In The Forest Of Harm Read online

The man flared his nostrils like a dog smelling unfamiliar territory. He turned in a slow circle, checking out the store, then he looked at Jonathan.

  “I want to send a package.” His voice creaked like a rusty hinge.

  “We can do that.”

  “I got something that needs to go to Michigan.”

  Jonathan frowned. He couldn’t remember ever having sent anything to Michigan. He searched under the counter for his postage chart. “You got it wrapped up?”

  “No. I’ll need to buy some kind of box off you.”

  Jonathan tossed his crossword puzzle beneath the cash register. “Let’s see what you’ve got, then.”

  The man strode over to the counter. Jonathan tried to look at him without staring. His eyes were strange. Deep-set and light yellow, they glittered wolf-like beneath dark brooding brows. His nose was a thin wedge, and his skin had the texture of worn bark. His fingernails were long and dirty. He could have been as young as thirty-five or as old as sixty. He shot an angry glare at Billy, who hastily scooted off the counter, then he plopped his bag on the floor and plunged one arm in elbow-deep. With a sly grin, he fished out something that looked like an old rope and dropped it on the counter.

  “Holy shit!” Billy leaped backwards, nearly knocking over the potato chip display. “That’s a rattler!”

  The snake, which had been asleep, uncoiled swiftly on the counter and flared its neck like a cobra. Jonathan stared at it, unmoving.

  The man chuckled at Billy. “Don’t piss your britches, Geronimo. It’s just a little old hognose.” He picked the snake up and cuddled it under his chin. “He guards my pelts when I travel. Most folks mistake him for a rattler, just like you.” He curled his upper lip at Billy, then cut his eyes toward Jonathan. “And most folks don’t stick their hands in my sack but once.”

  Still laughing, the man stuffed the snake inside his shirt and reached into his sack again. Billy eased forward in spite of himself, curious to see what the man was going to withdraw next. This time he fumbled around for a moment, then pulled out five luxurious raccoon pelts.

  Like many bowmen, Jonathan regarded trappers and their little bottles of musk with disdain, but he did appreciate a job well done. These were big, thick pelts, expertly dressed. “You’re looking at a little money there, buddy.”

  “So I am,” the man growled. “You got something to ship a hundred and twenty-seven of these to Michigan in?”

  Jonathan stuck his pencil behind his ear. “I’ll see what I’ve got.”

  He walked back to the storage room. A case of disposable diapers had arrived last week, and the boxy carton they’d come in might be big enough for a load of raccoon pelts. The deliveryman had kicked the carton over beside a barrel of tenpenny nails, and there it still lay, cardboard flaps open and ready for more cargo.

  He carried the box out to the front and dropped it on the floor. “This is the biggest thing I’ve got.”

  The man stretched the largest pelt out flat and stroked the fur. The tip of the fluffy ringed tail just missed brushing the side of the box.

  “I reckon this’ll do.” The man laid another pelt down, then a third. The box was wide enough for the skins to be layered perfectly in groups of three. Billy watched as the man fitted each thick, silver-tipped fur into the carton.

  In ten minutes he’d packed them tight. Jonathan reinforced the sides and top of the carton with strapping tape. His postal scale only went up to ten pounds, so he lifted the carton and guessed its weight. “I put that at about thirty pounds,” he said, bouncing the case up and down. He handed the box to Billy. “What do you think?”

  Billy jiggled the box and nodded his head. “Sounds about right. Don’t forget to charge extra for snakes, though.”

  Ignoring Billy’s remark, Jonathan hefted the box on the counter. “Okay, buddy. Who are you sending these to?”

  The man took out a worn piece of notebook paper from a leather pouch around his neck and handed it to Jonathan. “Send it there. C.O.D.”

  Jonathan copied down the Michigan mailing address. “You got a return address?”

  “Just put Henry Brank. General Delivery, whatever this place is called. They’ll send my money here.”

  “Okay.” Jonathan filled out a label and slapped it on the carton. “You want insurance?”

  “I’ll take my chances without.”

  “It’ll go out Monday.” Jonathan looked up at Henry Brank, hoping this man’s business was done. “Anything else I can do for you?”

  “You got any shells?”

  Jonathan nodded.

