capacity, but after a minute of it Galynn got up and started cleaning the kitchen. It took another thirty seconds before Artie realized something seemed amiss.

“Did I say something wrong?” Artie asked. Galynn continued putting Styrofoam cartons in the trash, loading the dishwasher, and wiping the counter. She shook her head, but didn’t say anything. Artie looked at her back and thought he heard a sniff.

Genuinely confused, he asked again, “What?”

Galynn’s answer came in the form of slammed cabinet doors and vigorous counter wiping.

“Are you mad?” Artie asked. He thought about getting up and going to her, but he wanted to finish his supper first.

“I just don’t appreciate you talking about my dad that way,” She said in a hot voice. “He may not be the smartest man in the world, but he’s still my dad.”

Artie furrowed his brow, and paused, looking at his nearly empty plate of food. “But you said—” he started, looking back at her.