  “Gimme three boxes of triple-aught.”

  Jonathan retrieved the ammunition and shoved it across the counter. He thought about warning this man that he was two months early on the gun season and that the wardens in both Tennessee and North Carolina would fine his ass proper if he came out of the woods with an illegal bear, but he remained silent. A big-time trapper like him ought to know the law. If this yahoo got stuck with a thousand-dollar fine for a poached bear, then so be it.

  The man’s gaze fell on the Polaroid of Jonathan and Jodie Foster. He grinned, exposing long teeth. “That your wife?”

  “No.” Though Jodie Foster had exchanged less than ten words with him, Jonathan suddenly wanted to stand in front of the photo and shield her from the man’s inquisitive eyes. “She’s an actress who made a movie over at Fontana.”

  “Jonathan here was in that movie,” Billy piped up proudly. “Jodie asked him herself.”

  Jonathan remembered the lights, the tangle of cables that stretched over the ground, the crews of Hollywood people who’d all looked vaguely stunned, as if they’d been dropped on Mars instead of a rural county in western North Carolina. Though the real filming work had been tedious, the pay was good and Jodie Foster had been nice even to nobodies like him. It had been the cushiest job he’d ever had, and he wished some other big star would come along and make another movie.

  The man dug a crumpled bill out of the leather pouch. “I’ll give you five dollars for it.”

  Billy cackled. “He’d sooner sell his own grandmother.”

  The man looked at Billy as if he were some yapping dog to be silenced with a kick. “That may well be, Geronimo, but I’m not interested in his grandmother.”

  Jonathan shook his head, noticing a louse that had crawled out from the stranger’s thick black beard. He tried to place the accent. This Henry Brank spoke mountain speech, but not with the twang of southern Appalachia. “Sorry. It’s not for sale.”

  The yellow eyes flashed for an instant, then settled on the knife protruding from Jonathan’s belt.

  “That a Bowie?”

  Jonathan nodded.

  “You any good with it?”

  Of all the things Indians were supposed to be good at, archery and knife throwing were the only two Jonathan Walkingstick had mastered. He’d never learned the Cherokee syllabary or the rules for stickball, but he could, without fail, make bows that sang true and plant the business end of Ribtickler anywhere he wanted.

  “I’ve skinned a few squirrels.” Unabashed, Jonathan looked the man full in the face.

  “They’re good knives.” The eerie saffron gaze slid away as quickly as it had come. “Better than Barlows.” Brank stacked his shells in a pile. “I need a few more things.”

  He shuffled up and down the aisles of the store, pondering the vitamin display, reading the cereal boxes, finally wandering over to the bulletin board.

  He studied the wall closely, first looking at all the photos of hunters grinning over their dead quarry, then reading all the notes posted for Appalachian Trail hikers who were currently somewhere between Springer Mountain, Georgia, and Mount Kahtadin, Maine. His mouth twitched in an up-and-down motion as he scrutinized each one.

  “You trap them coons somewhere near the AT?” Billy hopped back up on the counter and fished a piece of grape bubblegum from Jonathan’s penny candy jar.

  “Nope.” The man smiled at the photo of Alice Andrews
, who’d vanished two decades ago.

  “Well, if you’ve got a picture of yourself and that snake, you ought to put it up there. You might win some kind of weird pet award.”

  The man wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “I kinda figured you were the weird pet around here, Geronimo.”

  Jonathan retrieved his crossword puzzle from under the register. Billy folded his arms and chewed his bubble gum, watching as the stranger roamed the narrow aisles of the grocery. Eventually he made his way back to the counter with cornmeal and coffee, plus a giant economy size of Theragran-M’s, a large box of chocolate Moon Pies and three magazines— Newsweek, Esquire and Field & Stream.

  No sugar, Jonathan noted as he rang up the man’s purchases. Not a blockader. Addled maybe, but not from drinking his own whiskey. “That comes to forty-nine dollars and forty-one cents.”

  “Don’t forget your snake chow.” Billy teased him like an insolent parrot.

  The man ignored him as he withdrew a greasy wad of bills from the bag around his neck. He thumbed through it slowly, then peeled off two twenties and a ten. “Keep the change,” he said. “I don’t touch silver.”

  Jonathan slid the bills in the drawer and reached under the counter for a paper sack.

  “I’ll take ’em in here.” The man opened the canvas bag he’d brought his pelts in and stuffed his supplies inside. Then he shouldered it and shuffled toward the door.

  He paused once before he left and looked back at Jonathan. “I’ll be back for my money in a week or two. Make sure you keep it safe.” His mouth curled downwards in one quick, malevolent smirk, then he was gone.

  Billy watched as the man closed the door behind him, then turned to Jonathan. “Man, did you get a good whiff of him? And see them piss-colored eyes?”

  Jonathan frowned. “Yeah, I saw his eyes. I also saw an idiot in an Indian suit who sat there trying to goad that guy into a fight. Shit, Billy. He could’ve knocked the rest of your teeth out of your head. Don’t you know better than to mess with a man who uses a snake for a personal security system?”

  Billy plunged his hands into the pockets of his buckskin pants. “Hell, I wasn’t scared of him. And I certainly wasn’t afraid of his stupid snake. He’s an escapee from some big-time Booger Dance if you ask me.” Billy stuck out his chest and blew a pale purple bubble. He glanced at the front of the cash register, then his jaw dropped. He sucked the bubble back in his mouth and looked at Jonathan, his eyes wide. “Uh-oh,” he said. “Lookee here.”

  Jonathan walked around the counter and looked where Billy pointed. The picture of Jodie Foster was gone.

  “Son of a bitch!” Jonathan ran to the door, his fingers instinctively reaching for his knife. He rushed out to the porch, ready to yell first, then throw Ribtickler, but the stranger had vanished.

  “What the hell?” Jonathan craned his head in every direction, but all he saw was an empty road twisting through a silent green forest. He turned to Billy. “Where’d he go?”

  Billy scowled into the woods. “Don’t know. Looks to me like he’s solid gone, though.”

  Jonathan hurried down the length of the storefront, Billy scrambling after him. They went all the way to the gas pump, scanning the trees for a glimpse of camouflage or a swinging canvas sack, but not a twig moved. Everything looked as if it had been engraved in stone. Jonathan kicked angrily at an empty oil can. “That sunuvabitch has disappeared.”

  Billy looked around and scratched his head. “How the hell do you figure he managed to steal that picture? I watched that sucker the whole time he was in the store.”

  Jonathan shrugged; it was amazing how easily the man had stolen his picture and how quickly he’d disappeared. “Beats the shit out of me.” Again he tried to place this stranger; he knew all of the Cherokee mountain men and most of the white ones, too. This man had appeared from nowhere and then vanished back into nowhere again.

  “I’ll tell you one thing, Billy,” Jonathan said as he tested his knife’s edge with his thumb. “Mr. Brank and I are gonna have a little chat when he comes back to pick up that check. If he doesn’t return my picture he just might find his pelts have gotten lost in the mail.”

  “You let me know when you take that feller on, Jonathan,” said Billy. “I want to get me some money down beforehand.” He scratched his head. “Wonder why he was so taken with that bulletin board?”

  Jonathan shoved his knife back under his belt and looked at a crow that landed on the porch roof. Everything seemed to be flying past him that day—first Mary, then his silly little picture of Jodie Foster, now this odd stranger. “Everybody reads that bulletin board, Billy. It’s like a great big scorecard that tells who’s alive, who’s dead, and who’s about to be eaten by the crows.”

  SEVEN

  Ha, you smart-assed Cherokee bastard. Wouldn’t sell the picture of your girlfriend, would you?” Brank wagged the photo of Jodie Foster through a clutch of bright yellow witch hazel. He’d slipped into the forest just in time to see the fun, chuckling as the Indian rushed out, knife in hand, storming up and down his storefront, followed by his little Tonto sidekick. Brank shook with laughter as the tall one hurried down to the gas pump waving that long Bowie, all set to carve him up like a pumpkin and not finding a single thing to take a swipe at. He relaxed into the witch hazel as both Indians finally gave up and trudged back, defeated, into the store.

  Brank smiled. This mail drop had turned out to be a lot of fun. Buster had made the short one shit his pants, he’d made off with the Cherokee’s snapshot, plus he’d gotten a good long gander at that bulletin board.

  “That kid in the baseball cap.” He shook his head in wonder. “And the girl with the class ring.” He hadn’t thought about them in years, but there they were, both of them, grinning like they’d won some kind of prize. He chuckled as he patted the snake that lay curled next to his belly. “Guess those two are gone for good, eh, Buster?”

  He remained under the bush clutching the photograph for a moment, then he studied the image the camera had captured. The young Indian stood tall, dressed in a coat and tie, his arm resting on the slender woman’s shoulders as if she were made of glass. She had assumed a serene pose that made her long white neck look as graceful as a swan’s. Her cobalt eyes slanted upwards, and there was a spareness about her smile that implied intelligence more than the thick red lips of sex.

  “She’d be something to fuck,” Brank whispered, reaching down and softly squeezing his balls. He blew a piece of fuzz off the photograph, then buttoned it carefully inside his shirt pocket. He would take it out later, when he had the time to devote to more serious fun.

  He pushed the witch hazel away from his face and crept out from under the thick green leaves. He’d have to settle the issue of the photograph with that Indian when he came back to get his money, but he would think of something. Maybe he could lure him into the forest with it and make him reveal where all that Cherokee gold was hidden. Brank chuckled. That would be wonderful, but it would never happen. Cherokees might be stupid and lazy, but they weren’t fools.

  He squinted through the lacy trees, checking the angle of the sun. Maybe he’d travel west for a little while and see if he could pick up Trudy’s trail. It would be nice to relax down in Florida without her scaring him shitless every time the sun set. He glanced once, thoughtfully, at the store, then he shouldered his sack and walked out of the shadows. The Little Jump Off folks could rest easy. Today he was hunting his sister.

  With his load lightened by thirty pounds, he slipped through the forest like a shadow, barely ruffling the leaves as he passed. The smell of damp earth rose from the ground as he traversed the crenelated ridges that led away from Little Jump Off. He searched for the chewed-up groundhog or mangled fox that would indicate Trudy’s presence, but he saw only an occasional squirrel and several bright mountain grosbeaks that darted like fierce blue arrows through the golden trees.

  By midafternoon hunger began to crimp the edges of his stomach. In an upland meadow h
e found a small clearing that had once held some farmer’s cabin, and he flopped down in the cool shadows beneath an ancient charred rock chimney.

  It felt good to be still, to stretch out his legs for a while. He scratched his back against the chimney rocks and looked at the trees that surrounded him. Though the sun shone bright and the breeze blew warm, the woods seemed quieter than usual, as if his presence had stilled the birds and hushed the sleepy hum of the crickets.

  He untied his sack and pulled out his Moon Pies. He hadn’t had chocolate in months. He freed one of the flat cookies from its cellophane wrapper and bit into it. A pleasant dark sweetness flooded his mouth, reminding him of a Christmas cake his mother had made. His mother. He wondered about her sometimes. What had she done that afternoon when his father had run back to their kitchen, Trudy in his arms, Henry nowhere to be found? She had always seemed to love him a little. Cried, he decided. She’d cried for both her children, then gone ahead and put up pickles and kraut and done all the things she’d always done while his father had waged his private war against him.

  He took another bite of Moon Pie. Suddenly two rangy shadows darkened the sky. He looked up. A pair of large black birds swooped low over his head, their wingspans casting long shadows on the ground. They glided over the clearing once, then turned sharply to land in the top of a rotted-out elm. Brank stopped eating and smiled.

  “Cathartes aura,” he proudly recalled one of the Latin names Fate Lyons had taught him. Turkey buzzards. Ugly as sin. Most people despised them, but he found them to be presagers of great events. He’d often followed kettles of them to locate the dead and dying, and he regarded the birds as just another battalion in the vast army of Death.

  “Hello, boys.” Brank gave a polite nod to the pair. “Something around here about to die?”

  They cocked their dull red heads to one side and stared at him beady-eyed. Wings still spread, they perched in the tree as if waiting for some internal signal to swoop over and sink their talons into his flesh.

  Brank frowned as he chewed the sticky chocolate. It did seem a little odd. Buzzards did not usually fly in pairs or roost so close to upright, healthy human beings.